| Abstract [eng] |
The subject of the Master's thesis is social media communication of Vilnius basketball club "Rytas" in the aspects of team image development and audience engagement promotion. The aim of the research is to analyse the social media communication strategies of Vilnius basketball club "Rytas" to determine their role in shaping the team's image and enhancing audience engagement. To achieve this goal, the following objectives were set: 1) to analyse the theoretical material on communication and image building strategies of sports organisations; 2) to identify the characteristics used in social media communication and describe them in order to identify the relevant elements of their use in communication of sports organisations; 3) to analyse the processes of the sports industry in the relationship of a sports organisation with its stakeholders; 4) to conduct an analysis of the communication of the Vilnius basketball club "Rytas" in social media. Communication is one of the key elements of sports organisations' activities, ensuring smooth information transfer and building relationships with stakeholders. Social media have become an extremely important part of the communication of sports organisations, which helps them to develop their image, brand and its awareness, audience engagement. The success of the sports industry depends on the ability to build and maintain relationships with key external stakeholders - fans, sponsors, partners and the general public. In turn, sporting events and the ownership of an arena or stadium also contribute to the identity of an organisation, while understanding the different types of fans and their behaviour allows for the creation of targeted content aimed at the target audience. The qualitative research method (content analysis) was chosen for the analysis of the topic, assessing the fulfilment of the 5 main characteristics of communication in social media identified in the theoretical part of the thesis: visibility, communication, association, engagement, informativeness. For each characteristic, 4 sub-categories were assigned after transforming it into a category. Thus, communication on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube was assessed according to the level of fulfilment of the 4 categories (20 sub-categories): high or low. The results of the study showed that Vilnius "Rytas" has a high level of fulfilment of the communication attributes in the social media in the categories of visibility and engagement, but that certain subcategories of the categories of interaction, association and informativeness need to be strengthened, especially in YouTube. Clearly identifying weaknesses and improving the social media communication strategy could further strengthen not only the relationship with the audience but also the image of the organisation itself. |
