Public relations in sports clubs New media as astrategic corporate communication instrument

OpenAlex İngilizce

The aim of the current study is to review usage-styles of new media as a corporate communication instrument under public relation activities organized by sports clubs which are supported by numerous customers/fans, possess various sources of income and create commercial value and can be a topic of news of both visual and print media at any moment. The study is composed of two parts. The reason why the study is composed of two parts is to discuss how something is communicated via social networks in the first part and to demonstrate what sports clubs aim at and do in these social networks through interviews done with corporate communication experts. To assess and review these social networks; scoring methods used by Gibson et al. (2003) in their article “Election Campaigning on the WWW in the USA and the UK: A Comparative Analysis” was employed. In the further reviews, interviews made with public relations and corporate communication experts of three sports clubs whose new media accounts were examined were analyzed through descriptive analysis method. It was found out that these three sports clubs have increasingly paid attention to social media. Particularly, they have regarded Facebook and Twitter accounts more important. Besides, it was explored that LinkedIn accounts were managed under human resources department of the clubs. As a result of the interviews made with corporate communication practitioners of the clubs; it was identified that new media accounts were managed in collaboration with marketing department and most of the strategies were decided together. In general sense; it was noted that sports directors of the clubs and professional corporate communication practitioners gave due importance to new media and official pages the clubs possess in the new media. Corporate communication practitioners modify the structure and operational patterns in the official accounts by taking the reactions of the users into consideration and make necessary additions and corrections when necessary. Also, practitioners believe that the pages they possess in new media have a big impact upon their corporate reputation.