In recent times, role modelling and inspiration has been foregrounded as an important function of elite female athlete social media use (Pocock & Skey, 2024; Reference to Author Removed). However, academic research has predominantly focused on athletes’ digital practices in terms of what they post online. This is mainly explored through athlete branding and commercial frameworks (see Arai et al., 2014), with emphasis placed upon marketable self-presentations to attract sponsorship (Pegoraro, 2010). This paper moves beyond these economic narratives to develop a sociocultural and political understanding of elite female athletes’ perceptions of social media. Specifically, through semi-structured interviews, the paper explores how athletes construct ‘imagined audiences’ (Litt, 2012), particularly imagining women and girls as their primary audience and how this shapes their usage of social media. Findings demonstrate that inspiration is framed as an ethical and cultural responsibility rather than a branding strategy, and that imagined audiences are shaped by gendered norms, institutional expectations, and the politics of visibility in women’s sport. The paper argues that elite female athletes’ social media practices reflect complex forms of identity negotiation and cultural labour, highlighting the need to reorient scholarly attention toward the social and symbolic dimensions of digital sporting cultures.