The Olympic games 2012 are just around the corner. This time, the XXX. Olympics will take place in London. And Social Media is now closely linked with the activities of the IOC, the International Olympic Committee. There is even a social media policy specifically designed by the IOC for all participants. Moreover, there is The Olympic Athletes’ Hub. This website completely integrates with Twitter and Facebook and you are able to follow all athletes directly on that site. Facebook also provides a special page where you can Explore London 2012 on Facebook. On this page you find the Facebook pages of participating athletes, teams of the respective countries, some pages for olympic sports, pages of the transferring media and finally the pages of the partners or sponsors of London 2012.
So far so good. As always, we want to check out the performance of the Olympic athletes on Facebook. This article will be our first analysis on that topic, giving you a starting point for the Olympic Games on Facebook. However, since there are more than 500 athletes represented on Facebook, we decided to show the TOP 20 in terms of fans and People Talking About This.
Top 20: The Olympic Athletes On Facebook With The Most Fans
| Position | Name | Image | Fans | |
| 1 | Kobe Bryant | 13.5m | ||
| 2 | LeBron James | 11.6m | ||
| 3 | Roger Federer | 11.2m | ||
| 4 | Rafa Nadal | 11m | ||
| 5 | Maria Sharapova | 7.8m | ||
| 6 | Usain Bolt | 7m | ||
| 7 | Dwyane Wade | 6.5m | ||
| 8 | Neymar Jr. Oficial | 5.9m | ||
| 9 | Michael Phelps | 5.4m | ||
| 10 | Pau Gasol | 3.1m | ||
| 11 | Kevin Durant | 2.9m | ||
| 12 | Novak Djokovic | 2.2m | ||
| 13 | Luis Suarez | 1.8m | ||
| 14 | Blake Griffin | 1.8m | ||
| 15 | Hope Solo | 1.2m | ||
| 16 | Carmelo Anthony | 1.1m | ||
| 17 | Venus Williams | 1.1m | ||
| 18 | Manu Ginobili | 830k | ||
| 19 | Russell Westbrook | 802k | ||
| 20 | サッカー日本代表 | 792k |
Analysis created: 07/24/2012 - 8:00 UTC
So these are the Top 20 Olympic Athletes on Facebook by fan count. Taking respective disciplines of the aforementioned athletes into consideration, the result is certainly not surprising. We see a lot of well-known sports stars, mainly from sports like Basketball, Tennis and Football. These athletes use their Facebook pages permanently for promotions and general interaction with their fans. Especially the NBA is a pioneer in using social media, therefore we can find so many basketball players in the list above.
Exceptional athletes such as Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps are rather an exception in the ranking, and it is definitely surprising to find the Japanese national football team among the Top 20.
Top 20: Athletes With The Highest People Talking About Numbers On Facebook
The People Talking About This number is highly volatile, which means it changes every day. Therefore, the following rankings are somewhat regarded as a snapshot. For more information on how the PTAT numbers are working, check out our blog.
| Position | Name | Image | PTAT | |
| 1 | LeBron James | 685k | ||
| 2 | Kobe Bryant | 594k | ||
| 3 | Roger Federer | 377k | ||
| 4 | Rafa Nadal | 310k | ||
| 5 | Neymar Jr. Oficial | 249k | ||
| 6 | Maria Sharapova | 217k | ||
| 7 | Usain Bolt | 117k | ||
| 8 | Michael Phelps | 104k | ||
| 9 | Andy Murray | 99k | ||
| 10 | Novak Djokovic | 94k | ||
| 11 | Dwyane Wade | 84k | ||
| 12 | Blake Griffin | 77k | ||
| 13 | Russell Westbrook | 68k | ||
| 14 | Pau Gasol | 64k | ||
| 15 | Kevin Durant | 56k | ||
| 16 | Hope Solo | 48k | ||
| 17 | Jo Wilfried Tsonga | 45k | ||
| 18 | Juan Mata | 41k | ||
| 19 | Deron Williams | 40k | ||
| 20 | サッカー日本代表 | 37k |
Analysis created 07/24/2012 - 8:00 UTC
This is a first overview of the Olympic athletes on Facebook. Will you be watching the olympic competitions? Are you even following your favorite athletes on Facebook and Twitter?
