Social Media Analysis: The 2010 Winter Olympics
Teresa Basich is the Content Marketing Manager at Radian6, the social media monitoring and engagement platform. She blogs at Writing On Purpose and is @TransitionalTee on Twitter.
The Olympics. They’ve been talked about, reported on, blogged about, tweeted, YouTubed, Facebooked, Flickred, and then some. A sporting event of this magnitude is prime fodder for discussion in all senses of the word, so, of course, the committees involved in pulling the 2010 Winter Olympics together did their duty to integrate online conversation into their big media picture.
But, did the Olympic brand do a good job? Unless we’ve got a list of all the goals that were set, and proof that they were or weren’t achieved, all we can really do is take a cursory look at the effort made and guess at how it all turned out, right? Right. So, let’s do that.
The Big Four on Facebook and Twitter
For the U.S., the four major organizations involved in all things Olympics are the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC), the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), and NBC.
Each organization crafted their own social media strategy and created multiple Facebook pages and Twitter feeds independent of each other. Both the IOC’s and VANOC’s main Facebook pages have snagged over 1 million fans to date, and have garnered a fair amount of fan chatter despite distinct differences in approach (the IOC has leaned heavily on athlete connectivity, while the VANOC has been focusing more on photos and news). The USOC and NBC, on the other hand, have attracted comparatively modest followings to their Facebook pages. The USOC is the only one among the group, however, that seems to have a flow of Facebook Wall comments coming directly from fans and not the moderating organization.
As far as Twitter goes, almost all the Olympic Twitter feeds are push oriented, offering very little engagement. Graeme Menzies, director of online communications, publications, and editorial services for the VANOC, told the folks at PBS’ Mediashift that he views Twitter as an ideal channel for pushing ticketing and location-oriented information out to followers, and stays away from interaction. Menzies says the same of the VANOC’s Facebook page – the organization stays out of fans’ ways, letting them talk with and comment to each other. The reason? The plan was to have the main hub of the VANOC’s online activity be its website.
Still, in spite of not using their accounts for much engagement with fans, all four groups have succeeded in attracting at least somewhat sizable followings on the two major mainstream social media hubs.
The Extras
All four organizations, again, followed their own paths to flesh out some interactive extras, including podcasts, YouTube channels, mobile apps, video games, and small fan communities.
The big winner in the Extras category, though, is the VANOC’s Cultural Olympiad Canada CODE digital art installation. For the year leading up to the Olympics, the VANOC requested photos and stories from Canadian residents and visitors that they felt represented the country and culture of Canada.
Those who wanted to get more heavily involved in the project were able to collaborate with each other to “remix” the text and photos to be used in the final installation. This digital scrapbook of sorts has been showing on big screens around Vancouver for the duration of the games.
3 Things the Olympics Could Have Done Differently
Though the follower numbers were there for some of these initiatives, as far as jaw-dropping social media programs go, the efforts put forth by the IOC, VANOC, USOC, and NBC didn’t quite make the mark. Did they receive the attention the organizations hoped they would? Possibly. On a global level, promotion for the Olympics felt sparse, though, so it’s not surprising people seemed fairly unaware of these organizations’ social media activities. What could they have done differently to improve? A few things:
1. Engage. After a little bit of listening and monitoring we found that approximately half the online conversations surrounding the Olympics have been happening on sites like Twitter. That’s a major word-of-mouth opportunity missed. If the Olympic committees had used Twitter as a channel to connect versus a channel to push content, the interactivity and conversations that stemmed from that two-way relationship might have spread outside the confines of the Internet, increasing overall attention and interest.
2. Collaborate. Yes, all four organizations have individual messaging and brands that should receive recognition during the Olympics. But, the Olympic brand in its entirety is a brand that speaks directly to collaboration. It would have been nice to see a unified microsite built around the collective social media efforts of these organizations, in addition to the individual efforts we saw.
The most prolific information about the games actually came from media outlets like The New York Times and Yahoo! Sports, not from the committees themselves. A single microsite may have acted as a central hub for that sort of information, putting more eyes and attention on both the collaborative and individual initiatives of the Olympic organizations.
3. Build community. Social media is at its best when it’s used to foster connection between people and brands through passions. The Olympics are steeped in athletic competition and global unity – two passion points poised for some serious community building. A collaborative online community centered around the games could have been (and still be) used to inspire community member and Olympic fan connectivity between events, act as a listening channel to help shape the activities supporting the upcoming games, and keep people interested year-round in the work and pursuits of the Olympic committees.
We look forward to keeping a close watch on the growing Olympics presence in social media, and hopefully seeing stronger conversation and engagement strategies at the next games, London 2012.
How do you think the social media strategies of the main Olympic entities played out this year? Were you able to engage with other fans on social media? Do you think things could have been better? Let us know in the comments.
[img credit: Miss Barabanov]
Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
Tags: analysis, facebook, ioc, nbc, olympics, social media, sports, twitter, vanoc
NBC’s Jeff Zucker talks about Boxee with congress, Boxee talks about The Facts with Jeff Zucker
So, Jeff Zucker of NBC was hanging out his new best friend Brian Roberts from Comcast today, talking up the proposed acquisition in front of Congress. A certain Rep. Rick Boucher asked “what about Boxee?” and things got a little interesting. Jeff says that Boxee was “illegally taking the content that was on Hulu,” as opposed to the “many distributors of the Hulu content that we have legal distribution deals with.” We’re not exactly sure which deals Zucker is referring to, but Boxee’s Avner Ronen takes issue with the first point:
I’d like to set the record straight regarding Boxee’s access to Hulu. Boxee uses a web browser to access Hulu’s content – just like Firefox or Internet Explorer. Boxee users click on a link to Hulu’s website and the video within that page plays. We don’t “take” the video. We don’t copy it. We don’t put ads on top of it. The video and the ads play like they do on other browsers or on Hulu Desktop. And it certainly is legal to do so.
He also takes issue with some of Zucker’s other points, pointing out that Hulu dropped Boxee based on a request from NBC, while Zucker calls it a decision by “Hulu management,” and he also points out that Boxee hasn’t found NBC as open to negotiations as Zucker claims to be, but will be giving it another shot — perhaps with some of that subscription fee cash mixed in somewhere to sweeten the deal? It’s worth watching the short clip on C-Span and reading the entire Boxee rebuttal, even if it won’t make you any less angry.
NBC’s Jeff Zucker talks about Boxee with congress, Boxee talks about The Facts with Jeff Zucker originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mock Ken Burns Documentary Chronicles NBC’s Late Night Civil War [VIDEO]
Is the NBC late night civil war worthy of a historical documentary? Jimmy Kimmel thought so, so he and his staff added to the already huge catalog of late night humor on the subject by throwing together a mock documentary about it. The doc is in the style of illustrious PBS documentarian Ken Burns.
Burns is famous for documentary hit series like The War, National Parks: America’s Best Idea, Jazz and The Civil War, all of which are known for their use of old-timey photos, candid interviews with individuals who know the subject and soothing narration. All those elements are included in this late night mockup, and The Civil War was unsurprisingly chosen as the primary inspiration.
The documentary tells the tale of President Jeff Zucker, who ordered Jebediah Jay Leno’s forces to invade the territory of Primetime, only to be forced to turn back and seize the once-friendly Late Night territory held by a young upstart named Conan O’Brien. Tragedy ensues, including a terrible casualty of war: a bear known for not being very appropriate in public. Watch below.
Tags: celebrities, conan o’brien, humor, jay leno, jimmy kimmel, ken burns, media, nbc, television, youtube
Mock Ken Burns Documentary Chronicles NBC’s Late Night Civil War [VIDEO]
Is the NBC late night civil war worthy of a historical documentary? Jimmy Kimmel thought so, so he and his staff added to the already huge catalog of late night humor on the subject by throwing together a mock documentary about it. The doc is in the style of illustrious PBS documentarian Ken Burns.
Burns is famous for documentary his series like The War, National Parks: America’s Best Idea, Jazz, and The Civil War, all of which are known for their use of old-timey photos, candid interviews with individuals who know the subject, and soothing narration. All those elements are included in this late night mockup, and The Civil War was unsurprisingly chosen as the primary inspiration.
The documentary tells the tale of President Jeff Zucker, who ordered Jebediah Jay Leno’s forces to invade the territory of Primetime, only to be forced to turn back and seize the once-friendly Late Night territory held by a young upstart named Conan O’Brien. Tragedy ensues, including a terrible casualty of war: a bear known for not being very appropriate in public. Watch below.
Tags: celebrities, conan o’brien, humor, jay leno, jimmy kimmel, ken burns, media, nbc, television, youtube
New NBC Logo Combines Fail Whale and Peacock [PIC]
Twitter user Mitch Canter (@studionashvegas) posted a TwitPic of his vision for a redesigned NBC logo that combines the Twitter Fail Whale and the NBC peacock to reflect the Internet’s disgust with NBC’s late night fiasco as well as its support of Conan O’Brien.
The fail whale was designed by artist Yiying Lu, and it has become something of a pop culture icon. That’s not necessarily a good thing when you consider that it only appears when something goes terribly wrong.
Here’s the full-sized image.
Tags: celebrities, conan, conan o’brien, fail whale, failcock, leno, nbc, trending, twitpic, twitter
NBC Pulls Web Clips of Conan’s Most Expensive Bit Ever [VIDEO]
NBC has gone on the offensive and pulled the web clips of Conan O’Brien’s vengeful “Bugatti Veyron” sketch from Hulu and NBC.com. The move was made to avoid costly fees associated with Conan’s decision to play “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones, for his own satisfaction.
The controversial $1.5 million comedy sketch begins with COCO taking pleasure in the fact that even though his show is about to go off air, “we can do whatever we want, and they [NBC] have to pay for it.”
To prove it, O’Brien introduced a new Tonight Show character — the Bugatti Veyron mouse — while playing the iconic Rolling Stones hit “Satisfaction” in the background as the mouse’s theme song. The Bugatti Veyron is most expensive car in the world, just dressed up as mouse, and because of O’Brien’s song choice, the sketch that it stars in will be most the expensive bit to date.
O’Brien states:
“Let me ask you a question. Is this appropriate music for a car that looks like a mouse? No! Does it add anything at all to this comedy bit? No, it doesn’t! Is it crazy expensive to play on the air — not to mention the rights to re-air this clip on the Internet? Hell yes.”
And that’s just it. NBC is hoping to avoid those pricey track fees associated with online views of the bit. So should you wish to relive the oddly comedic moment on NBC’s official online properties, however, you’re out of luck. While copies, like the YouTube one below, still abound online, NBC’s version of last’s night show is absent one Bugatti Veyron mouse.
At this point all we can do is wait anxiously for the next show to see what O’Brien still has left up his sleeve.
Reviews: YouTube
Tags: bugatti veyron mouse, celebrities, conan, conan o’brien, media, nbc, rolling stones, trending, tv
Online Video Network Revision3 Offers Conan a Job
The amount of money Conan O’Brien will get in a settlement with NBC and from a deal with a new TV network will likely be equal to at least a few percentage points of the entire online video market. Still, that’s not stopping Revision3 from offering O’Brien a job via an open letter.
While the online video network doesn’t specify a price — and the letter is obviously very tongue-in-cheek — they’re most likely a comma or two out of Conan’s asking price. Nonetheless, when you think about what’s unfolded over at NBC, the online outfit offers a number of compelling reasons that Conan should consider such a move:
- Ad spending in online video was up 35% in 2009
- No air time: People can watch Conan’s show at any time
- No censors: While NBC might be claiming the Masturbating Bear is their intellectual property, Conan can push the envelope even further on the web.
Is that enough for Conan to consider it? Almost certainly not, but I don’t think we’re far from a major entertainment personality testing the waters of an online-only show.
When you consider the benefits that Revision3 mentions, the huge audiences we’re starting to see for celebrity-themed live video (and the built-in audience for watching it on-demand on YouTube), and Internet-connected television, the stars are beginning to align for a Howard Stern-Sirius type moment for the medium. Just don’t bet on that moment being a Conan-Revision3 deal.
Reviews: YouTube
Tags: conan o’brien, media, nbc, ONLINE VIDEO, revision3, television
