Staggering Social Media Statistics from the Olympics – Infographic

When I signed up to social media over four years ago you could almost count the number of tweets with a pen and a piece of paper.

Facebook had not even cracked 50 million users. Now it is approaching one billion users globally which is one in every seven people on the planet using the Facebook social media network.

That equates to nearly one in two internet users!

Today you almost need a supercomputer that can measure and monitor this deluge and torrent of big data that is exhibiting social at scale.

Torrent of Data

At a conference in 2010 Eric Schmidt the then CEO of Google stated

“Every two days, we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003”

This information includes content such as emails, tweets, Facebook updates, Photos, YouTube video uploads and text messages.

Two years later we have a ferocious fire hose of content creation that is shared online with the 2012 Olympics producing a staggering 306 billion items on the open Web in just 17 days.

That is every person on the planet creating 44 pieces of information in just over 2 weeks.

So what are the social media statistics, facts and figures from the 2012 Olympics?

Statistics for Social Media Sharing

As the social web grows and permeates every facet of the online world these numbers will continue to skyrocket.

• 306 billion items shared on the World Wide Web
• 208,333 shares per second on the open web
• Facebook was the winner in terms of social sharing with 102 billion shares including photos, timeline updates and videos
• Twitter handled 5 billion tweets
• Usain Bolt ran ran the 100 metres in just 9.63 seconds and by the time he reached the finish line over 2 million items were shared
• Michael Phelps generated the most online traffic and shares at 3 million items per day

It was also calculated that 27% of Americans watched the Olympics at work which is an estimated loss of $1.4 billion in productivity.

The reality is that the Olympics is now over and it is “back to work”.

Infographic by RadiumOne  

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