Impact of Facebook marketing on Lebanese athletes' decision-making process

Abstract

This article tackles the impact of Facebook marketing on the Lebanese sports community. It explores the different components of social media marketing tools while stressing on Facebook as a mean of influencing athletes' decision-making process. Hypotheses were generated to analyse the relationships between the following three factors of Facebook marketing: athlete Facebook interaction, daily exposure, and ads including brand ambassadors and the consumers' decision-making process. Our study was carried out on a sample of 385 athletes affiliated to sports clubs, NGO's, sports associations, sports communities and sports brand ambassadors. The results of the empirical study revealed a positive relationship between Facebook marketing and the decision-making process of the Lebanese sports society. Furthermore, it stressed on the importance of Facebook interaction as it deemed to be a catalyst to brand's image, and has an indirect impact on sales. Ads including sports brand ambassadors were shown to play an important role as well as in enhancing brand's sales.