Play it like Beckham! The influence of social networks on e-reputation: The case of sportspeople and their online fan base
Résumé
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. - Warren Buffet Today, there are more than 3.2 billion Internet users globally (International Telecommunication Union, 2015), making them able to see whatever happens online. One of the major abilities of the Internet, beyond its mass communication technology dimension, is its bi-directionality (Dellarocas, 2003). The Internet allows firms to reach a very large audience at low cost and individuals to diffuse their personal thoughts, opinions and reactions, making them available to any Internet user (Dellarocas, 2003). Social media are global, open, transparent, non-hierarchical, interactive and real-time, and are completely shifting individuals’ behaviors and expectations (Dutta, 2010). Online social platforms are used by billions of people around the world, making them a genuine phenomenon. The leading social networks worldwide ranked by number of active users are: • Facebook (1.5 billion users), • WhatsApp (900 million users), and • QQ (860 million users) (Statista, 2016a). Almost two-thirds of American adults use social networking sites. 35% of 65-year-olds and older is doing the same. Such behavior has entirely rebuilt the way people get and share information about everything related to their every day’s life (Perrin, 2015).