RW Connect caught up with Alex Huot, Head of Social Media at the International Olympics Committee, during the build up to the Sochi Winter Olympics this month, to talk about social media at the IOC, the importance of engagement, how they measure value, and the platforms they are currently using.
RW Connect: Hi Alex. So tell us how this story began, how did you become the head of Social Media at the IOC?
Alex Huot: I have been working in digital since 1996 and was part of the team that built the first ever website for the International Olympic Committee. With time I kept engaged in digital and brought live webscasting to Olympic.org as well as RSS feeds to the IOC website. With the onset of social media, IOC Communications Director Mark Adams acknowledged its growing importance and created the position. My digital and sporting background was a natural fit.
What were the social media activities for the IOC prior to your appointment in 2009 and what did the IOC want to get out of a bigger social media presence for the organisation, what was the value to them?
Prior to my appointment there were no social media activities at the International Olympic Committee. The IOC wanted first and foremost to spread the Olympic values of friendship, excellence, and respect and connect with athletes, fans and everybody who loves the Olympic Games. It wanted to take part in the global digital conversation and share the magic of the Games like never before. Outside of the Games, we see social media as an excellent way to keep the spirit of Olympism alive and to keep connecting fans with athletes and athletes with fans. In addition, as the Olympics last only 17 days, the use of social media was and still is an excellent way to share the legacies of host cities as well as the promise of future Olympic Games.
What were the first steps for the IOC in the process of creating an social media strategy for the IOC, what did you want focus on and how did you develop the KPI’s?
The first steps were to decide on which platform to use. I opted for a Youtwittface – Flickr strategy. Youtube could help us deliver archive footage and cover various institutional events, Facebook was the social network for fans of the Games and Twitter at the start was being used just for media. It later expanded to engaging fans in general and a host of other accounts in various languages. Flickr was used as a way to distribute high-resolution images to the media. The focus was varied fans, athletes, media, and all other stakeholders. I am not a huge fan of KPIs. In social media nobody can predict if a campaign goes viral or how many views it will get. What I did focus on was great content and innovation on how we were sharing the content. I also paid special attention to what the fans where saying. To this end after 3 weeks of having created a Facebook page we hit 1 million fans just before the opening ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Games.
London 2012 was billed as the first Social Media Olympics, for it you created the Athletes Hub, where fans could connect with athletes directly. Tell us a bit about it, and how important was it to bring those 2 sides of the Olympics together for the IOC.
The heart of the social media strategy at the IOC is the Athletes. Without them the Games could not be held. We live in a world today that is multiscreen so we thought it important to be where the athletes are and also where the fans are.
To this end we wanted to create a free mobile app that acts as a searchable directory of the social media activities of Olympic athletes, both past and present. The Olympic Athletes’ Hub app includes Facebook and Twitter feeds, plus photos and videos posted on Instagram. Fans can also use the app to connect with the Olympians, while the athletes themselves can text each other and the IOC directly, and vice versa.
Using the Hub’s search function, users can locate athletes by country, team, sport, or edition of the Games. Users can also search through what athletes have updated in real time. A dedicated News Stream of Sochi 2014 Olympians will be created that will give fans and athletes a unique view of what Olympians are posting.
The Hub was also designed to raise the follower count of Olympians. To this end fans compete against each other on a global leader board for first place. For every Olympian that a fan follows he or she receives one point. The current 1st place holder is Kieran Collins from Great Britain with 3,089 points or follows of Olympian’s accounts. Some of these points also reward fans with exclusive video tips from Olympians.
We plan to release some fun surprises in the app as we get closer to the Games! Over 5,000 verified Olympians have already joined the Hub, and the number will continue to grow as the countdown to Sochi 2014 continues. The hub does have some extra features for Olympians. Athletes can message each other or the IOC, and they can post directly to the hub or to Facebook or Twitter if they so desire.
By the way, you can download it for free here: Android and iOS.
For the IOC where was the value in this increased engagement, and how did you measure it and define an ROI for it?
The value for the IOC is in the relationships it has built with its millions of fans around the world. To be able to listen to them and get immediate feedback on posts is the biggest reward of all!
If you were to measure value on impressions, I can tell you that we generated in the past 30 days over 153,000,000 impressions on one of our Facebook pages alone and there is a sizeable value there. I would say the best way to define the ROI for us is by measuring the fan and country growth/spread. I am happy to share that we have more fans subscribing to our social media channels now ahead of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games than we had during the same time frame before the London 2012 Games, and in countries not known for winter sports activities. The total fan base today is over 28 million followers.
The Summer and Winter Olympics only last a couple of weeks, but obviously it’s important to continue social media activities continually. How do you ensure continual engagement?
We try not to post too frequently but as we approach the Games we try to post content that is engaging, cool, informative, helpful and original. We continuously look at what athletes are sharing and think of how to best put them forward by resharing their content and @mentioning them in social media so their accounts get bigger and bigger. It is true that the Olympics only last 17 days but it takes a lifetime for athletes to prepare for the Games, and by connecting with them we can help share their stories. We also like to share fun and quirky stories. Right now we are working on a content vertical which is going to be called Pets of Olympians.
Lastly there is a lot to be said about the development undertaken in Host Cities, the venues that are being built, and the legacy the Games can have on a city.
Which platforms are you using at the moment? Is there one you find provides a better platform for the conversations you’re looking for?
Currently we are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursaquare, Tumblr, Google plus, Sina Weibo, Youku, Youtube, BKOHTAKTE (Vk.com), and Flickr. They are all awesome and each holds its own purpose for us. We do try to give each platform a unique voice, which depends on the inherent feature of the platform. Also in some cases some platforms have more users than others so we adapt accordingly. That said, we are totally platform agnostic.
One thing that is important to note is that the Olympic Athletes’ Hub will soon launch its own news stream.
Obviously the Olympics is a global brand, with one of its biggest aims, to bring people across the world together through sport. How do you ensure that your social media strategy is reaching such a wide and varied audience as that? How do you target your SM activities?
How we do this is by speaking different languages and engaging on regional platforms like Bkohtatkte in Russia or on Sina Weibo in China.
When we started, we engaged only in English. Now we are in French, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, and Korean and would soon like to add Japanese, Arabic and many more. This strategy has been a catalyst for massive fan growth and appreciation from our fans. Across social media presences we get between 20,000 and 30,000 new subscribers a day and on Bkohtatke, which hosts close to 200 million accounts and welcomes over 45 million unique users a day, our page is on its way to becoming the most followed page on the platform. Whenever possible we try to share regional content using the built-in features of social media websites. For example, we are using Facebook’s geo-targeting capabilities and will soon test Twitter’s new update, which enables brands to target fans by country.
There was some controversy with the Winter Olympics and Russia’s stand on homosexuality. When conversations like that are happening on social media, how important is the IOC’s social media presence in handling those dialogues?
It’s very important to let people express themselves and social media plays an important role in gathering feedback from the various stakeholder groups that are following us across our different channels.
In actual fact Social Media has enabled us to reach our fans directly and share directly with them which is precious.
What’s in the pipeline for the IOC social media team? Anything new for Sochi and Brazil?
For Sochi we are planning further development of the Olympic Athletes’ Hub and providing a unique experience on how fans can follow athletes and connect with them. We will launch a mobile version, as well as tablet and a new desktop version. I can tell you that we are working on getting some great behind-the-scenes posts as well as Q&As with athletes from inside the Athletes Village. Social media is, in a way, only the vehicle. What’s most important is the driver: how, when and why you share content with your fans.
Alex Huot Is Head of Social Media at the International Olympics Committee
