The 2016 Rio Olympics are now only two months away - and that also means we're only two months from an Olympics-dominated news cycle, with interest in the event expected to reach fever-pitch across social media. But coverage of the Rio Olympics will be different this time around. While the last Games was only four years ago, a lot has changed since then.
For example, in 2012, with the last Olympics was held:
- Facebook had 584 million daily active users - it now has 1.09 billion
- Facebook was facilitating less than 700k video views per month - the platform now serves 8 billion video views per day
- Snapchat had around 100,000 total users - it now has over 100 million daily active users, watching 10 billion+ videos on the platform every 24 hours
And those are just a couple of the headline numbers that will change how the Olympics is covered, discussed and viewed across the world come August.
Of course, the other big element of the Olympics hype will be the brand integrations and 'newsjacking'.
With so much attention on the sporting arena, many brands will be keen to align their marketing efforts with the discussion in order to grab their share of attention. So what's the best way for them to do that? Facebook recently commissioned research firm GfK to conduct a study of more than 14,000 people across 17 countries to get some insight into how people plan to participate in and celebrate the Olympics, highlighting overall interest levels, favorite events and how people are planning to keep up with Olympics news.
And in a finding that will be a surprise to no one (especially given the aforementioned changes since 2012), 64% of Games enthusiasts plan on using a mobile device to experience the event.
Best ensure your Olympics integration is optimized for mobile.