Everywhere you look is #London2012 - on your TV, on your laptop, on your tablet and even on your phone. But there is something deeper that is going on around you that is more than just a gold medal replay or an Australian result. It is the phenomenon known as social media and is right at your fingertips if you choose to participate.
The world’s first ‘Social Olympics’ is certainly upon us and #London2012 has without doubt lived up to its title. Five million comments were made about the #OpeningCeremony - 4.86M of those were public Twitter comments and the remaining 140K was left for Facebook. This figure made it the third highest special event of all time for social TV - behind the 2012 Grammy and BET Awards.
Since then, the idea of social media for our athletes has proved to be a major obstacle for some, particularly the media. Emily Seebohm supposedly blamed her silver medal in the 100m backstroke last week on her overuse of Facebook and Twitter in the lead up to her race, although she later denied this. A Swiss footballer was sent home after sending out a racist tweet against his South Korean opponents and a British diver was at the receiving end of an insensitive tweet from a fan after a poor performance in his event.
These are some of the implications of integrating ‘social’ into sport, where the Olympics right now is at the forefront.
Back home in Australia, AFL players are also riding the highs and lows of the social wave. Back in June, Carlton’s Brock McLean was suspended for one game and fined $5000 by his club for making an offensive tweet towards a supporter.
Currently, more than 40 of the Adelaide Football Club’s players, coaches and staff are using Twitter. The Club also has its own account and is a big supporter of the rising trend - having been the first club to put its twitter handle on their media backdrop.
Almost 20,000 followers are following the Club on Twitter and nearly every single one of those are followed back. So in case you haven’t noticed, the social sports train is moving at a rapid pace.
Although it can get athletes and footballers in hot water at times, it works a treat for fans that want to engage with their sporting heroes. It also provides a two-way communication for the clubs to reach out to their wider audience and build their publicity and potentially even their supporter/membership base.
Social media is also rapidly becoming the fastest news breaker. Everything is old news by the time it has been printed in the morning newspaper.
So I ask you, do yourself a favour and participate in sporting social media - it’s a trend well worth trending. #gocrows
Joel Smith is the official Adelaide Crows commentator on http://app.playup.com. Follow him on Twitter @PlayUp_AdelCrow
