How do German Amateur Handball Players Perceive Their Team’s Social Media Output?

The present research aims to answer the following research question: How do German amateur handball players perceive their team’s social media output? In the context of a professionalizing media landscape – based on more amateur teams utilizing social media, and the emergence of news coverage about the contextualized results of the amateur leagues – and stemming from a social media research standpoint, researched effects among professional teams and athletes, are applied to the case of amateur teams and athletes. For this, twelve in-depth interviews were conducted with seven female and five male German amateur handball players from the northern Rhine region, all aged between 23 and 28 years old. The social media site of interest was Instagram. A thematic analysis approach was followed to explore respondents’ perceptions towards their team’s Instagram output, as well as their reflection and when and why they engage in re-posting, plus, whether they feel a sense of belonging or a fostered sense of competition concerning other teams. The main findings show similar effects of social media utilization among amateur athletes compared to professional athletes, though to a varying extent. Ideas of self-promotion and impression management exist, however, realize themselves more in the idea of presenting a belonging to a team on social media, instead of actively promoting themselves. They do enjoy, nonetheless, their teams promoting them (promotion by others). Further, amateur athletes tend to compare themselves with other teams’ Instagram outputs and are potentially influenced by them, though negative effects are not as prominent as found among professional athletes. Employing an active social media strategy as a team, and joining other teams in doing so, makes the league more approachable, and players and their teams are feeling more connected – drawing from existing research on communities on social media. Concludingly, this research was a first step into individual amateur players’ perceptions of social media utilization among amateur sports teams and draws a comparison to previously found effects among professional athletes and professional teams utilizing social media. Future research can build upon this, and further investigate the amateur sports media landscape and players’ underlying motivations to react (potential gender and character differences), as well as different effects in a younger age group.