In practice we have concluded that footballers work with a social media agency for the following reasons:
- Time efficiency: communication with fans costs time and energy. For footballers this is the main reason to outsource the management of their social media to an agency;
- Personal branding: not only does it look good to be able to say you work with an agency for your social media, this agency can also provide an added value to the player’s image and so-called personal branding. Footballers nowadays are a signboard, a role model for many young footballers. The better the communication and the marketing, the better the footballer’s image.
- Financial: some players want to increase their commercial value by having more engaged followers and to improve their image toward the outside world. For these players it is about the extra income that can be generated through social media. Obviously, a footballer’s commercial value is directly proportional to the number of engaged followers of his accounts.
- Monitoring: increasingly, a footballer’s image is created by online media. Sometimes this even happens without the footballer’s knowledge/ability to monitor it (such as ghost accounts). This is why it is important to work with a professional and independent partner because it allows the content that is spread in the footballer’s name to be monitored.
