Smartphones and social media app will take fans closer this Rio Olympics 2016

By Payal Dwivedi on August 5, 2016 at 1:03 PM

The fans of sports are just ready with their smartphones to watch the Rio Olympics games 2016 which is not so far, this year smartphones and social media is going to take the fans more closer than ever “ London were the social media games , these will be the mobile device game”, said by Adriana Gracia , who is director of digital communications at Rio 2016, we also expect around 85% of audience going to watch Rio from mobile devices she added.

The use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets as a so-called ‘second screen’ while watching sport on television means that Rio 2016 is set to drive social media activity to new highs. Even before the start of the Games, more than 800,000 people have already downloaded the Rio 2016 official app, which is available in seven languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Mandarin and Korean.

Here is a screenshot of the official Rio 2016 app

85 per cent of Olympic Games television viewers with online access will use a smartphone or tablet device to feed their appetites for deeper insights, data analysis, shared opinions and access to behind-the-scenes action. Today’s sports fans will also be using social media to react to results from Rio 2016 in real time, becoming broadcasters in their own right and sharing their thoughts and feelings with other fans around the world, wherever they may be.

Social media first began to make their presence felt at London 2012, which were dubbed the first true social media game with more than 150 million tweets over the course of 16 days. And now days it’s too common that athlete share their sports events and fresh news about their sports and update it on social networking sites such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter etc.

The numbers of followers of Rio 2016’s official social media accounts have already been increasing rapidly ahead of the opening ceremony this Friday (5 August).“We are set to break all records in social media” says Rio 2016 Social Media Manager Benjamin Paz. “We have more than five million people following us on our channels in all languages and the growth is exponential”.

As well as enabling new levels of interaction with athletes, today’s social media companies are discovering, just like the broadcasters of an earlier age, that their users value above all real-time content and live video.