Paralympics most trending UK sporting event of 2012, says Twitter

by IPC on 12 Dec 2012

A new report published by the social media network Twitter has revealed that #Paralympics has topped the table for the most trending UK sporting event of 2012 beating out competition from the Olympics and many leading football clubs.

Of the top 10 published on Tuesday (11 December) the #Paralympics and Olympics, which finished fourth, are the two only non-football related sporting events to make the list.

During 2012, the IPC's official Twitter account @paralympic grew by over 1,000 per cent, whilst a number of leading athletes also enjoyed similar growth in the number of their followers.

Around 50 leading athletes also took part in the Samsung Bloggers project which saw them record and post video blogs from behind the scenes before, during and after the London 2012 Games giving followers unprecedented access.

Craig Spence, the IPC's Director of Communications, said: 'Our aim was to make the London 2012 Paralympics a truly digital Games and I think this is reflected with #Paralympics topping the most trending UK sport event table.

'From the word go our athletes were encouraged to embrace social media throughout the Games, tweeting and Samsung Video Blogging from behind the scenes. We provided more behind the scenes access during London 2012 than any other global sporting event previously.

'This success is a real team effort with the IPC, LOCOG, BPA, Channel 4, BBC Radio 5 Live, media, athletes and most importantly British tweeters all playing a significant part.

On Tuesday, the IPC increased its social media offering by launching specific twitter handles for the various sports it acts as International Federation for - @IPCAthletics, @IPCSwimming, @IPCShooting,@IPCPowerlifting, @IPCAlpine, @IPCNordic, @IPCISH. In addition IPC Chief Executive Xavier Gonzalez will continue to tweet via @IPC_CEO.

The full Twitter 2012 report can be found at http://2012.twitter.com/en-gb/trends.html.

Top 10 most trending UK sport events during 2012:

1. #Paralympics
2. #LFC
3. #MUFC
4. Olympics
5. Liverpool
6. Arsenal
7. WWE
8. Leeds
9. #COYS
10. #AFC

*pound symbol precedes each item listed for IPC website
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