Social Media Engagement and US Olympic Athletes

In a new study, CSMRE faculty affiliate Natasha Brison teamed up with Andrew Geurin to examine how social media users followed US Olympic athletes. They conducted a content analysis of tweets made during the 2018 PyeongChang Games. Results showed that men received more engagement from their posts than women did. For all Olympians, non-brand-related posts generated greater interest than did tweets mentioning the brand the Olympians were endorsing. Few of the overall posts (12.9%) that mentioned a bran disclosed the specific relationship the athlete had with it. The authors concluded: “From a practical perspective, this study’s results offer guidance to brands and organizations that wish to partner with Olympic athletes. Due to the strong affinity fans may have for Olympic athletes, brands should look to partner with lesser known Olympians as well as those who are more widely known.”

Brison, N. T., & Geurin, A. N. (2021). Social media engagement as a metric for ranking US Olympic athletes as brand endorsers. Journal of Interactive Advertising. https://doi.org/10.1080/15252019.2021.1919251