Olympics Boost SocNet Presence for Sponsors, Athletes

August 17, 2012

This article is included in these additional categories:

Brand Metrics | Social Media | Sports

wildfire-olympics-facebook-fan-growth-august2012.pngWhether dubbed the “mobile Olympics” or the “social Games,” the Olympics certainly delivered for many athletes and brands on social networks, according to a recent slew of stats surrounding the Games. For example, during the Games, P&G saw a 216% lift in fans, while Coca-Cola saw an increase of 126%, per Wildfire. Official stats released by Facebook show Jamaican Usain Bolt getting more than 1 million likes, upping his total to more than 8.1 million. Michael Phelps, the other star of the Olympics, took in more than 850,000 likes, increasing his total to 6.3 million.

Locals, Unknowns Also Win Big

It wasn’t only the big stars that increased their social fan bases. Relative unknowns such as Camille Muffat and Daniel Narcisse also saw huge increases. Success certainly was the key indicator: the Wildfire report found that of the top 10 athletes by Facebook fan base growth (July 27-August 12), US women gymnasts took 4 places. Gabrielle Douglas led with a whopping 3960% change, up to 582,912 fans, with McKayla Maroney (+996% to 111,835), Jordyn Wieber (+799% to 302,653) and Aly Raisman (+747% to 94,304) also in the mix.

Local stars Jessica Ennis and Tom Daley saw Facebook fan page jumps of 632% and 672%, respectively, according to the Facebook stats. Overall, Wildfire determined that the median Olympic athlete saw average fan page growth of 36%.

Social TV Stars, Too

Recent data from Bluefin Labs indicates that the Olympics were also a force in social TV. During the Olympics, there were 36 million social media comments about all Olympics telecasts across NBCU networks, making the Games more social in this facet than the Super Bowl, Grammys, Oscard, Golden Globes, and World Series combined.

Social media comments about all Olympics-related topics (including streaming, time shifting, etc.) numbered 82.6 million. The top athletes by social media comments were: Michael Phelps (4.2 million); Tom Daley (4.2 million); and Usain Bolt (3.3 million).

Other Findings:

  • According to the London 2012 committee, “London2012.com” received 431 million visits, 109 million unique users, 15 million application downloads, 4.73 billion page views, and 4.7 million social followers.
  • Per Google stats, the top athletes searched for in the US were: Michael Phelps; Ryan Lochte; Lolo Jones; Usain Bolt; and Alex Morgan.
  • Also according to Google, NBC Olympics saw more than 159 million total video streams and more than 64 million live streams across YouTube’s online, mobile and tablet platforms.
  • Per Facebook, on the day that Michael Phelps became the most-decorated Olympic athlete, the volume of mentions using his nickname, “Baltimore bullet” rose by more than 1200%.
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