2.1.3.

Social Media Use And Its Impact on

Football Fans’

Customer Activities

Social media appears in different forms with different forms of content for different reasons (Laroche et
al., 2013, cited in Harris, 2009) depending on the type of brands, customer groups and services. Wang
and Kim (2017) argued that since customer engagement is a focal point for social media management,
and social media makes people involve in a business as a driving force, it has a higher level of impact on
a brand’s followers compared to any other promotion tactics.

 As people like to share their good and bad experiences with a brand, social media is a great part of
word-of-mouth advertising which works very well when it comes to drawing attention (Thompson et al.
2006; Chakravarty et al. 2010). They also pointed out that the more satisfied people feel with the brand,
the more loyal customers they will be. To put it another way, strong reputation helps football clubs to
gain regular followers and makes these football fans want to hear from the club often. At this point, the
followers become dedicated supporters and clients over time and they want to buy club products using
both the club’s online and offline channels, they spend money on game tickets and even start to make
many other sacrifices as a result of their commitment. On the other hand, it does not mean that social
media channels are always functional when they act as a tool to display and merchandise goods
(McCarthy et al., 2014, cited in Boyd and Ellison,2008). First, it is quite difficult to avoid hate speech and
negative comments since social media empowers users to share their views through an open platform.
Therefore, even if they had a quality experience with brands in the past, they might spread incorrect
information about the brands and this can damage to brand image. Second, football fans differ from
other customer groups in terms of perception. Individuals’ connection to a football club may only be
based on emotions and values (Abosag et al., 2012) and this can cause some of the fans to turn against

Student ID: 84927714the club owners or board members and can ruin the relationship between the two
sides(McCarthy et al., 2014, cited in McLean and Wainwright, 2009).Consumer-brand relationship was
first conceptualized by Fournier (1994; 1998), today,marketers use social media as a strategic media tool
which has the power to differentiate their brands building a unique consumer-
brand relationship (Chen et.al., 2011). As Kaplan andHaenlein (2010) point out, having a presence on
social media can allow businesses tocommunicate with clients or potential clients to solve any queries
that they might have.Furthermore, Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) emphasized the importance of user-
generatedcontent because it means meaningful connections with consumers, and the audience is
entitledto create shared content experiences with the brand; rather than platform owners limit
peopleto view their content in a passive, one-sided manner with no creativity (Laroche et.al.,
2013).Despite the beliefs on weak electronic ties elaborated by Constant et. al. (1996), social
media brings together people that will probably never meet, to the point of sharing things (Tardini
andCantoni, 2005).Laroche et.al. (2013) believe that community management on social media and blog
for crowdinteraction is the key to success. They are powerful; these platforms give people the ability
tointeract with one another and once they are logged in, bonds are formed between the membersof a
brand community, customers and companies (Laroche et.al., 2013).Schembri et.al. (2010) think that
individuals have a desire to be associated with some brand
communities when they feel connected to the brands in some way. Muniz and O’Guinn (2001)

characterize brand community as "non-geographically bound community"; and social mediacultivates a

sense of belonging for these people when they join the social communicationnetwork
(Gangadharbhatla, 2008).Williams and Cothrell (2000) also allege that brand managers can not only shift
perceptions butalso influence customer behaviours using the power of social media. Brand image was
defined

 by Roth (1994) as “...cumulative effects of the firm's marketing mix

activities.” which this

infers that social media will have an impact upon brand image, perceptual data about a brand,and
customer behaviour as one of the available channels of digital marketing. Shopping throughsocial media
makes it easy to buy stuff at the click of a button and this would make people buymore, much beyond
what they need. For example, packaging service for a product can be astrong element for enhancing
customer awareness in physical stores yet it is not enough anduseful marketing strategy considering a
considerable amount of people have to travel to theclub shop where can be pretty far from their
home to buy a club product. Based on these, it washypothesized that LFC social media

would impact LFC supporters’ perception and their

 purchase intention. Thus