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London 2012 dubbed most social Olympics ever

Sixty-seven percent of UK adults used social media to follow the London 2012 Olympic Games live, according to new research from Nielsen.

During the London 2012 opening ceremony on July 27, there were more tweets about the Olympics on that single day than there was during the entire duration of Beijing in 2008.  

This year’s opening ceremony featured in 19% of all UK social media conversations that day and 30% of UK adults aged 18-54 spent more time using social media that day than they would normally do.

The opening ceremony was watched on TV by more than 900 million people globally with the UK audience peaking at 27 million, a bigger TV audience than last year’s Royal Wedding.

During ‘Super Saturday’ (August 4), 40% of UK adults spent more than two hours following the Games, after Team GB picked up six gold medals and broke a world record in cycling. Facebook was the most popular social media channel and Twitter the most relevant among 18-24 year olds.  

Jenni Baker, London