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With Facebook and Twitter leading the way, both fans and athletes of the
Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games are making an impression on social
media platforms across the globe. Facebook and Twitter are at the forefront of social media activity when
it comes to the Sochi Games. In addition to 1 million new likes on the
IOC’s Facebook page, the social media giant
reported that 24 million people were talking about these Olympics on
Facebook during the first week of competition. Social media manager
Hootsuite reported that there were 6.5 million mentions of the Olympics
on Twitter during that same period. Overall, 1.2 billion impressions
were noted on IOC Facebook and Twitter accounts in the past 30 days,
according to an IOC press release. Other platforms are getting in on the action as well, particularly
in the host country with the Russian social network VKontakte (VK).
There are 60 million monthly active users of VK, and roughly 12 million
of those users connected with the Olympics in the first week of
competition to account for 17 million mentions. There was similar activity on the Chinese social network, Sina Weibo,
China’s equivalent to Twitter. The IOC’s account on that platform grew
by nearly 850,000 fans during the first week of the Games, and there
were nearly 12.5 million mentions that included “#sochi2014.”
ATHLETES SOCIALLY ACTIVE: Fans aren’t the only ones plugged in and engaged when it comes to these
Olympics. Many of the 1,500 current Olympians, as well as 6,000 former
athletes, are using the Olympic Athletes’ Hub app to engage with one
another as well as fans by sharing their experiences via photographs or
comments. There were more than 40,000 updates via the Olympic Athletes’
Hub in the first week. The total IOC fan base from social media platforms worldwide is 33.9 million, according to the IOC.
