The Social Media Olympics
Gymnastics, swimming, and…tweeting?
With only a year to go, the official 2012 Olympic Games website
is hosting a social media competition to rank the participating
counties by most loyal fans. To be considered a fan, contestants
must tweet or post Flickr photos that include the hashtag
#1YearToGo with the three-letter initial of their country (ex:
#1YearToGgo #USA), or upload YouTube videos to the London 2012
YouTube Channel.
Although the competition has just begun, fans have already
submitted over 85,000 tweets! The current country with the most
online fans is the USA, followed by Brazil, Great Britain, Canada
and Mexico.
In attempt to rally the crowd before the games, the official
Olympic website has not only created this competition, but
developed other unique ways of utilizing social media. Users of the
site can also create their own customized Olympic mascot and share
them with friends on Facebook and Twitter.
Over the past few months, social media has broken records of
number of tweets per second during sporting events as well as
connected professional athletes directly with their fans during
games. With this Olympic competition, it's now bringing supporters
into the game itself.
So, if you have always longed to become a part of the Olympic
Games, tweet away! You could help earn your county its very own
gold medal. And as they say, let the games begin!
