With the 2012 Summer Olympics already well under way in London, many of us are setting our DVR to record events, checking results online, and getting into the spirit to cheer on our favorite athletes. But did you know just how much these Olympics have changed the social media game versus four or even two years ago? Here’s a quick rundown of some amazing stats:
- The BBC is expecting roughly 1 terabit per second of traffic relating to the Games.
- Twitter reports that the Olympic opening ceremonies were mentioned over 9.66 million times between the London starting time and the ending of the last U.S. broadcast of the ceremonies.
- The most popular current Olympian is basketball player LeBron James, who has roughly 4.7 million followers on Twitter alone.
- Michael Phelps – a bonafide superstar in his own right, but not quite on the level of James – has 187,000+ followers on Twitter.
- Twitter was banned in China during the 2008 Beijing Games, but London will more than make up for that, having added huge WiFi stations to handle expected traffic overload.
- The International Olympic Committee (IOC) hosts an official Twitter page, but there’s also the U.S. Olympic Team page and an exclusive Olympian only list of Twitter accounts you can check out to get even more closely acquainted with your favorite athletes.
So despite the five-hour time difference between London and the East Coast (more if you live further west), you can stay up to date on all the latest Olympic happenings. Just don’t follow the NBC Twitter page too closely – they’ve been accused of leaking a lot of spoilers during the games already. Happy Olympics!
Infographic courtesy of ExactTarget.
