Twitter and Social Media Give the Olympics a Boost

February 19, 2010 - By Justin E. Gehrke

February 19, 2010 – Last Friday, we published an article entitled Has Social Networking Ruined the Surprise at the Olympics? In it, we examined the possibility that the proliferance of social media had potentially ruined the surprises planned for the 2010 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony. A week later, we see things in a different light, though. After six full days of coverage (at least in the U.S.) on NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC, viewers have been privileged to see the minor miracles that make us feel more hopeful…at least on a quadrinneal basis. Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo captivated audiences by returning to the Olympics, as husband and wife, to capture gold in the Pairs Figure Skating event. Lindsey Vonn proved her skiing dominance once again by winning the women’s Downhill Skiing event, and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna pulled off a stunning upset in the Men’s 15KM Skiing event by beating the heavily favored Norwegian team. The news hasn’t been all good, though. On February 12th, Georgian Luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, was killed during a training run gone horribly wrong. What do all of these things have in common? Their stories were spread around the globe, within minutes, by the millions of people who use social media on a daily basis. Okay, so what is the Twitter and social media connection?

Whether via Twitter, Facebook, Buzz, or any other social networking tool, the olympic news can be said to have spread farther and faster than ever before. Add to that the numerous websites that provide live and archived streaming, SMS updates, and email updates, and you’re sure to never be short of sources of olympic information. Looking at the social media aspect, it is undeniably amazing the speed with which information has been able to travel around the world. People who never would have followed the olympics, based on factors like the limited television coverage available and the hours at which it is broadcast, have suddenly been continuously updated, whether they wanted to or not.

This is especially true when it comes to Twitter users. Without a doubt, every Twitter user follows at least one other person, who tweets something about the olympics. Through them, you not only stay up-to-date but also run the risk of being drawn into the action. Such was the case with Olympic Curling. Though not a curling fan, by tradition, all it took was a couple of tweets by a follower to get my attention. One simple tweet with a comment on the score of an ongoing match prompted me to change the channel to CNBC. Before I knew it, I was actually watching the sport attentively. Shortly thereafter, another member of my household commented on the fact that I (a) don’t traditionally watch a lot of sports and (b) had chosen an odd sport to start following. After thinking about it, I realized they were right.

The surprise, though, is not that I was watching it. Moreover, it was the catalyst that led to me watching it. If it had not been for a fellow Twitterer, I probably wouldn’t have done more than glance at a web-based news headline and gone about my business. Since then, I have actually watched several more telecasts of curling. Since my interest about this potential “Popularization by Twitter” phenomena was piqued, I returned to Twitter to see how many people were actually Twittering about curling. I searched for the trending topics for “#Curling”. To my surprise, I was met with a huge number of results, of differing opinions and in many languages. After hitting “More” several times, I hit print on my iMac to see how many pages it totaled. The tweets added up to 28 pages. I can only imagine the number of tweets I would have found by searching only the term “Curling” or, for that mater, the name of a more popular Olympic sport, like skiing, hockey, figure skating, or snowboarding. Regardless of whether the people like curling or not, they were talking about it. In the end, that’s really all that mattered. Ultimately, a sport that I’m certain is very popular -albeit fairly unpublicized- has the potential to explode simply because of its discussion on a social network.

(Note: At the bottom of this post, I have included screenshots of the 28-page total of Tweets on #Curling. Take a look. Its actually pretty amusing to read, since even the detractors are still giving publicity to Curling, by talking about it. Be forewarned, though, some are NSFW or appropriate for little Twitterers.)

So, what is the point? I now not only understand Curling but have newfound respect for the athletes that curl. Does this mean I’m going to move to a colder climate, buy some gear, and set up a practice area in my backyard? No, it doesn’t. It does mean, though, that I know a little bit more (okay, a lot more) about something than I did at the beginning of the week. That means I learned something and am now a little smarter on the subject. No one can argue that this is a win. I would be remiss not to give credit to those people and things that deserve it. Without Twitter, itself, and my approximately 400 followers (most of whom I follow back), I would never have had the chance to learn and, more importantly, appreciate something new.

For giving me this experience, I say to the Twittizens of Twitter, “Thanks for giving me the chance to learn something new today!”