CORRECTED-Companies score gold at 2012 Olympics

(Corrects spelling of Procter & Gamble in 3rd and 7th paras)

TORONTO, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Athletes captured the spotlight

at the 2012 Summer Games but a social marketing web app helped

companies score gold with consumers during what has been dubbed

as the first social media Olympics.

Wildfire, the social media management web software recently

bought by Google and used by 16,000 companies worldwide, enabled

firms to create Olympics promotions and campaigns on social

platforms and track fan growth and engagement.

Some of the official sponsors of the Games, which included

Procter & Gamble, Coca Cola and Visa, saw their fanbases grow by

millions of followers, and a doubling of their engagement levels

throughout the games, according to Wildfire data analyst James

Lancaster.

"Olympics on social media had a huge role for brands. Not

only were fanbases growing by huge amounts but fans were really

interacting with brand pages," he said.

The company tracked a Facebook metric known as "people

talking about this," which is a combination of the number of

posts made to a brand page's wall, in addition to likes, shares

and comments.

"That's really important for brands because it really brings

brand awareness when you have people who are liking, and

commenting and sharing a posting because you'll see it in your

newsfeed and it sort of takes off virally," Lancaster explained.

For Procter & Gamble, this score grew by 216 percent, for

Coca Cola by 126 percent and for Visa by 67 percent.

"P&G was an example of a sponsor who did this very well,"

said Lancaster.

The company's campaign featured a series of videos showing

athletes talking about their mothers, which were widely shared

across social networks.

"In the media and in terms of virality, this was one of the

biggest campaigns that any of the brands ran during the games.

It really resonated," said Emily Pereira, director of

communications for Wildfire, which is based in Redwood City,

California.

Lancaster attributed social media success among the official

sponsors to two things: the ability to leverage Olympics

branding in their content and implementing social media best

practices, such as engaging fans through polls, questions and

photo-sharing.

Whether it was for a multinational clothing brand or an

outdoor gear shop, linking the product to the Games and the city

that played host was key to consumer engagement.

According to Pereira, thousands of companies ran

Olympics-themed promotions such as contests, sweepstakes and

polls using Wildfire on social platforms. Some firms also

embedded live feeds and videos of events in London.

"If there was any obvious way of tying the Olympics or

London to what they were selling they definitely took advantage

of that opportunity," she said.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and M.D. Golan)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/corrected-companies-score-gold-2012-olympics-134947603--sector.html

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