Twitter vs Facebook : analysis of Australian open tennis fan page

• Main Author: Ferozd Raisyad Razhif Roshein
• Other Authors: Leng Ho Keat
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/73855
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The Australian Open (AO) is an international professional tennis tournament that is held annually in the month of January. It is a two-week long event and the first of four grand slam tennis tournaments of the season. The main aim of this study is to analyze the types and themes of posts on Facebook and Twitter AO official fan page and see if there are any similarities or differences in the proportion of posts across different categories. Content analysis was conducted on the content of posts to identify common emergent themes and categories. Six main themes were identified namely: Match, Athletes, Livestream/Talkshow, Promotion, Fans interaction and Casual/memes. Findings indicate that Twitter AO fan page is more active in terms of frequency of posts. The category with the highest proportion of posts for Twitter and Facebook is “Match” and “Athletes” respectively. To conclude, Twitter AO fan page is more casual, engaging and interactive while Facebook is more formal and business-centric. The findings of this study could help sports organization, teams, athletes and event administrators utilize Facebook or Twitter more effectively. Future research may examine fan participation and interaction during a major sporting event on various social media platforms by conducting content analysis on fans’ comments, likes and shares.