Acontent analysis of NCAA Division I track & field teams' Twitter usage: Defining best practices in social media marketing.

摘要

Non-revenue sports face numerous challenges in marketing their programs; thus the need to self-market their program is becoming more essential to grow their fan base and reach recruits. Social media is an ideal form of communication to reach audiences that do not require any financial resources. This study performed a content analysis of 25 Division I track and field teams with the most Twitter followers to determine primary categories of content and correlation between number of followers and account practices.;Previous research on social media marketing has focused on professional teams, professional athletes, and athletic departments as a whole; no prior study has analyzed individual collegiate athletic teams. Among other findings, live results were found to be the most common form of content. The results of this study confirm that social media is an ideal way to help non-revenue teams with limited financial resources improve their marketing and branding efforts.