Abstract
Social media platforms have had a significant impact on the public image of sports in recent years. Through the relational dynamics of the communication on these networks, many users have emerged whose opinions can exert a great deal of influence on public conversation online. This research aims to identify the influential Twitter users during the 2016 UCI Track Cycling World Championships using different variables which, in turn, represent different dimensions of influence (popularity, activity and authority). Mathematical variables of the social network analysis and variables provided by Twitter and Google are compared. First, we calculated the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient among all users (n = 20,175) in pairwise comparisons. Next, we performed a qualitative analysis of the top 25 influential users ranked by each variable. As a result, no single variable assessed is sufficient to identify the different kinds of influential Twitter users. The reason that some variables vary so greatly is that the components of influence are very different. Influence is a contextualised phenomenon. Having a certain type of account is not enough to make a user an influencer if they do not engage (actively or passively) in the conversation. Choosing the influencers will depend on the objectives pursued.
Highlights
Social media communication platforms have definitively consolidated their place in various aspects of our society and behaviour (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010; Wilson and Dunn 2011; Towner and Munoz 2016)
We propose the two-step flow hypothesis as theoretical framework in order to operationalise influence based on different dimensions
Indegree highlights cyclists and institutions related to the sporting event as the most influential users
Summary
Social media communication platforms have definitively consolidated their place in various aspects of our society and behaviour (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010; Wilson and Dunn 2011; Towner and Munoz 2016). Delia and Armstrong (2015) studied the 2013 Roland Garros tennis tournament, measuring the sponsors’ impact on social media, and Yu and Wang (2015) analysed fans’. Meenaghan et al (2013) analysed how quantifying the efficacy and impact of social media campaigns on platforms such as Twitter represents a significant opportunity for the increasing number of companies, sporting events and social media platforms by measuring return on investment. It is a new outlet for advocacy. Hull and Schmittel (2015)
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