Fan engagement during COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of football clubs’ content on social media and the (new) trends in fans interactions ; Comprometimento de adeptos durante a pandemia do COVID-19: uma análise de conteúdo dos clubes de futebol nos media sociais e as (novas) tendências de interação dos fãs

Dissertação de mestrado em Marketing and Strategy ; This thesis investigates the fans’ engagement to their clubs during one of the periods of the global humanitarian crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Amid a rupture between fans and football matches, since those were suspended for long periods, emerges the need to study social media content strategies developed by clubs from the main European Leagues, the “Big Five”. The research also investigates the fans’ response to this content, showing trends that reflect public preferences. This investigation focused on the analysis of activity on the social network Twitter during the first four months of the pandemic of eight football clubs in the leagues: Serie A (Italy), La Liga (Spain), Premier League (England), Bundesliga (German) and Ligue 1 (France), selected accordingly to their popularity. The choice of Twitter was due to its historical relevance on sports communication in social media while maintaining its vast potential in promoting the establishment of a community, which confirms the strengthening of the interaction between fans. The collected data was organised in a mind map that guided the subsequent qualitative and quantitative analysis. The results reveal a pattern of sharing content created by clubs. Compared to other initiatives, Branding related topics, and informative posts related to Covid-19 gathered more retweets and likes. The analysis also evidences that the contents of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) received a greater commitment from supporters. This topic plays an even more powerful role in the connection between clubs and fans in a context of social isolation, as it is committed to and contributes to social well-being. The theoretical and practical contributions of this study are very relevant due to its timeliness, as it is the first study to analyse in real-time the communication strategies of the clubs and the results of the fans, in terms of their engagement in the social networks to the different stimuli during the pandemic. ...