Audience perceptions of athletes’ brand self-presentation on social media

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ABSTRACT Research Question: Current literature on athlete branding on social media is divided into two streams: one explores athletes’ self-presentation strategies and the other investigates how external audiences perceive these brands. However, existing studies lack investigations that simultaneously examine athletes’ content strategies with audiences’ perceptions. Thus, this study aims to answer the following research question: How are female athlete brands’ self-presentation strategies perceived by their online audiences? Research Methods: We collected 1,903 posts from female athletes playing in the Italian women’s first football division (Serie A), employing the Model of Athlete Branding via Social Media (MABSM) to categorize their self-presentation strategies. Additionally, we quantified volume-based metrics of consumer engagement on social media (CESM) and analyzed the content of 44,190 comments through top-down and bottom-up automated textual analysis techniques. Results and Findings Female athletes are perceived as competing athletes when sharing posts about their sport or personal lives and as social media models when emphasizing their attractive appearance. Notably, some followers tend to perceive athletes in a sexually abusive manner, irrespective of the self-presentation strategy employed. In contrast to male athletes, content focusing on athletic performance generates a lower volume-based CESM in the female context. Implications: This research contributes valuable theoretical, methodological, and practical implications to the growing body of literature on athlete branding on social media. Specifically, our study highlights the importance of understanding the nuanced relationship between the types of content shared online by athlete brands and the resulting audience engagement, both in terms of volume and content.