Original post by Christina Farr via VB
This year’s Olympics earned the nickname “Socialympics.” It has inspired huge waves of tweets, brought down the reputation of old media giants, and earned athletes millions of new followers in weeks.
Since the Beijing Olympics four years ago, the use of Facebook and Twitter has exploded. In 2008, there were only 6 million people on Twitter. Now, the network has rocketed past 600 million. Athletes can engage directly with their fans; social media marketing and analytics companies can track shifts in public opinion and serve real-time advertising; and for the first time, London’s tech startups have benefited from an influx of tourism.
In the spirit of a little friendly competition, we’re evaluating the dollars earned and headlines won to anoint the real winners of the 2012 Socialympics.
Gold Medal: #NBCFail
Social media monitoring companies have been tracking the eruption of chatter on Twitter and Facebook like hawks. It’s favorite meme? #NBCFail. NetBase, a social media analysis tool, found that there were a whopping 93,000 #NBCFail posts this month, which generated nearly 148 million impressions. View an infographic here with more social data from the world’s first social Olympics.
Topsy Labs, a Twitter tracking tool company, claims its algorithm can pinpoint the most important Olympics-focused tweets in seconds. The company tracked the #NBCFail tag throughout the Games, and served up real-time reports to media companies like the Washington Post and Mashable.
