Analysis of official internet sites of sport clubs in terms of social media and marketing communication: a study on turkish and german sport clubs Erkan Faruk ŞİRİN, Ali SEVİLMİŞ Selçuk University, Faculty of Sports Sciences, Konya, Turkey. Address Correspondence to EF. Şirin, e-mail: erkanfaruk@yahoo.com Abstract Becoming widespread of internet use, advantages web has, compared to traditional environment, and purchaser tendencies in marketing communication have made web sites a potential social media communication and marketing tool for sport clubs. The main aim of this study is to evaluate official internet sites of soccer clubs of Super League İlhan Cavcav Season and Bundesliga in Germany in terms of social media communication and marketing communication and reveal the similarity and difference between both league by means of content analysis method. Internet site of a total of 36 sport clubs in both leagues were evaluated. During analysis of the data, MAXQDA qualitative data analysis software was used. According to the results of the study, while social network applications (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) in the official web sites of Turkey and Germany sport clubs show similarity, instant messaging applications (Snapchat), documents follow system (subscribe to RSS) and motion videos (Giphy) or blog accessing tools were seen to be given place in German clubs. In large majority of German clubs, while official internet sites include multiple language options, in Turkey, there is multiple language option in the internet site of a few number of clubs. In addition, Turkish sport clubs use marketing communication channels in similar to traditional marketing activities, and there are differences between the clubs taking place in both leagues in terms of the use of direct communication with customers through these channels (answering the questions about, comments about product, etc.), direct marketing (information about filtering detail, cargo information, safe payment, order follow, and product return), and sale development (favorite/ the most sold product, personal product design, seasonal opportunities, etc.). Keywords: Internet sites, sports marketing, social media, sport clubs INTRODUCTION Especially in the recent years, together with the increase of internet users of consumers and, depending on this, the time spent in social media, social media has become an important brand communication channel in terms of brands (15). Thanks to blogs, microblogs, social networks, and forums, put in order as social media channels, brands can call out to its purchasers through many channels. Together with the emergence of social media, the institutional internet sites of clubs are also used as either marketing or social media communication tool. Depending on reflection of all these developments to Turkey as in all over the world, they have effects on communication technologies, in which there is especially soccer. Argan and Katırcı (1) suggested that sport marketing underwent to change and, thanks to this change, it enabled the supporter to be more interactive. The social media studies carried out showed that social media users very intensively interested in soccer. In the studies carried out in the world and Turkey, it emerged that soccer competitions were followed in a serious rate through social media platforms. In the study carried out by Somera, it was reported that in World Cup Tournament, organized in Brazil, 524,483 Brazilian social media users followed World Cup [competitions] from social media, writing 1,329,402 messages (7). Nowadays, as in many sectors, one of the important elements, in which soccer clubs can also provide supporter and marketing communication, is internet. Based on that sports become a global product, the importance of internet has increased and internet use of sport clubs has increased, depending on this. Certainly, as in the other sectors, the communication of soccer clubs with supporter groups from every aspect depends on their effectively using social media. Hall et al (10), for Turkish Journal of Sport and Exercise http://dergipark.gov.tr/tsed Year: 2019 - Volume: 21 - Issue: 1 - Pages: 1-11 DOI: 10.15314/tsed.468256 ISSN: 2147-5652