Facebook Pages & the 2012 Olympics

Today's blog was supposed to feature Olympic-themed cover photos, but while I was doing research, I discovered something amazing.

Facebook Pages

https://www.facebook.com/pages

Someone explain to me how I missed this. As a person who prides herself in staying up-to-date with the latest social media scoop, I'm feeling pretty ashamed right now.

If you haven't figured it out from the screenshot, Facebook Pages is basically a library of all..well...Facebook pages. You can filter results using the categories in the menu bar and Like/Unlike a page by simply clicking the thumbnail. To think, I used to go through my pages from my profile and Like/Unlike them manually. Gosh Mae, you are so 2011!

Anyway, I'm not going delve too much into it because what I really want to talk about is the branded Olympics tab, strategically incorporated into the category menu.

Pages/Olympics

https://www.facebook.com/pages/olympics

The Olympics page acts as an archive of all official Olympics-related accounts, from the 2 official pages: The Olympic Games and London 2012, to a complete list of Athletes, Teams, Sports, TV Networks and Partners.

It may not have the same impact, but I can already see some of the larger global brands imitating this strategy in the future. Imagine how a company like P&G could use something like this to its advantage, with the hundreds of brands under its umbrella! It would be a great way to celebrate milestones such as a 175th or 200th anniversary.

Whoever is in charge of the Olympics' digital marketing strategy, kudos for executing such a simple, yet effective idea that capitalizes on Timeline's new functionalities. No gimmicks, no contests, no fan-gating -- all they did was give people what they want. And with Facebook being the biggest global network and the Olympics being the biggest global event, I can't think of a better partnership.

Til then,
Mae