London 2012: the Social Games

With London 2012 just around the corner the excitement on and offline of sports fans everywhere is reaching fever pitch. Laura Brown, Social Media Manager at KISS Public Relations looks at how Social Media will take this year’s Olympics to a whole new level of fan engagement and why this year’s Olympics is being dubbed the ‘Socialympics.’ Commenting on the social aspect of the games Laura said: “For the first time in history the games will give the chance for people to share, tag, tweet, pin about games giving a fresh perspective of the events. Rewind four years to the Beijing Olympics and we are given a true glimpse of how fast the social media landscape has changed.” With a total of 901 million accounts a rise of 901% from 90 million in 2008, Laura believes Facebook will be at the forefront of Olympic social commentary. Discover London 2012, the official Facebook page or ‘portal’ as its come to be known, has been in development for over a year, the page which currently has more than 2.9 million likes and more than 10,000 athletes using the page, launched earlier this month. The portal is available in 22 languages and features dedicated athletes and sports pages, including a complete timeline history of the games since the 1800s. As for Twitter, they are also braced for record traffic during London 2012 on their dedicated page http://twitter.com/London2012</http:>. “The organisers hope to set a new record in comparison to the 2010 Vancouver winter games, by encouraging people to get tweeting. With 300 million accounts compared with 1 million in 2008 I think it’s safe to say the record is likely to be broken.” Mashable recently reported during the last Olympics, there were about 1.5 billion Internet users globally, according to the International Telecommunications Union, around 23% of the world’s total population. By this summer’s games, the number is expected to have risen to about 2.3 billion users which is around a third of the world’s total population. The explosive growth of social media and mobile has seen the ownership of smart phones increase 456% from 18.9 million in 2008 to 106.7 million in 2012 along with the introduction of tablets which didn’t exist in 2008 and are now owned by 54.8 million people. In fact 1 in 3 viewers of the Olympics own and personally use 3 connectivity devices. Laura continued: “There are a variety of apps available to keep up to date on the move. BBC Sport launched an Olympics app for Smartphone’s earlier this month which will provide users with 24 streams of live events coverage, schedule, and results pages. Connectivity will be constant.” Concluding Laura said: “China was remembered for their spectacular opening and closing ceremony, the UK will be remembered for its connectivity and engagement with viewers on and offline. London 2012 will differ in its relationship between Hi-Vision, 3D TV technology, live coverage and social networking. Be it a Smartphone, interactive television, laptop or tablet, the 2012 Olympic Games viewer will be truly connected and will be at the heart of the games whether in the stadium or at home.” If you are interested in discussing what social media can do for your business then call Laura Brown on 0208 12345 75 or 01223 911123 for an informal, no obligation chat or alternatively email laura@kisscom.co.uk. Follow KISS on Twitter at twitter.com/kisstalk, and keep up-to-date with the industry social media news by following Laura at twitter.com/KISS_SocialM. Or follow us on Pinterest pinterest.com/artofsimplicity.