Social Media and the Summer Olympics

Social media is set to play a big role in the 2012 Summer Olympicsthis year, with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube leading the charge. During the last Summer Olympics in 2008, the most popular social media sites of today were just getting their feet wet, and the number of Internet users has increased from 23% to about one-third of the world’s total population, according to Mashable.

A recent Mashable article made an interesting comparison of the status of each of the three top sites in 2008 to where they currently are in terms of users, functionality and growth. Some of the other top social media networks like Google + and Pinterest were not even around during the last Olympics. And while many people will surely be sharing tweets and videos throughout the summer games, some fraudsters will also be trying to get in on the action.

Phishing and ticketing scams have already been reported and social media users are urged not to click on any links in alerts that seemingly come from these sites. Instead, go directly to the site by typing the URL into your browser, and those lucky enough to score tickets to the Olympics can visit the “Ticket Checker” on the official London2012.com website to verify their authenticity.

How do you plan to use social media during the 2012 Summer Olympics? What events are you most looking forward to watching?

Image credit: rovingsheep