What did social media do for the Olympics?

So are you suffering gold medal sized withdrawal symtoms?  I started off feeling a bit cynical about the Olympics, not terribly interested in sport and a bit teeth-sucky about the amount of money being spent on it.

But by the end of the fantastic opening ceremony I was hooked, and by its close I was sad to see it go.

As a social media geek, it's been fascinating to see the first Olympic games to take place when social media is so embedded in our lives.

Over 150 million Tweets were sent about the Olympics. Wow. That's a big conversation. No wonder we'll miss it.

So what difference did it make?

My kids pointedly ignoring the empty seats at Wembley during the Olympics

Take the conversation about empty seats issue. Now, this was a repeated issue at previous Olympiads. But before, I guess we would have noticed those empty seats on TV and maybe tutted about it to the people in the room, but that's about as far as it goes.

Not so for London 2012. People noticed, then they tweeted and Facebooked, wrote blog posts and all the rest.

So then the issue gathered more steam, became a news story and action was taken. I didn't notice many empty seats by week 2.

So social media helped fill the empty seats.

In such a world of ongoing, endless public conversation, it's a wonder that details of the opening ceremony didn't escape - but then even this has a toehold in social media, as the hashtag #savethesurprise was used to urge people to keep schtum.

The great appeal of social media is that it takes you from being an outside spectator to being, in some small way, a participant. You're part of the energy, and as such, part of the Games.

So did social media contribute to the success of the London 2012 Olympics? I think perhaps it did. Kind of makes you wonder what it's going to do next. Good things, I hope.

 

Comments

[Marketingbureau]

I really enjoyed your piece about the Olympics. Filling empty seats is just one of the many positive effects Social Media can add to the Olympics. You caught the essence with: "The great appeal of social media is that it takes you from being an outside spectator to being, in some small way, a participant."

Thank you for this article!