Sports management, marketing
majid soleymani; ali torkaman
Abstract
The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the adoption and strategic value of social media marketing communications in Iranian volleyball clubs through a multiple case study design. This study was qualitative in approach, exploratory in purpose, and grounded in the interpretivist ...
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The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the adoption and strategic value of social media marketing communications in Iranian volleyball clubs through a multiple case study design. This study was qualitative in approach, exploratory in purpose, and grounded in the interpretivist paradigm. The research strategy was a multiple case study, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 14 key informants from 14 Iranian volleyball clubs. These participants included executive managers, marketing managers and experts, media and public relations officers, official virtual page administrators, and digital communication consultants. Sampling was purposeful using a maximum variation strategy, and data analysis was performed using an inductive qualitative content analysis approach. The trustworthiness of the findings was ensured through the criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. The findings revealed that Instagram forms the core of digital communications for Iranian volleyball clubs, while messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram play a complementary role. Furthermore, the adoption of social media marketing communications can be explained through 11 main themes, including: enhancing brand awareness and credibility, social capital management, agility in information dissemination, developing sponsorship attraction capacity, talent acquisition, cost advantage, digital engagement, event marketing, market learning, narrative branding, and commercialization. This result indicates that the strategic value of social media in Iranian volleyball clubs possesses a multi-layered and capacity-driven nature, transcending the level of operational functions to become a tool for branding, fan engagement, and the development of commercial opportunities.
