Olympic Games and social media

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part. This old statement still applies to most athletes, but also more or less to the audience. Since the start of the Olympics last Friday, sports fanatics are trying hard to participate in their own way by keeping informed about news and results from Vancouver. To reach these fans, several organizations are reporting on the Games via various channels, mainly consisting of social media. But where can you find these channels? An overview is listed below.

Google

Using the slogan ‘Get Inside the Games with Google Maps’, Google offers several tools to get their visitors involved. They offer specific information about events, medals and even about the athletes themselves. Another nice option is the possibility to take a look at the Olympic Village and sporting venues via Street View, which almost gives people the feeling that they are in Vancouver themselves. The www.google.com/games10 website is available in 42 languages.

Twitter

The Twitter page of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (Vanoc) has recently passed the barrier of 10,000 followers. Their aim is to keep you informed with ‘timely tweets from the Vanoc Communications Team’. Because Twitter is a powerful medium to spread news fast, http://twitter.com/2010tweets will serve you to keep up-to-date.

Facebook

Not surprisingly, you can find many pages and groups which are related to the Olympic Games on Facebook. The biggest one at the moment, http://www.facebook.com/olympicgames, is very active and has more than 1.3 million fans. The page shares a lot of content on the Olympics, like information about events and a forum which can be used to discuss with other fans. You can also play Vancouver mini games and there’s a photo contest, inviting fans to submit their coolest photo of the Games.

Hyves

The Vancouver 2010 hyve works together with NOC*NSF, which is the official organization for sports in the Netherlands. The page, which can be found at http://olympischespelen.hyves.nl/, has more than 13,000 members. You can find the Olympic schedule as well as several blogs, gadgets and pictures on Vancouver. Last but not least, it is possible to pimp your Hyves profile into the Olympic style.

Using these social media, it is almost impossible to miss essential information about our Olympic heroes. Wish you lots of fun while following the Olympic Games!

Hello World!

Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a Tilburg University student following the course Media Use In Organizations. As the name says itself, interactivity is a major point in this course. It forces all of its students to use Twitter and write blogs about media in organizations. The word ‘forces’ sounds negative, I can almost hear you thinking, but no it isn’t that bad. It's the opposite. I think everyone should more or less be forced to get familiar with all kinds of social media, because it has a great potential.

But more on that later. This is my first blog and I was introducing myself. In my upcoming blogs, I will concentrate on the use of ICT in organizations, focusing on social media. Looking at myself, I have already used social media like Hyves, Facebook and LinkedIn for quite a long time. And since the start of this course I also find myself Twittering now and then. The more I use these social media, the more I realize the benefits it has for both individuals and organizations.

My aim for this blog is to gain attention for this topic and to reach as many people as possible. I will not only blog about social media, I will also use them. I made a sort of agreement with them like ‘I am going to blog about online media, so ok, at least you can help me to reach as many people as possible’. So now me and my social media have reached the point of mutual dependence. While writing this I realize I better blog nice about them, but on the other hand I promise I’ll always be objective. Let’s see what it will bring.

And now, let’s talk about you. You’re one of the, I assume (or hope), many visitors of this weblog. This means you are part of the ‘traffic’. And now it becomes interesting, because analyzing the traffic on this blog is another part of this course. Using Google Analytics, it is possible to analyze some characteristics of visitors. So this means that Big Brother is watching you! Well, no it’s not that scary, don’t be afraid. I am able to see the different types of visitors on my blog, their different countries and that kind of stuff. This is quite interesting because it also says something about the reach of my social media. The more powerful they are, the more potential visitors I gain. Keeping that in mind, I promise I also keep you informed about that.

After all, this means that you are also a quite important part for me during this course. I am going to inform you the best I can about Media Use in Organizations, developments in social media like Hyves, Facebook and Twitter, and so on. And on the other hand, you are my traffic on this blog. Is this another example of mutual dependence? I hope so.

Pleased to meet you! Hope to see you again on my next blog!

Sebastiaan