Welcome to the “Socialympics.”

With the summer Olympics just around the corner, I’m eager to see how social media will affect how we watch and experience the Olympic games.  According to the New York Times, “these Games will be the first Social Media Olympics — the ‘Socialympics,’ as some are calling them.”

Although social media platforms have been available in the past (Facebook was founded in 2004, YouTube in 2005 and Twitter in 2006), in the four years since the Beijing Games, use of social media platforms has exploded. Facebook has gone from about 100 million active users to almost 900 million, Twitter from six million to about 140 million. Many more people now have smartphones, so they can react immediately to something they have seen in a stadium, arena, court, pool or ring. Not to mention, the athletes themselves are actively engaged on social media platforms and are constantly making updates on their performance, experiences, etc. (according to this infographic, Michael Phelps has 159k twitter followers and 5.1 Facebook likes).

Clearly the London Games will be tweeted, tagged, liked, blogged, mashed and rehashed like no previous Olympics.  Regardless, I’m excited and can’t wait for the GAMES TO BEGIN!

How will you use social media to follow the Olympic games?  Will you just follow trending topics or are you following the athletes on Twitter and Facebook?  If you come across special apps, we’d love to hear about them!