摘要：Researchers have agreed upon the importance of social media in the quest of establishing athlete brands. In this sense, Twitter is a very important type of social media that represents fans’ perspectives about their favorite (or disliked) athletes and provides solid feedback of fans which can be helpful in the context of image branding for an athlete. The current study employed a qualitative content analysis of Twitter users during PSL. Tweet collections began on the first day of the PSL 2017 (February 9, 2017), and concluded on the final day of the competition (March, 5, 2017). Data containing #HBLPSL and #PSL was collected and tweets with names of foreign athletes were selected from more than 38,000 tweets. Findings from this study suggested that fans’ tweets about athletes could be separated into two major categories: 1) fans’ related motives and 2) athletes’ related motives. Fans’ related motives were sharing information, visuals, predictions and feedback regarding certain athletes. Athletes’ related motives were athletes’ performance, athletes’ style of celebration and athletes’ comments. Results of the current study have highlighted the motives that persuaded fans to tweet about a certain athlete during the PSL.
其他摘要：Researchers have agreed upon the importance of social media in the quest of establishing athlete brands. In this sense, Twitter is a very important type of social media that represents fans’ perspectives about their favorite (or disliked) athletes and provides solid feedback of fans which can be helpful in the context of image branding for an athlete. The current study employed a qualitative content analysis of Twitter users during PSL. Tweet collections began on the first day of the PSL 2017 (February 9, 2017), and concluded on the final day of the competition (March, 5, 2017). Data containing #HBLPSL and #PSL was collected and tweets with names of foreign athletes were selected from more than 38,000 tweets. Findings from this study suggested that fans’ tweets about athletes could be separated into two major categories: 1) fans’ related motives and 2) athletes’ related motives. Fans’ related motives were sharing information, visuals, predictions and feedback regarding certain athletes. Athletes’ related motives were athletes’ performance, athletes’ style of celebration and athletes’ comments. Results of the current study have highlighted the motives that persuaded fans to tweet about a certain athlete during the PSL
关键词：Twitter; athlete brand; cricket; social media; sport marketing
