Comparative analysis of community building strategies and personal branding on Instagram: professional athletes versus sports influencers

Purpose This paper examines how professional athletes and sports influencers construct personal brands and build audience communities on Instagram, and why these processes differ despite operating on the same platform. Design/methodology/approach We conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with eight elite Slovenian professional athletes and seven sports influencers, triangulated with a structured review of each participant's Instagram content from the year preceding the interviews. Data were analyzed using a Gioia-inspired, theory-guided inductive approach. Findings Both groups emphasize authenticity and community-oriented content, but diverge in: (1) the basis of brand legitimacy (performance-based versus platform-based), (2) boundary management of private life and (3) the degree of dependence on Instagram for career outcomes. Despite these differences, both professional athletes and sports influencers converge on one point: posts perceived as overtly commercial, especially those unrelated to sport, are consistently described by both groups as damaging to credibility and audience engagement. Originality/value The study develops a comparative theoretical account of how “performance-legitimized” and “platform-legitimized” human brands pursue personal branding and community building on Instagram. The framework advances the human-brand theory by clarifying how legitimacy origins shape branding strategy and vulnerability, and offers actionable guidance for sponsorship decision-making, endorser selection and content strategy design in sport-related digital marketing contexts.