The Olympics have come and gone, but the 2014 games will always live on through social media. Twitter especially has grown significantly since the last winter games in Vancouver in 2010, and because of that, we were able to see another side to the Olympics that made the Sochi Olympics bigger and better. I followed the Olympics very closely on social media this year in an attempt to observe some of the biggest trending topics, and see what stood out to me on Twitter and other social media sites. I took note of some of the biggest events, kept track of some interesting statistics and paid close attention to what was going on during the games. By paying close attention, I followed several new Olympic athletes on Twitter and I had several of my own personal tweets about the Olympics games to look back on. Now I am going to look back at social media usage during the Olympics, both my own and other’s, and look at some of the things that really stood out during these winter games.
Biggest Stories:
For me, the biggest event during the winter Olympics was Men’s Ice Hockey, and from what I could tell, many others felt the same way. Some of the biggest trending topics on twitter during the Olympics were about hockey, especially during the USA-Russia game in the preliminary round. Canada winning gold in both men’s and women’s hockey was also a big story. Hockey gets the label of biggest winter event, because for most of the world it is the biggest winter event, and this is proven by the fact that the gold medal game is the last event of the Olympics before the closing ceremonies.
Another big topic of conversation about the games was some of the big name athletes and whether or not they were able to medal. Some US athletes came into the spotlight during these games while others more or less disappointed. Some of the big names such as Shaun White and Ted Ligety did not have as big of an impact as they were expected to have.
The political issues in Russia and the conditions of the games were a big concern before the Olympics started, and as the games went on, people all over the country had their concerns about how things were going to be outside of the games themselves. The games thankfully ended up going off without a hitch, and were successful for the most part, but one of the biggest stories as the games went on was whether or not things in Russia would be run smoothly.
Interesting Social Media Stats:
Team USA Hockey Forward TJ Oshie became a household name when he scored 4 shootout goals in an intense USA victory over rival Russia in the preliminary round of the men’s hockey tournament. His following on twitter showed just how popular he became in a matter of minutes as his number of twitter followers increased by over 45,000 in a matter of hours. His name was a trending top on twitter for most of if not the entirety of the day that followed the victory.
By the last day of the Olympics, Sochi2014 had been a trending topic for every single day of the Olympics, and was probably the most mentioned portion of tweets at the Olympics. This was taken as a look at the number of mentions on the last day of the Olympics, with the number of mentions exceeding 1 million.
Following some of the Olympic centered accounts on twitter gave me insight into a lot of things that I didn’t know, and easier access to information. Team USA came in second to only host Russia in the final medal count.
My Social Media Usage During the Olympics:
Social media can often be very personalized. I learned a lot of new things about different athletes and facts about the Olympics because of some of the accounts that I followed. It is because of the winter Olympics that I started following certain accounts on twitter. I followed 8 new accounts on twitter during the Olympics, including 5 athletes, 4 of which were hockey players. I also followed 3 different Olympic related accounts in order to keep up with everything that was going on in the Olympics.
Patrick Kane @88pkane
USA Olympic Team @USOlympic
NBC Olympics @NBCOlympics
Ryan Miller @RyanMiller3039
USA Hockey @usahockey
Shaun White @shaun_white
TJ Oshie @OSH74
David Backes @dbackes42
In addition to following new twitter accounts, I also tweeted and posted on Facebook many times during the Olympics.I also wrote an in depth preview to the USA Hockey team, which can be found in an earlier post on this blog.
During the Olympics I tweeted/retweeted about the games about 57 times, and some of my most commonly used hashtags or trending topics included #Olympics, #USA, #USAHockey and #Sochi2014
Just a few of my tweets:
I made a point to pay attention to social media during the Sochi Olympics. Twitter played a big part in these winter games, and it will be interesting to see if it continues to be as popular of a form of social media in future Olympics games. I used social media a lot myself, and I would say that it definitely helped to make me more interested in sports that I wouldn’t otherwise be interested and it helped me to keep up with what I was interested in. I think that social media has made being a fan during the Olympics an even better experience, but I know that it does have its downfalls. With the games so far away in Russia, some of the events that aired on tape delay in the United States were already spoiled because of social media, because the immediacy of social media allows people to learn results before they get the opportunity to see the events on TV. Regardless of this issue, I think that social media has had a significant effect on the Olympics, but also that the Olympics have had a major effect on social media. It will be interesting to see how the use of social media plays out in the future with other major sporting events as well as with future Olympic games.
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