Friday Jul 13th, 2012

Its been four years since the last Olympic Games, and a lot has changed in the world of social media since then. As a result, The London Olympics are being dubbed the first “Socialympics”.

“We are at a dawn of a new age of sharing and connecting, and London 2012 will ignite the first conversational Olympic Games, thanks to social media platforms and technology” said Alex Huot, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) head of social media.

The Olympic Games committee has spent a long time ramping up its social media policies, with strict rules in place to make sure brands arent associating themselves with the games unless they have paid to! For the 2012 Olympic Games there is a website called sociagility.com that will track the social media exposure of the Olympics sponsors. Currently, Proctor & Gamble is in the lead on the social media scoreboard. This is thanks to the companys new advertising campaign “Thank You, Mom” which promotes the role that mothers play in the lives of Olympic athletes.

If you’re not an official sponsor, you can still get your brand out there by liking, sharing and retweeting the best of whats already out there during the Olympic season.

With so many social channels out there and campaigns going on, its a great opportunity for everyone to get involved with all the new Olympic online communities.

Here are some of our favourites:

Olympic Athletes Hub – http://hub.olympic.org/

This is the place to be if you want to really get alongside all the athletes. With over 1,000 athletes participating, you connect with them in real time chats, read alerts and updates about your favourites, and be part of big community forums to earn points and badges, while talking to other like-minded fellows.

Other official websites include:

• London 2012 – Official Website
• Olympic.org – Official Website of The Olympic Movement
• Team GB – Official Website of Team GB

Facebook

Facebook is said to be the best social network for everything Olympic.  The Olympic Games Facebook Page has over 2.9 million likes and will be a good source of updates throughout the games plus the Official London Olympic and Paralympic pages. Both are worth a likefor all the top news.

And with lots of sponsors throwing money at the games, the internet is full of fun ways to support your nation! We like this game by Panasonic, which lets you mock up a profile picture with your nations flag painted on your face: Panasonics Flash Tags.