Celebrating the Social Olympics

Celebrating the Social Olympics

London? What about London? It would seem that most of the Olympic action is actually happening in the Twitterverse.

Twitter has seen a flurry of Olympic-themed activity since last Friday’s Opening Ceremonies. The World’s top athletes are using Twitter to share status updates and photos, giving their followers a closer, more personal by truly taking them inside the Olympic Games. Likewise, fans and spectators use the social network to share their national pride and revel in all the Olympic drama as it unfolds.

According to a study by Mass Relevance, over the course of the first 10 days of the London 2012 Olympics, Twitter users sent out more than 28.4 million Olympic tweets at an average of 2,000 tweets per minute!

According to the same study, swimming led the way as the most talked-about sport, followed by gymnastics, basketball, soccer and volleyball, respectively. Not surprisingly, with over 574,000 mentions, @MichaelPhelps was the most-discussed athlete. Phelps was followed by American basketball player LeBron James, British diver Tom Daley and Jamaican track star Usain Bolt.

Man, things sure are different than they we’re 4 years ago…

Since 2008, social media has definitely done a lot of growing up. For one thing, Facebook only had 100 million active users. Just peanuts compared to today’s nearly 1 billion. Twitter’s 6 million users have grown to over 500 million in the 4 years. And while YouTube was already a force to be reckoned with back in 2008, hours of video uploaded each minute has since increased over 700%!

Brands are also invested in social media now more than ever before. We’re talking larger budgets, dedicated personnel and unique and engaging campaigns across all major social platforms.

It’s no wonder everyone’s calling them the “Social Olympics”.

Check out some of the data below. Created by Demi & Cooper Advertising, this infographic illustrates some of the interesting social media facts that separate “then” and “now”.

As time goes on there is no doubt that social media will continue to play more and more of a role in the World’s top events, occasions and celebrations.

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