This article focuses on growth in athlete social media following around critical junctures or team transfers, such as the NFL Draft. The authors of this study developed a custom web scraper to gather data on football players’ Instagram and Twitter profiles before and after the 2017 NFL Draft. Their results found that athletes drafted in the earlier rounds of the Draft were likely to see larger growth in their social media following than those drafted in later rounds. They also found that the athletes with verified Instagram accounts were more likely to see follower growth, however, they did not find a significant relationship suggesting the same for Twitter.
This article shows which athletes are able to build the largest social media brands and when. Specifically, NFL players drafted in the early part of the draft generally have an easier time building a personal brand on social media and building a following, opening the door for sponsorship and other economic opportunities, leaving players drafted in the later rounds with less personal branding opportunities. This research can likely, but not necessarily, be applied to other sports, showing that an advantage to social media for athletes is personal branding, however not all opportunity is the same, as there is a disparity based on draft position.
Yiran Su, Y. S., Baker, B. J., Doyle, J. P., & Kunkel, T. (2020). The Rise of an Athlete Brand: Factors Influencing the Social Media Following of Athletes. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 29(1), 33-46. https://doi.org/10.32731/SMQ.291.302020.03