SOCHI, Russia (AP) — When Jenny Jones won Olympic bronze
at the Sochi Games, her following on Twitter exploded. The audience for
@jennyjonessnow has grown 10-fold, to 65,000 followers, in the three
weeks since the British snowboarder tweeted: "Just found out I
officially made the GB winter Olympic team. Whoop!"
Olympic
success is also working wonders for @sagekotsenburg. The U.S.
snowboarder’s account had 13,645 followers when he got the gold in
slopestyle and tweeted: "WOW!! I just won the Olympics!!" That number
grew to 14,196 in 30 minutes, 16,697 in an hour, 40,791 in 24 hours and
to nearly 64,000 by Friday.
Vacuuming up followers on Twitter,
Facebook and other social media platforms is the smart play for
Olympians at the Sochi Games. Athletes who catch and ride the
once-every-four-years wave of social media interest in all things Winter
Olympics, sharing pictures, thoughts and stories from their privileged
backstage access at the games, could come home from Russia with stronger
hands to woo new sponsors or squeeze more money from existing ones.
"They
only have one shot at getting in the zeitgeist," says Walter Delph, CEO
of Adly, which helps brands build buzz via social media movers and
shakers. His advice to Olympians: "Grab the followers, grab the volume
now because that is the best opportunity."
It used to be that
Olympians had only traditional media — newspapers, reporters and later
radio and TV — to tell their stories and recount their feats. Although
they are still required to brave thickets of microphones and gauntlets
of reporters after competing, they also are increasingly cutting out the
middle men and addressing global audiences directly in 140-characters
or less.
Savvy Olympians, their sponsors and managers made sure
they came to Sochi prepared not only to compete with each other on snow
and ice but also in an arm-wrestle
for social media attention and buzz.
Being cool and engaging on Twitter and posting eye-catching photos on
Instagram are becoming the 21st century equivalents of a 1,000-megawatt
smile — practically a must-have. U.S. snowboarder Faye Gulini, for
example, opened her Twitter account three weeks before flying to Sochi,
prompted by the radio station she works with in Salt Lake City, her
hometown.
"The more people that know who I am, the better off I
am," she says. "The more people that follow you on your social media,
the more people know of you and then that opens up doors for sponsors
and money and all that stuff."
The three U.S. women ski jumpers
who competed in Sochi were all "highly" encouraged in an 18-month
lead-up to the games to develop their presence on Twitter, Facebook and
Instagram. "It’s absolutely a must. You have to have it," says Whitney
Childers, communications director for Women’s Ski Jumping USA. "Our team
sponsors require that."
"We knew that as we got closer to the
Olympics, people wanted to know more about them, they wanted to get to
know them, they wanted to understand their story and the best way to do
that now is to be in control of it yourself and that’s through social
media, " she said. "And they all did it, some more reluctantly than
others."
To avoid distractions and pressures from outside to
perform, some Olympians unplugged for the games. The defending champion
in women’s aerials skiing, Lydia Lassila, tweeted Jan. 31: "Time to sign
off until after #Sochi2014."
But forgoing the chance now to build
on @LydiaLassila’s 2,800 followers may pay off later, the Australian’s
manager, Bruce Kaider, argues. They plan something "engaging and
interesting" — Kaider wouldn’t be specific, to preserve the "surprise" —
on her platforms post-games, when social media channels aren’t as
saturated with Olympic content as they are now.
"Everyone is
trying to compete on who can do the coolest tweet, who can take the
coolest photo," he says. After the games close Feb. 23, "she will get
some real clear air."
What Olympians can and cannot tweet, like
and share is also regulated by the International Olympic Committee. Its
rules bar them from promoting "any brand, product or service on their
social media pages, blogs or personal websites" during the games without
prior, written Olympic approval.
But there does seem to be wiggle
room. In Sochi, the account of figure skater Gracie Gold has retweeted
tweets first posted by sponsors of the U.S. Olympic Committee. They must
be thrilled, because @GraceEGold’s following has more than doubled —
from 27,100 to 60,000 on Friday — since she marched with Team USA in the
Feb. 7 opening ceremonies and won bronze in team skating.
While
noting that she isn’t privy to the details of Gold’s deals with her
sponsors, the USOC’s chief marketing officer, Lisa Baird, says by email
that some athletes "are required to tweet on behalf of their sponsors"
and others "do this on their own initiative (without contractual
commitments) as they value their sponsor relationships highly."
"When
an athlete’s following explodes like Gracie’s has this Olympic Games,
it definitely makes her a more valuable spokesperson for a brand," Baird
says.
Other Olympians insist they won’t sell out or just aren’t
interested. Jones, whose slopestyle bronze was Britain’s first-ever
medal on snow, said she was "really shocked" by the spike in her Twitter
following and hasn’t thought about how she might exploit it
financially.
Iouri Podladtchikov, the cool-cat snowboarder who
ended superstar Shaun White’s gold-medal reign in halfpipe, lamented
that "some of my biggest idols" turned him off with social media feeds
that make "you feel like you’re in a never-ending advertising campaign."
"I-Pod"
isn’t a prolific tweeter, posting links to just three photos — of his
medal, his winning run and the opening ceremony — since the games
opened. He also retweeted a shout-out from fellow Swiss Roger Federer,
whose 1.4 million Twitter folllowers makes the audiences for most winter
Olympians look meager in comparison.
Without vigorous engagement,
the following for @iouriamazing has grown only modestly to top 9,000 on
Friday. I-Pod, a photography enthusiast, is doing better on Instagram,
with more than 30,000 followers.
"I really don’t care if it’s 10,000 followers or 100,000," he says. "I just want it to be
me … even if it’s not selling."
___
AP
writer Jon Krawczynski in Sochi contributed to this report. Follow John
Leicester on Twitter at http://twitter.com/johnleicester
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