Personal branding and self-presentation of elite international women footballers on Instagram
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26422/aucom.2027.1601.mayKeywords:
Instagram, personal branding, women's football, digital sports communication, athlete branding, sports marketingAbstract
Social media has profoundly transformed contemporary sports communication and the construction of athletes’ personal brands. In this context, Instagram has become one of the main spaces for self-presentation, humanization, and commercialization within women’s sport. This study analyzes the personal branding strategies developed by elite international women footballers on Instagram, focusing on sports representation, aspirational lifestyle, emotional humanization, and commercial integration within their digital publications. The study adopts a quantitative approach through content analysis applied to a corpus of 600 official Instagram posts belonging to the 20 women footballers with the highest international market value according to Soccerdonna’s Top Market Values ranking. The methodological framework operationalized variables related to professional sports representation, personal branding, private life, lifestyle, body representation, sponsorship, empowerment, and visual professionalization. Descriptive and inferential analyses, contingency tables, and exploratory multivariate analyses were also conducted. The results reveal that women footballers construct hybrid communicative profiles in which sports performance, emotional humanization, and digital commercialization converge. Sports representation remains predominant, especially through game actions and official sportswear, although lifestyle, fashion, and personal branding content also show a significant presence. Lifestyle publications display higher levels of sponsorship and visual professionalization, while emotional and personal content generates high levels of interaction. The research confirms the growing convergence between athlete branding, influencer culture, and digital sports communication within contemporary women’s football. Instagram functions as a strategic infrastructure for identity construction where women footballers develop hybrid identities simultaneously associated with sports legitimacy, visual aspirationality, and symbolic commercialization.
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