Digital Communication and Social Media in Professional Football

Personal Brand Management on Instagram

Abstract

Social media has become a central space for the creation of personal branding and brand identity within the sports world. In particular, Instagram has emerged as the leading platform for shaping the communicative structures of football players, enabling them to construct a carefully curated image that transcends the professional sphere. As a result of Instagram’s extensive dissemination capacity, this research focuses on examining whether the brand identity strategies employed by football players on the platform- are favorable for their positioning and interaction with the audience. Accordingly, the main objective is to analyze the brand identity communication strategies used by the five most influential football players in the world on Instagram, to understand how they shape their digital presence and generate engagement with their audience. The research adopts a mixed-methods approach, integrating qualitative content analysis and quantitative interaction indicators. The study is based on an analysis of 718 posts shared by selected players over a 12-month period, with visual elements coded, discourses examined, and interaction metrics collected. The findings reveal a strong social influence among players with the greatest sporting success, who distinguish themselves through content strategies that merge the natural aspects of their personal lives with commercial endorsements capable of generating consistent economic returns. The authenticity of their personal brands is reflected in the coherence between their digital identity and their perceived public image among followers.