How Twitter Reacted to 2012 Summer Olympics

Now that the dust has settled over Olympic Park in London, it’s time to reflect on the games of 2012. This year, the games were seen by billions of people each day from around the world as nations cheered on their country’s athletic representatives as they competed fiercely in an attempt to return home with bronze, silver or gold.

Social media played a key role in the 2012 Olympics with athletes, supporters, families and fans posting news of great athlete feats on Facebook and Twitter. Olympic fever spread on Twitter during the two weeks of the London games with everything from congratulations to random observations. Many well known stars posted regular tweets on Twitter declaring to their followers their undying support for their favorite athletes with some even asking favorite Olympians for some tips after the games.

The athletes themselves took to Twitter to share their glory and to build their brands. Many athletes at the games had their laptops or mobile devices with them so that they could keep family, friends and fans updated with breaking news on everything from their physical condition to their training sessions to the events they participated in. The USOC or United States Olympic Committee said that at least 89 athletes were active on Twitter during the games and according to the USOC, their goal was to tell amazing stories using as many platforms as possible.

During the Summer Games in Beijing four years ago, the use of social network sites was frowned upon by the International Olympic Committee or IOC. This was because it was determined not to be fair as only some athletes had permission to take part in social networking. Athletes who were blogging and using social media in Beijing had to agree not to publish anything negative about the host country, not surprisingly.
Today the IOC looks at social media networking as a perfectly legitimate type of personal communication. The committee granted Olympic participants the right to use Twitter and other social media sites during this year’s summer games. However, athletes are told by the IOC that they must only use social media and their blogs to send messages about their own personal experiences and not to act as reporters.

Twitter did indeed play a key role at the 2012 Summer Olympic games. On day one at the opening ceremony, there were already more tweets posted about the games than there were during the entire 2008 Olympic games. On Twitter’s official blog, the feature story for the week of July 24th was Spotlight on Olympic Stories. Twitter stated then that it was going to put a focus on the incredible stories which were sure to come forward out of the games and It also publically announced  to American sports fans that it was partnering with NBC Olympics – the official broadcaster of the event to create an event page on Twitter for the 2012 games. The page was designed to highlight tweets from participants, coaches, teams, loved ones, fans and Olympic insiders.

This article is written by Cynthia Rupp.rt on twitter

Source : techtalkafrica[dot]com