London’s Olympic Stadium will have many athletes in it this Friday. Twitter, is kicking
off an Olympics events page that will contain tweets from athletes, their
families, fans and others. Twitter is getting ready to join an Olympic relay that it
hopes will help it gain ground on Facebook. Twitter has partnered with NBC Universal. With the
partnership, Twitter hopes to use the Olympics as a launch pad into a more
sustainable business. This is one of the first times Twitter will serve as an
official narrator for a live event. NBC will be directing viewers to the
Twitter page.
Twitter, which allows people to post 140-character
messages, has built up more than 140 million monthly users. Twitter has also become a resource for people
to find news. The executives at Twitter decided they want the 6 year old
service to find a larger audience and a serious money maker. As a result,
Twitter’s Olympics bet is crucial. “This is a way for new users to sample
Twitter,” said Chloe Sladden, Twitter’s vice president of media.
“There’s no way of knowing exactly how much advertisers will spend on
Twitter during the Olympics, but there is no doubt they will be jockeying for
ad space during some of the key events of the Games, when traffic on Twitter
will explode,” eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson said.
Twitter has prepared for the Games for months. The company has already
performed dozens of promos with athletes and national sports associations to “sell”
them on using its service. Twitter has requested that companies should buy ads
on Twitter to spread their Olympics marketing messages.
Advertisers said Twitter has pushed itself to them as an effective marketing
vehicle. Twitter will be visible offline, on television and online. The London
Eye, a giant Ferris wheel dominating the skyline, will light up each night
based on the sentiment of Olympic tweets, although Twitter said that isn’t part
of its campaign. Once a night, the London Eye will light up in a pattern that
reflects the prevailing sentiment about the games among Twitter users that day.
Positive tweets will turn the thing yellow, negative ones purple.
This is really interesting to me. I have several friends who have recently opened Twitter accounts and have been pushing me to join, but to be completely honest, I have had no interest. Part of the reason is that in general, Twitterers (I don't know if that's a term, but it works for me) are annoying. At least celebrity-wise. Last week, while watching "America's Got Talent", Howie Mandell was blatantly broadcasting what he and what viewers were saying about the show's contestants, at every chance he got. But now that I know that NBC (the network that broadcasts AGT) and Twitter have partnered up, it makes a little more sense.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be interesting to see not only the London Eye being used in such a way, but also how Twitter is embraced in this prestigious global event.
What a great way for fans to stay on top of what and how their favorite athletes are doing during the Olympic Games. I have never used or even seen Twitter, but I do know what a huge media giant it is. Advertisers will more than likely latch on to this opportunity knowing the stats on users and how many should be watching the Games. The eMarketer analyst is probably right in that the traffic on Twitter will “explode.” Personally, I will be tuning in and looking for the Ferris wheel lighting up based on tweets. What an interesting way to get in on the money to be made from the Olympic Games.
ReplyDeleteI think it is amazing that we have come so far technologically that we are now able to follow our athletes both on and off their chosen sport. Only a few years ago, with the exception of those who were actually participating in the Olympics or those who knew an athlete personally could have this kind of information. I do not have a twitter account, but with all the news buzz about them lately I just might have to get one. I like the idea of hearing a piece of news that a favorite celebrity just wrote, is would probably feel akin to getting an email from someone famous, which I think would be cool. I am also interested to learn more about how twitter is able to do marketing, since I don’t know what an actual “tweet” looks like, so I will definitely be doing some more research into this.
ReplyDeleteI think the Olympics is one of the only events that gets families glued to each other to watch specific events. With this all comes with the time difference especially since London is ahead of us by about 6 hours. I think being able to keep up with what is going on while we are sleeping or even working is very crucial and i would like to thank Twitter for making that possible. However i think the traffic of twitter might explode because the volumes of visitors and tweets will explode and hopefully they hit their advertising goals.
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