FRIDAY 28 SEP 2012 2:07 PM

OLYMPICS, WIKIPEDIA, TFL AND MORE AT CIPR'S EVENTS

London’s Social Media Week, ending tomorrow, featured several events sponsored by the CIPR. One of which, on 27 September, featured TFL and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) discussing social media during the Olympics and Paralympics. Today, the CIPR hosted a debate on the future of Wikipedia and the PR industry.

On Thursday, Craig Spence, the IPC’s director of media, spoke about the organisation’s massive, integrated social media campaign. The IPC’s social media efforts focused on paralympians and directed fans back to the athletes’ own Facebook pages and the IPC website, which hosted five channels of live video content.

“This, for us, was the first social games,” Spence said.

The IPC hoped to engage fans more by allowing them to interact with Paralympians directly. The IPC saw 1.9 million visits to its website during the Games and a 1300 per cent increase on Facebook.

Stuart Ross, the director of news for TFL, discussed the successful TFL and Get Ahead of the Games social media campaigns. Ross called Twitter the workhorse of the campaign as it was the main transmitter of travel updates.

“Social media management needs to have operational links to verify facts,” Ross said about the integrated use of Twitter feeds and other outlets.

Today’s debate on Wikipedia featured PR professionals and Wikipedians. Discussion focused on the impact Wikipedia has on corporate reputation and the ways in which the public relations industry can work with Wikipedia. David Gerard, a Wikipedian, called PR and Wikipedia two communities that must learn to work together toward a unified end.

Communicate magazine is hosting "Learning from the Legacy: Comms lessons from the London 2012 Olympics” on 8 November.