During the 2012 Summer Olympics, I wrote a blog about
the use of social media and how people were calling it the year of the
“socialympics.” It was the first time that the use of social media was so
widespread during an Olympic competition that it became one of the many channels
of information for updates and activities related to the games.
Fast-forward two years later and social media was center
stage at the 2014 Winter Olympics. So much of this year’s games were played out
on social media and the updates featured not just the results, but many of side
stories that became headline news.
USA Today sports
reporter Kelly Whiteside, wrote this article “If London Was the Twitter Olympics,
Sochi is the Viral Games,” about how the earliest news from
the games was not the first athlete to earn a gold medal, but rather the
horrible conditions reported by the media as they arrived in Sochi. The hashtag
#sochiproblems quickly began trending on Twitter.
It is probably safe to say that many of us first heard about
the wardrobe malfunction of Russian skater Olga Graf and the bobsledder Johnny
Quinn getting stuck in the bathroom via Facebook or Twitter.
And there was another role for social media during this
year’s events – security. BAE Systems
partnered with Homeland Security Magazine
for a daily analysis of social media to find “trends in the public dialogue around security,
infrastructure, transportation, cyber events, and environmental concerns.”
As the world watched their favorite athletes compete, they
also witnessed many other events unfold via social media. I believe these types
of events underscore power of social media today and how easy it is for
something to go viral whether we want it to or not.
Social media is no longer a separate tool in the public
relations toolkit. It is an integral part of sharing our messages and
communicating the most important and interesting things to among our key
audiences.
