Analyzing the Role of Social Media in Promoting the 2016 Rio Olympics

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Introduction to Critical Thinking
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Executive Summary
Social media has contributed to the healthy statistics and numbers of the mega event in a
more positive and enormous way. In this report, the main focus is on the role and impact of
social media in the promotion of the mega event. It is evident that major event organisations
and sponsors are now acknowledging the importance of specific media mix in the staging and
promotion of the various mega events. The role of the different social media platforms and
outlets have been summarised in this report.
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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction..........................................................................................................................4
2.0 Discussion and Main Body analysis....................................................................................5
2.1 Role of Social media in promotion of Olympics event 2016...........................................5
2.2 Impact of Social media on 2016 Olympics event............................................................6
2.3 Comparison of the impact of Social media on 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics
event.......................................................................................................................................6
2.4 Modern marketing methods compared to Traditional marketing methods in promotion
of a mega event......................................................................................................................7
3.0 Conclusion............................................................................................................................8
Reference List............................................................................................................................9
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1.0 Introduction
Social media marketing means the marketing activities conducted on the different social
media platforms and networks or the promotion of products and events via social media. In
this report “Introduction to Critical thinking” with references to the mega event “Summer
Olympics Event 2016”, the purpose is to deliver the learner with the potential to understand
the importance of social media and marketing in promotion or marketing of the respective
mega event. Social media plays an important and significant role in the promotion and
success of a mega event. In this report, a comparison has been devised between the recent
selected mega event and the previous mega event of the same forte. This relation will also be
analysed in relation to the traditional marketing method adopted by the concerned parties.
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2.0 Discussion and Main Body analysis
A sport is basically played as a form of game or contest between two or more competitive
teams or individuals. Sports are generally categorised as indoor game and outdoor games.
Indoor games are the games that are generally played inside a specific area such as within a
home and examples include chess, carom, and table-tennis. Outdoor games are referred to as
the games that are played in an outside area and examples are cricket, football and outdoor
games. However, there are many mega events held every year in these individual sectors such
as ICC Cricket World Cup, Olympic Games, Fifa World Cup and many more (Filo et al.,
2015). However, social media plays an important role in promoting the event to a large extent
as a pervasive global force. The potential organisers of Rio Olympics Games event 2016
renounced a strengthening amount of storytelling power to the various journalists and as well
as to the general users active on the social media by tweeting and posting information. It
stated that users who will publish on the platforms of social media are the specific ones who
will define and prove the success of the mega event.
2.1 Role of Social media in promotion of Olympics event 2016
Social media marketing (SMM) has played a phenomenal role during the Olympics event
2016 that was held in Rio, Brazil. National Broadcasting Company (NBC) acquires the
rights of broadcasting the official coverage of Olympics event until 2032 and this involves
mobile viewing as well as TV viewing (telegraph.co.uk, 2019). NBC was targeting the
potential young viewers to involve them into viewing the coverage of the mega event.
Buzzfeed has collaborated with NBC to generate specific segments in order to share and
exchange it on the different social media platforms and outlets such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and many more. Buzzfeed had assembled and appointed a special media team to
monitor and cover the mega event game. YouTube is also coordinating with Olympics event
until 2032 to promote and enhance the success of the mega event (Clavio and Walsh, 2014).
NBC has also actively maintained its Facebook and Twitter pages that are constantly flooded
with latest updates and athlete documentaries leading up to Rio and continuing its each to
Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics event and throughout the events a whole. Social media is
considered as the crucial tool or technique of marketing that is executed in order to promote
the largest sporting contests or events in all across the globe. It can be concluded that digital
marketing and other methods of promotion enforced a positive and successful impact on the
mega event.
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2.2 Impact of Social media on 2016 Olympics event
Even before the Olympics event of 2016, Brazil was producing the headlines for issues
associated with political instabilities and environmental concerns. These issues and concerns
amalgamated with the promotion of the mega event generated more than 54 million tweets
and mentions regarding the mega event on individual social media platforms and outlets. The
main revenue breakdown of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for 2016 Olympic
event was 48% and 45% for sponsorship and broadcasting individually and just a minor
percentage of 8% from sales of ticket and licensing (medium.com, 2019). The main factor
that made the 2016 Olympics event unique and noticeably different from other mega events
was the continuous active participation and interaction of the fans and users via the social
media platforms. The sharing and frequent exchanging of experiences of famous players and
athletes with the various fans from all across the globe mad the 2016 mega event a huge
success. According to London TIME’s, Rio 2016 Olympic event had an official following of
10 million users across all the different social media platforms and outlets (medium.com,
2019).
2.3 Comparison of the impact of Social media on 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics
event
Social media played a bigger part in capturing the attention of the world towards the 2012
London Olympics event as according to the Associated Press report, the growth and
development of social media has skyrocketed since the 2008 Olympics event held in Beijing
(forbes.com, 2019). IOC however issued a set of rules and regulations that chained the usage
of Olympics athletes and participants on the different social media platforms and outlets. For
example, the athletes and participants were not allowed to post or tweet pictures and images
associated with the mega event and they were also not allowed to personally acknowledge
their individual sponsors in any possible way. This also led to a protest driven by the social
media and athletes participating in the concerned mega event. Despite the strong restrictions
of IOC on the athletes and participants, social media created a memorable online presence.
The gold medal win of Usain Bolt in 2012 Olympic event generated a total amount of 8,000
tweets whereas the win of Gabby Douglas produced a tweet of 14,000 tweets (forbes.com,
2019).
According to IOC, 90% of the revenue gained from the different sources of revenue is
redistributed to various sporting movements in order to support their process of staging the
mega event and promoting the worldwide growth of the movement (olympic.org, 2019). The
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remaining 10% is incurred on the business activities and marketing operations of IOC in the
staging of the event. The average viewing of users on TV of 2016 Olympics event was
estimated at 20% which when compared to 2012 Olympics event was quite higher. Rio 2016
Olympics event seriously set a watershed moment in the broadcasting and marketing of the
specific mega event. This is because it highlighted the initiated changes and development in
media consumption attitudes and habits and paying focus on how the various broadcasters
expanded their strategies to deliver their users with exceptional service and smooth viewing.
The digital coverage of Rio Olympics event was double compared to the traditional television
viewing of 2012 Olympics event. Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBC) deployed more than
2,000 cameras to monitor 7,100 hours of live coverage with different high-tech motion
cameras to capture unique camera close-ups (Stavros et al., 2014).
2.4 Modern marketing methods compared to Traditional marketing methods in
promotion of a mega event
The traditional methods of marketing and promotion applies to older media communication
means such as television, point of purchase (POP), billboards, flyers and many more. Some
personal and formal interactions such as in-person events and face-to-face interactions are
still the leading traditional methods of communicating or marketing. However, digital
marketing or e-marketing has provided a greater insight in monitoring the actions and
feedbacks of consumer in the promotion of the mega event like 2016 Olympic event. Digital
marketing has also bought its various challenges and difficulties along with the benefits and
advantages in the promotion of mega events as it creates an ample amount of noise leading to
a rise in spamming activities and lack of reliability. Both the types of marketing have their
own specialisations and the main advantage associated with digital marketing is that it helps
to target its consumers in such a direct way that is generally not possible with the traditional
marketing methods and techniques in the promotion of the mega event. However, the type of
promotion totally depends on the event sponsors and organisations, as it is their key decision
to determine the most appropriate form of marketing for the desired market and how it is
specifically connected with the operation of the mega event.
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3.0 Conclusion
The purpose of the report was to provide the learner with the understanding regarding the
comparison of the role and impact of social media in the promotion and marketing of the
highlighted mega event. It can be concluded that the particular sport that closely aligns with
the central demographic interests and choices is the best bet for the event organisations to
actively engage or involve their users in its promotion. The various broadcasters and social
media platforms helped the mega event 2016 Olympics to reach and appeal to a bigger global
audience and spectators than ever before and with more coverage than other Olympics event
would have ever had. In this report, various potential comparisons have been drawn in
relation with the previous event i.e. 2012 London Olympics event considering the role and
impact of social media in the promotion of the events. A specific comparison has also been
drawn between traditional methods of marketing and digital marketing.
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Reference List
Clavio, G. and Walsh, P., 2014. Dimensions of social media utilization among college sport
fans. Communication & Sport, 2(3), pp.261-281.
Filo, K., Lock, D. and Karg, A., 2015. Sport and social media research: A review. Sport
management review, 18(2), pp.166-181.
forbes.com (2019). The One Reason Why The 2016 Olympics Changed The Games Forever.
[online] Forbes.com. Available at:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberttuchman/2016/08/17/the-one-reason-the-2016-olympics-
changed-the-games-forever/#348117ed97b8 [Accessed 9 Feb. 2019].
medium.com (2019). The Rio Report: What 53,000,000 Social Posts Told us About the 2016
Olympics. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/mention/the-rio-report-what-
53-000-000-social-posts-told-us-about-the-2016-olympics-b039d9ab1d65 [Accessed 9 Feb.
2019].
olympic.org (2019). IOC - International Olympic Committee. [online] International Olympic
Committee. Available at: https://www.olympic.org/the-ioc [Accessed 9 Feb. 2019].
Stavros, C., Meng, M.D., Westberg, K. and Farrelly, F., 2014. Understanding fan motivation
for interacting on social media. Sport management review, 17(4), pp.455-469.
telegraph.co.uk (2019). The importance of social media in sport. [online] The Telegraph.
Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/business-of-sport/social-media-in-sport/
[Accessed 9 Feb. 2019].
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