Well now, this is interesting. It turns out the real social media platform of choice when it came to the Olympic Games was China’s Sina Weibo.
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According to data from tech stats company Hitwise, Sina’s PC users alone sent nearly twice as many Olympic related messages as went out on Twitter. That’s a massive 390-million messages, compared to the 150-million sent from Twitter.
Thing is, that’s not even close to the full picture. According to The Next Web, PCs only account for 32% of Sina Weibo’s total user base. Add in the number of messages sent from mobile devices and Sina Weibo’s Olympic presence goes from massive to astronomical.
As we’ve previously noted however, one to one comparisons between the two social networks are difficult because it’s unclear whether or not Hitwise counted comments and re-posts as separate messages.
While Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt dominated conversation on Twitter, Chinese swimmers Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen, hurdler Liu Xiang and gymnast Feng Zhe led the way on Sina Weibo.
Given that so many messages were sent on Sina Weibo, it’s hardly surprising that it also dominated the Chinese social space. Next up was Sina arch-rival Tencent’s Weibo, with 200-million messages sent. Sohu took bronze with 120-million and NetEase finished out of the medals with 40-million.
