Lanna Hill: All in social media Olympics a chance for the city of romance to really capture lots of hearts

You’d be forgiven for feeling like it’s been a long time since the last summer Olympics, when, in fact, it hasn’t even been four years.

The surprise success of the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics held in 2021, the most successful games ever from an audience perspective, due largely to a massively upscaled digital engagement, marked the start of a new era for sport’s oldest brand.

While TikTok and other social media platforms certainly had an impact on the last summer Olympics, the world is waiting to see what Paris can do differently, and bigger — and one of the most significant differences about this year’s games is the unprecedented move allowing athletes to share their experiences directly with their fans via social media.

This historical ruling has arguably singlehandedly dragged the Olympics back into the hearts and minds of modern audiences by recognising the importance of the athlete’s personal brands on the engagement of fans and audiences all over the world.

Team Great Britain has doubled down on this, earlier this year announcing TikTok as an official partner, providing bespoke content workshops for athletes for both the Olympics and Paralympics.

Not unlike the Super Bowl in the US, the opportunities are huge for advertisers and sponsors, and again, this is arguably the first time the whole ecosystem of social media and traditional broadcast has been fully utilised.

There is, however, inherently a lot more risk when you consider the chance of an athlete posting poorly considered content, or a heated response, on Instagram or TikTok, despite the fairly rigorous social media guidelines handed out by the IOC.

Not only could this potentially damage the brand of the country the athlete belongs to, but potentially the Olympics brand as well.

What is now fascinating is that social content is playing a far more active role in how viewers are interacting with traditional broadcasts.

In 2024, we’re less likely to be loyal to a particular network or media coverage, and far more likely to be loyal to an individual or personal brand.

We also see the narratives on social media providing more hype for the main event, be they the behind-the-scenes access via athlete’s personal platforms, or via influencer engagement and commentary across the duration of the games.

I for one, after the fever pitch spectacle of the Matildas at the World Cup last year, am very much looking forward to the Olympic coverage and a big part of this is because I know this is the first one my kids will be old enough to really enjoy and plug into over the two weeks of the games.

I remember during my childhood, and then as a young woman in 2000, watching the Olympics with the kind of awe that feels rare these days.

When we look at the Australian national team heading to Paris — 50 per cent being returning athletes, with the other half making their Olympic debut, it’s also an exciting one for women’s sport with the highest percentage of women in Australian Olympic history — we can only hope these higher numbers are mirrored with more diverse media commentary teams.

With newer Olympic sports such as skateboarding and surfing making the cut this year after Tokyo, there’s no excuses for Paris not to capture us all later this week.

Lanna Hill is a strategist, speaker and founder of Leverage Media.