Team USA fans around the world engaged with and experienced the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in numbers never seen before, consuming the Games on multiple social media platforms, interacting with athletes, and setting records for media consumption. Through the social platforms of the United States Olympic Committee, the Rio Games reached new heights.
- 1. Driving innovation: The USOC continued to find itself on the cutting edge of the latest digital media technologies and strategies in 2016 resulting in unprecedented fan engagement metrics. To highlight its efforts, the USOC launched the Team USA Digital Command Center, headquarters for round-the-clock Olympic and Paralympic coverage located at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado; hosted its first social media lounge at the 2016 Team USA Media Summit, an eight-station live social setting complete with a GIF studio, social influencers and more, designed to increase Team USA fan engagement and expansion; and worked with NBC to launch a collaborative social influencer campaign in an effort to garner support for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic teams from more than 100 professional sports teams and athletes across the nation.
- 2. Broadening Team USA's reach through collaboration: The USOC joined forces with nearly every major social media organization in 2016 to reach new fans across a wide variety of digital platforms. At the 2016 Team USA Media Summit, the USOC teamed up with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Vine to create exclusive content for real-time posting and to bank for roll-out in the months leading up to the Games. Team USA also created a first-of-its-kind Snapchat story at the Media Summit that appeared to all Snapchat users through the U.S., garnering an impressive 51.3 million views. In addition, Team USA teamed up with Twitter during the Rio Olympic Games to build the Red, White and #BlueRoom at USA House – Team USA's business and hospitality center – where more than 350 athletes helped create more than 1,000 pieces of unique content for Team USA to share across its social channels during the Games.
- 3. Historic performances on and off the field of play: As Team USA continued to climb the medal table, its fans around the world engaged with and experienced the Rio 2016 Games in numbers never seen before, consuming the Games on multiple platforms, interacting with athletes, and setting records for media consumption. Social media consumption on Team USA channels accounted for nearly one billion impressions thanks in part to more than 220 posts per day on average during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. This resulted in a significant growth in social driven by strong content that was shared widely by Team USA fans and engagement with influencers. As a result of its efforts, Team USA saw its social following grow 159 percent from the London 2012 Games, and its website traffic cast a shadow on results from both the London and Sochi Games combined.
Social media consumption on Team USA channels accounted for nearly one billion impressions thanks in part to more than 220 posts per day on average during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. This resulted in a significant growth in social driven by strong content that was shared widely by Team USA fans and engagement with influencers.
- No. 1: Among National Olympic Committees, Team USA was the most active team participating on social media during the Olympic Games, generating 33.2 million digital engagements across all major platforms. Great Britain and Brazil followed with 16.0 million and 6.4 million.
- Team USA was the only Olympic team with a custom Twitter emoji: #TeamUSA.
- During the Olympic Games, Team USA ranked No. 3 among the top 200 U.S. sports franchises for digital engagement, Meanwhile, Team USA ranked No. 6 among 300+ global sports franchises and No. 11 among 800 major consumer brands.
- Across social and digital platforms during the Olympics, Team USA accumulated 69.3 million video views..
- The most popular Team USA social post during the Games was an infographic on 23-time Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps, which resulted in 124,516 likes, 1,673 comments and 40,643 shares on Facebook, and 29,739 likes and 20,136 retweets on Twitter.
- Team USA social platforms amassed 825,334 new followers during the four-week windows of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
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