Understanding the Effect of Social Media Marketing Activities on Football Fans’ Satisfaction and Engagement: A Study of Portuguese 2 nd League Professional Football Clubs

General use and acceptance of the Internet made social networks an indispensable means of communication between organizations and their target. Both individuals and companies create fan pages on online platforms, using them to interact with different receivers and develop personal and business opportunities. While many past studies have analyzed social media importance and growing acceptance, some questions related to the extension of social media platforms as marketing tools and their impact on brand awareness, customer satisfaction, and a relationship in time are still scarce. We want to continue this discussion by focusing on the impact of social media marketing activities on Facebook and football clubs' brand awareness, promoting fans' satisfaction and engagement. We seek to understand whether the Facebook pages of the Portuguese 2nd league football teams have an impact on satisfaction and on the quality of the relationship their fans develop with the club. This study reviews marketing literature on social media, focusing on Facebook, customer satisfaction, and engagement. To empirically test the effects of Facebook activities on fans' satisfaction and continuance intention, a structured questionnaire was applied to a sample of 272 participants, tested using SPSS Statistics version 24.0 and structural equation model - AMOS 24.0 for data analysis. Despite some limitations (sample and object of study), findings indicate that the majority of initiatives on social media marketing – Facebook- contribute in a positive way to supporters' satisfaction and engagement. Portuguese football club managers need to use Facebook as a way to communicate and promote lasting relationships with supporters.


Introduction, Literature Review and Framework
The growing acceptance and use of social media have created a great number of opportunities and new ways to make business for companies and brands; managers realized the importance of finding new and interactive ways to reach, satisfy and engage customers (Castels, 2002;Levy, 2005;Gallaugher and Ransbotham, 2010;Spillecke and Perrey, 2012).
Internet use grows daily and, according to a recent study, there are approximately 4,66 billion users in the world (https://www.hootsuite.com/pages/digital -trends-2021); in July 2020 we were 7,8 billion persons, therefore, more than a half is connected. Focusing on social media, this study also reveals that Internet users are connected on an average of 6h:54m per day and 2h:25m are spent on social media. It is an unquestionable complementary way for marketers to reach customers, get their attention, achieve satisfaction and develop a relationship in time (Godey, Manthiou, Pederzoli, Rokka, Aiello, Donvito and Singh, 2016).
Social media are changing communication between brands and customers since they give consumers actual information on brands, assistance, and a space for free discussion and exchange of ideas (Godey et al., 2016). Customers can be proactive and brands need to post unique content, important information on products and services, adopt an active stance, quick capacity to help with practical matters, and induce interaction (Gallaugher and Ransbotham in Godey et al., 2016).
Social media marketing activities affect satisfaction through social identification and perceived value, therefore inducing a continuance and participation intention on customers-relationship in time (Chen and Lin, 2019;Sharma, Singh, Kujur and Das, 2021).
Facebook, as the most popular social media platform for Portuguese users, allows people to easily communicate with each other -individuals that share the same interests (Daugherty and Hoffman, 2014). Statistics also show that advertising on Facebook is much cheaper than on other platforms and, bearing this in mind, online marketers started to use Facebook ads to increase their brands' awareness and to better understand customers' needs and expectations (Tran 2017).
With the help of Facebook, many companies are capable to do the right monitoring of their brands, get proper information on their customers and make adequate decisions to increase their satisfaction, engagement, and subsequent company's profitability (Sharma et al., 2021). Using social media as a tool to interact with customers also boosts brand awareness (Barreda, Bilgihan, Nusair and Okumus, 2015), affects consumer choices and satisfaction (Lin, 2013 in Barreda et al., 2015), and increases brand equity and value.
Achieving brand equity and brand value are top priorities for many organizations. Those are two different but intricately linked concepts (Tiwari, 2010): one refers to the financial perspective of a brand (what the brand is worth to managers and shareholders -value), and the other to a set of perceptions and subsequent behavior on the part of customers (equity).
Measuring brand value will not make the brand a more valuable or less risky one; managing brand equity is critical to the company's success since it is a construct that moderates the impact of marketing activities, therefore allowing managers to understand how to act to create value (for both company and customers). Some studies seem to conclude that social media marketing has an impact on consumer satisfaction, and brand equity (Tiwary, 2010).
A lot of studies have been developed on social media marketing activities and their impact on brand awareness, equity, value, and consumers' behavior, but there is a lack of empirical research on sports fan satisfaction and subsequent engagement through Trust, Commitment, Intimacy, Self-  (Kim, Trail, Woo and Zhang, 2011;Ghalandari, 2012;Sashi, 2012;Vries, Gensler and Leeflang, 2012;Schivinski and Dabrowski, 2015;Seo and Park, 2018;Sevim, 2018;Cheung, Pires and Rosenberger III, 2019). Sports fans tend to develop unique and engaging relationships with their favorite sports teams and brands and social media have become one of the main touching points between sports brands and customers that seem to promote trust, commitment, intimacy, self-connection, and reciprocity, therefore, impacting on customers' satisfaction and engagement (Kim et al., 2011;Vale and Fernandes, 2018). They have changed the way brand content is created, distributed, and consumed, since the power to shape brand images no longer belongs exclusively to the marketers but depends on consumers' online connections, likes, and comments (Godey et al., 2016). Social media networks democratized dialogue and all the organizations, including sport clubs, need to use them to increase engagement, keeping consumers' attention in time (Villanueva, Shijin and Dominique, 2008; Malthouse, Haenlein, Skiera, Wege and Zhang, 2013); therefore, our first hypothesis is: H1: The interaction of fans with Facebook is related to the quality of the relationship they establish with the club.
H.1.1. The fact that fans have a personal Facebook account is related to the quality of the relationship they develop with the club.
H.1.2. The fact that fans have their club page added to their personal Facebook account contributes to a better relationship with the club.
Social media marketing is a complementary tool to interact with customers, therefore impacting their satisfaction (Barreda et al, 2015;Chen and Lin, 2019). According to these findings, we propose a second hypothesis: H.2: The interaction of sports fans with Facebook promotes better satisfaction with their club.
H.2.1. The fact that fans have a personal Facebook account is related to satisfaction with their club.
H.2.2. The fact that fans have their club page added to their personal Facebook account contributes to their level of satisfaction with the club.

Research design and Methodology
The research model followed a quantitative approach where variables were measured using already validated constructs. The questionnaire was based on the previous literature and we adapted questions from the SCTRQS scale and pre-tested with 10 individuals. The great challenge of this work is to understand if the Facebook pages of the football teams in the 2nd Portuguese league have some type of impact on the supporters' satisfaction and on the quality of the relationship that they develop towards their club, therefore impacting on positive results in terms of participation in games (ticket sales), purchase of merchandising material and maintenance of monthly dues.

Procedures
Previous literature reviews allowed us to determine the appropriate questions for the questionnaire. To measure fans' satisfaction and the quality of their relationship with their favorite club, we used the SCTRQS scale (Kim et al., 2011).

Questionnaire
At the beginning of the form, all potential participants were informed about the nature of the study and required to provide formal consent to take part in the research. We told participants about ethical aspects, mainly confidentiality and anonymity. The questionnaire demanded 5 to 10 minutes of participation, both online and by e-mail.

Participants
Survey respondents were targeted among the authors' friends and family, as well as some of the clubs' supporters that, after a direct contact from their club, accepted to answer by e-mail. The study sample

Data Analysis
A confirmatory factor analysis was done in the scales; the varimax rotation method was also used to extract the factors, allowing to minimize the number of variables that present high loads in each factor and leading to obtaining a factor structure in which only one of the variables is strongly related to a single factor and little associated with other factors (Pallant, 2011;Hair et al., 2010;Marôco, 2010a). After this analysis, a confirmatory factor analysis of the factorial structure obtained was carried out, considering the adjustment indexes proposed by Marôco (2010). Convergent validity was also measured by analyzing the extracted average variance, which was considered satisfactory with the VEM > 0.5; divergent validity was also analyzed. Subsequently, the reliability of the scales obtained was analyzed -Alpha de Cronbach, with scales whose Alpha value was higher than 0.60 considered as having adequate internal consistency (Marôco and Marques, 2005;Pestana and Gageiro, 2008). The next step consisted of analyzing the results of the questionnaire using frequencies and percentages, as well as measures of central tendency (Mean, Median, and Mode) and dispersion (Standard deviation, minimum and maximum). The hypothesis was tested using the Mann-Whitney nonparametric test, to compare the distribution of results between two groups, since the normality of the results was not verified. For the results obtained to be positive, the principle followed was that the value of significance obtained should be at least less than 5% (p<0.05).

Analysis of Factorial Validity
-Relationship with the Club -An exploratory factorial analysis was carried out. The results obtained point to the existence of a onedimensional factorial solution that explains 88.72% of the variance; it was also possible to verify that all items have an adequate factor load (>0.40), which allows validating the structure obtained:

Factorial Reliability Analysis
-Relationship with the Club - Table 5 reveals that the Relationship with the Club scale has adequate reliability, considering the internal consistency index obtained (ɑ=0.98): -Satisfaction with the Club - Table 6 shows that the alpha value of Cronbach is adequate (ɑ=0.98), with a very good internal consistency between the items and adequate reliability of the Satisfaction scale:

Factorial Sensitivity Analysis
The calculation of the central tendency measures for dispersion and distribution was used. The values of symmetry and kurtosis coefficients between -1.96 and 1.96 were considered (Pestana and Gageiro, 2009) to test the normality of the scales.
-Relationship with the Club -table 7 shows that the participants have a good relationship with the club; however, the scale has low sensitivity since the distribution of results is not normal according to the significant value of the KS test, having an unusual kurtosis coefficient:    Despite the limitations indicated, the study proves the importance of using Facebook, the network with the largest number of users in Portugal, as a way to promote the individuals' satisfaction and the relationship over time with brands. Many studies already analyzed the importance of social media marketing for 1st league football clubs, but little attention has been paid to smaller clubs, which clearly can benefit from the use of social networks.

Conclusion
This study aimed to understand the effect of social media marketing on consumers' satisfaction and their relationship in time with a brand, focusing on Facebook and fans' relationship with their favorite football club in the 2nd league. Results reinforce practical and academic knowledge, by allowing to see that supporters with a Facebook account and who follow the official page of their club feel highly satisfied and have a better relationship with the club -engagement.

Hypothesis
Final Results

H.2 Accepted
Social networks promote better communication between organizations and their customers, regardless of the sector or types of goods or services they offer. They allow constant messages from a brand, making it more visible and taking on a closer relationship with customers.
Sports fans are unique as far as engaging relationships with their favorite sports clubs and social media is a complementary way to promote trust, commitment, intimacy, self-connection, and reciprocityengagement -and highlight satisfaction. This is a reality that cuts across large and small clubs, just as it is for large, small, and medium-sized companies