Background. Building and maintaining brand loyalty are one of the central themes of research for marketers for a very long time Marketers have utilized various means to maintain the brand loyalty of their customers. One of the recent means is the social media marketing. Objectives. The aim of this study is to identify the effect of social media marketing on brand loyalty of the consumers, given that the concept is receiving increasing attention from marketing academia and practitioners. Methods. The scope of the study consists of customers who follow at least one brand on the social media in Turkey and the data were collected through the administration of a structured questionnaire with a sample of 338 people and tested via stepwise multiple regression analysis. Results. The results of the study showed that brand loyalty of the customers is positively affected when the brand (1) offers advantageous campaigns, (2) offers relevant content, (3) offers popular contents, (4) appears on various platforms and offers applications on social media. Customers prefer to share music, technological-related, and funny contents on social media platforms. Conclusion. Based on our results, this study can be considered as a pioneer in this new area of marketing, and propose several tactics for the practitioners.

Background. Through years of spectator interaction, historical moments, heroic performances, and the creation of traditions or rituals, these established teams are excellent examples of brand communities. For newly introduced teams, these elements are likely to be in short supply and many of them struggle to build a community around their sport team. Objectives. This study explored brand community markers in the context of newly established sport teams. Methods. We examined whether managers of new sports teams Utilize group experience, organizational history, ritual/traditions and physical facility in their branding strategies. A case study approach was used; featuring both interviews with managers of three newly established Iran professional sports teams and direct observations of games. Results. The findings revealed managers generally considered group experience, history and heritage, ritual/traditions and physical facility to be important, but they failed to implement and apply these mechanisms to an overall marketing strategy. Evidence of the four mechanisms was only apparent on an infrequent and fragmented basis. Promotion of these antecedents was largely absent from the team's branding strategies. Conclusion. This is the first study to extend the study of brand communities from successful and established brands to new organizations and explored how the different mechanisms relate to this.

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of National team coaches on the obedience of the Iran Sport Media to journalistic ethical codes ‫‬. ‫‬ Methods. This study was based on feedback received from 100 National team coaches and assistant coaches whose Different ages ranged ‫‬ , ‫‬ representing teams participating in Iran's teams. Each participant evaluated a series of five statements related to the media's news gathering techniques, treatment of their personal lives, prevalence of gossip, general accuracy of news stories, as well as the tendency of the media to stimulate and encourage violence. Results. It was determined that the ethical codes, namely gossip, private life and honesty are frequently violated, and the ethical codes, namely newsgathering and violence are sometimes violated. Conclusion. According to these results, Iran sport media outlets are plagued with significant ethical code difficulties.

Background. Motivations of sport tourists are manifold. This also applies to the field of water sport tourism and the market for sport tourists is very diverse , which has not yet intensely been analyzed by researchers. In order to analyze motivations and to reach target groups such as water sport tourists adequately, market segmentation is necessary. Objectives. The purpose of this paper is to investigate sport motivations of tourists during their holidays as well as the tourist's participation in water sport activities, using the example of the German North Sea Island Sylt. Methods. Thereby, consumer profiles will be established. A quantitative research paradigm was chosen. A survey was conducted using a standardized self-administered questionnaire. The sample comprised n =200 participants. Two indices, one for sport motivation and one for travel motivation were constructed. Factor, as well as cluster, analysis was applied to segment the sample. Furthermore, discriminate analysis was used to identify differences between the two clusters. Finally, cross tabulations underlined the differences between the clusters. Results. The cluster analysis based on motivational factors revealed two groups, the casuals and the committed. Significant differences were detected between the groups with regard to sport and holiday consumption patterns and sport expenditures. However, there were no significant socio-demographic differences between the clusters. Conclusion. The results of this research indicate the diverse nature of water sport tourists and their underlying motivations. It is shown that holiday sport motivation depends on the actual sports practiced by the travelers, implying that prior sport motivation and involvement influence travelers' sport motivation. Overall, this research highlights the importance of segmenting sport tourists.