Can you imagine the Olympics' coverage without Twitter?

On sunday whilst travelling home from the sailing club, we were hoping to pick up some coverage on the radio of the Olympics, although hoping to follow Ben Anislie’s first race, in reality any sport would’ve done.  Our athletes have trained for years in order to earn their place at the Olympics and yet all the presenters could do was complain about the number of empty seats in the stadiums. So where next did we look in order to find out what was happening on the water in Weymouth and at the Olympic village in London, yep you guessed it Twitter!

What is Twitter
For those who are not familiar with Twitter, here is a brief overview:

• twitter is an online conversation between an twitter user and their followers through the use of tweets.
• a tweet is a short conversation that uses 140 characters that is sent to all of their followers.
• all users have a username starting with @ e.g. @boxpr_ltd

Talking the lingo

• tweet: this is the 140 characters the twitter user has to make a statement
• retweet: this is when one of your followers shares your tweet with their followers, it spreads your message to a wider audience = happy days! If you find something interesting (and relevant) then just click retweet, simples!
• # tag: this highlights a key word or interest that others can search to help find twitter users with a  similar interest.

Twitter was established in 2006, and since then has gone from strength to strength, it had 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007, which grew to 100 million tweets posted per quarter in 2008. In February 2010, Twitter users were sending 50 million tweets per day and by March over 70,000 registered applications. According to Twitter, as of June 2010, about 65 million tweets were posted each day, equalling about 750 tweets sent each second. By March 2011, that was about 140 million tweets posted daily. It will be interesting to see how many tweets are sent during the Olympics and Paralympics.

Lou from Box PR successfully passed her MA in Marketing based around how social media was impacting the marine world, so at Box PR we knew we had to get to grips with what was going on with Twitter, learn the lingo and how it all works.  Even with this in mind, it was still a surprise to see how Twitter is impacting the coverage of the London Olympics 2012. 

London Olympics 2012 and Twitter

There are so many different portals we can follow the Olympics on, whether it be through the TV, online, on a mobile device through apps or the likes of social media including facebook and twitter. The commentators are on Twitter, as is the media, the athletes, the coaches and their families.  For those of us who are working whilst the Olympics are on, we really don’t have to miss a moment of coverage. Find out the latest results,  live updates from events as the action unfolds as well as the the best way to get to an event, when a specific event is on and what channel you can see it live on, listen to the athletes as they prepare for their events and their feelings afterwards. it really is a unquie portal in which you can be part of the Olympics in London 2012 if you are not able to be there in the stadium or by the river banks, or on the Nothe in Weymouth.

If you are not on twitter, now is the time to get involved and see for yourself the true power of this site. Here are a few tips to get you on your way with regards to the Olympics.

Use the hash tag infront of your favourite sport and other key words relating to the Olympics

• #sailing
• #ourgreatestteam
• #teamGB
• #london2012

This will then highlight key users who are using those hash tags who you can follow, you will find the @bbcsportUK, @bbcsport, @mrjakehumphrey, @andyhunt_TeamGB and @clarebalding1

Don’t miss a moment of Olympic action, sign up, get tweeting and show your support to your country (in our case @TeamGB!)!!

Let the medal counting continue

Box PR team