Olympic Opening Ceremony dominated by happy tweeters

Twitter has not only beaten, but seriously outpaced all other social media platforms when it came to online discussions about the Olympic Opening Ceremony. The opening is an integral part of the games, and the high level of media build up and live coverage makes it one of the biggest stunts going .

According to research from iProspect and Carat, a whopping 97% of all ‘conversations’ online took place on Twitter. Fans of maths will realise this left just 3% for Facebook, Youtube and the other “blogs and forums” surveyed. UK users accounted for 58% of tweets, leaving 22% for the US and 20% for the rest of the world (although it’s worth noting Twitter is not as popular globally as in the UK and US).

Sentiment was positive overall, with 60% of all tweets, posts and comments being deemed positive, 14% negative and everything else somewhere in-between. Anyone strolling past the London Eye will have likely noticed a pleasant yellow glow over the weekend.

While the 97% stat is huge, it’s not overly surprising. Given the rapid pace of the ceremony’s activities, the ability to quickly fire off high volumes of tweets as you watch make it the best choice for anyone wanting to get there two cents (or pence) out as quickly as possible. While you could argue the same for Facebook, anyone who posts status updates with the same frequency as tweets will feel a backlash from friends who see their newsfeed fill up with ‘oh look, it’s Mr Bean playing the piano’ and ‘those nurses sure can dance’.

Twitter was around for the previous Olympics in 2008, but its use amongst the masses has skyrocketed since then – particularly in the host country. Four years down the road it will be interesting to see if this dominant 97% increases, or it subverted by a new social media outlet.

Photo credit: AP

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