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Athletes have actively utilized social media for brand management and fan engagement. In this study, we investigated how athletes communicate both sport and non-sport brand attributes on Instagram. We also explored the relationship between users' engagement behaviors and brand attributes. Through a content analysis of 472 Instagram posts by two professional soccer players, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, we reveal that athletes tend to share more non-performance-related content than performance-related content. Furthermore, posts featuring performance-related content generated more 'likes', whereas those with non-performance content elicited a higher volume of comments. Although there exists a positive correlation between the number of 'likes' and comments, content type distinctly influences the form of fan engagement. Therefore, athletes should engage in deliberate and strategic decision-making when curating content for social media, tailoring it to specific customer engagement objectives.
Mahmoudian et al. (Fri,) studied this question.