Digital Media Cafe Blog Week Eight – David Granger
January 16, 2014
Hello, happy new year and welcome to the first Digital Café of 2014.
Digital Spotlight
The winter Olympics is less than a month away and promises to be spectacular both on the slopes and off-piste.
Already there has been much speculation and debate about the host nation – as CNN has already asked, is Vladimir Putin going to use this as a PR exercise as much as a sporting spectacle?
The difference between say China 2008 however and Sochi 2014 is of course the prevalence of social media.
The games themselves have a strong presence on all the major social and digital channels, including a couple of leftfield ones including a Flickr account and a VK account. VK is particularly popular in Russia and boasts three official languages, Russian, Ukraine and English.
What will be of interest globally however is how closely social media is moderated. The IOC is rightly protective of its trademarks and partnerships and this combined with Russia’s desire to project the right image to the world will be trcky, not least for the athletes themselves. Until relatively recently there was no need for an athlete code of conduct… but of course that’s all changed. If London 2012 was happy to promote itself as the social games, how will Russia treat the brave new social media world? It’s apparently putting a friendly arm around the blogging community, offering official accreditation to non-affiliated writers, which is progressive to say the least.
And all this is against the backdrop of Formula One coming to the same city in October and being a 2018 World Cup venue. If you haven’t heard of the Black Sea resort before, you will now.
Athletes Doing It Right
Tom Daley has had an interesting relationship with the media. He’s one of those younger athletes who’s grown up with digital and social media, it hasn’t been thrust upon him. In the jargon dictionary he’d be what is know as digitally native.
And he’s had his ups as well as his downs – plagued by some fairly vicious trolling, he went on to become the 2012 Olympics most popular social media athlete according to starcount.com, a better result more popular than either Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps.
But perhaps his most effective use of social was his coming out video. Using YouTube was a clever move. It was personal, it looked unforced and scripted and came directly from him, meaning he took control of the situation, rather than allow PR companies, tabloids and bloggers set the pace.
And it’s all much needed promotion for his reality TV show Splash.
Quick Recap
Got 4 minutes 34 to spare? Then check out World Wide Interweb’s very best of 2013’s plays. The clue’s in the title, so sorry cricket fans, it’s US sports only, but there are enough spectacular touchdowns, dunks and field goal returns to keep any spectator happy. The video will, you’ve guessed it, be on the Digital Café blog.
Board of the action?
Southampton FC have joined the ranks of clubs linking social and stadia with advertising boards displaying tweets sent from fans.
First used against their win against West Brom, using the hashtag saintsfc, fans can see their tweets from the terraces appear in almost real time. A great way to engage the spectators, enhance the experience of the live match and encourage some widescreen banter.
But we’ll put money on there being a lot of careful moderation taking place in that press office.
Don’t forget there’s more on the Digital Café blog and if there’s a team or athlete you’d like featured or recommend we take a look at, then do let us know.
