A Study on the Effects of Social Media Marketing on the Brand Equity of Clubs of the Iranian Premier Football League

The study is to investigate the effects of social media marketing on the brand equity of the clubs of the Iranian Premier Football League. Due to the purpose, the study is applicable and is considered a descriptive – survey one. The statistical population were the fans of the teams in the 17th Iranian Football League (2017-2018), that had used the social media of clubs. A questionnaire was used to collect the data. Of the received questionnaires (1256), approved questionnaires (979) were chosen as the statistical samples. After confirming the content validity of questionnaires by the professors of marketing and media, their construct validity was verified by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Using Cronbach’s alpha, the reliability coefficient of brand equity questionnaire and marketing in social media were %89 and %95, respectively. In this research, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics including independent t-test, one-way ANOVA and structural equation modeling with Lisrel software were used. The results showed that except marital status, other personal characteristics (having a fan’s card, age and degree of education) made a significant difference in the perception of the fans of brand equity. Also, the results indicated a positive and significant impact of social media marketing on the brand equity of the Premier League football clubs. Finally, it can be said that the use of the results of this study will help sports managers in the football industry to manage the team brand and develop strong and lasting relationships with fans in order to promote the brand equity of their clubs through social media.