London 2012 one year on: A second stirring in social media

July 30, 2013

The London 2012 Olympic Games started exactly one year ago last Saturday – an important milestone which sparked much commentary on social media platforms, as the UK jumped at the opportunity to reminisce. A search of UK only mentions of “Olympics” or “London 2012” on Twitter using Radian 6 shows Brits reliving the magic brought to the capital by last year’s Games.

In the past 7 days, there have been a significant number of tweets published relating to the Games – 29,754 in total (UK only). The hashtags being used within this volume of conversation, demonstrates the patriotic and nostalgic sentiment being expressed. Aside from the obvious #Olympics and #London2012, other popular hashtags included #legacy, #teamgb and #openingceremony.

Hashtag search within UK mentions of “Olympics” and “London 2012” on Twitter, courtesy of Radian 6

General public, media and athletes were all getting involved in the conversation. A single tweet from Olympic cylist for Team GB, Lizzie Armistead drove an impressive amount of engagement:

It looks like this year’s tribute to 2012, the ‘Sainsbury’s Olympic Anniversary Games’, also succeeded in generating social media conversation.

Aside from what Radian6 can tell us about the jungle of Twitter conversations, I think it is positive to see that the Team GB social media estates are still going strong, successfully engaging UK fans and followers. The Facebook Page now boasts over one million fans, and the Twitter profile has over 600,000 followers. Both profiles are updated on a daily basis, and the Facebook Page in particular is a fantastic source of visual content. As I write this, a Facebook post published less than an hour ago, has already received over 1,000 likes – the British public are still clearly enjoying being able to cheer on Team GB, wherever they may be participating!

So in summary, what is clear is that although it may now be 368 days since the east end of London burst into life, the UK is still buzzing as a result. If only we could go back again…

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