The Social Media Impact of Esports: The Case of Esports on Facebook

Abstract

Social networks, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube beyond being used as platforms to promote esports events have also been used to formalize the construction of a gamer community contrasted with the others by its unique identity, producing new forms of interaction between users. In short, the chapter seeks to answer the following questions: What role do social networks play in the esports community? What level of interaction exists between community managers and users? What social networks and channels/fan pages are most used by esports? In the meantime, the aim is to trace a clear and systematized path in social networks toward esports. But, to do that, we have focused the investigation on the case of the Facebook website of Esports State. In the methodology section we have performed content analysis and descriptive analysis. By using a quantitative approach, we intend to assess the role played by social networks in the interactions toward esports on the mentioned case. To present key findings, we have established a systematization of the social networks directed toward the sports with the purpose of knowing their common patterns, specificities and interrelation with the users.