Which Swiss Olympic athletes win medals on the social web?

The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang are over, the medals have been awarded. The Swiss athletes have won more medals than they have in a long time, 15 in total. The Games were also the subject of much discussion on the social web. Many videos and pictures were shared there, there was lively discussion and the athletes were celebrated.

But how well do Swiss athletes actually handle social media? The PRfact agency was interested to find out who among the athletes performs well on the social web away from the competition and earns many fans, likes, comments and shares. Does that reflect success at the Games or does it paint a completely different picture? Also of interest: Who among the athletes is most attractive to sponsors or longer-term influencer relations because of their presence on the social web.

The Top10

The results at the beginning: Not surprisingly, some of the best-known Swiss athletes appear at the top of the ranking. For example, the list is headed by far by Lara Gut, the very successful Swiss ski racer who is always in the media spotlight. But there are also surprises. Here are the top ten:

SAS - the Social Athlete Score

How was the score calculated? First, the athletes' individual social media profiles (Facebook and Instagram) were analyzed and evaluated. This took into account how many fans or followers the profile had. Also evaluated was how active the athletes are on their profile and how often they have posted in the last three months. In addition, the activity of the fans was evaluated and an interaction rate was calculated for each account. For comparison purposes, these three key figures were then combined into a separate score, the Social Athlete Score (SAS). A small side note: Only four of the athletes mentioned above actually won one or more medals at the Winter Games, namely Wendy Holdener, Dario Cologna, Beat Feuz and Michelle Gisin.

Surprisingly, of the 171 Swiss athletes who participated in the Olympics, there are still 29 athletes who have no presence on the social web.

The stars of today and tomorrow

It is no wonder that five ski racers (Lara Gut, Wendy Holdener, Beat Feuz, Carlo Janka and Michelle Gisin) appear in the top 10. This sport is traditionally very popular in Switzerland and enjoys a high media presence. Lara Gut looks after a community of an impressive 627,000 fans on Facebook and 368,000 followers on Instagram on the social web and lets them share in her everyday life as an athlete with regular posts. But the top 3 are not only convincing with large communities. With 77,000 fans on Facebook and 96,000 followers on Instagram, Wendy Holdener has a much smaller fan base than Lara Gut. However, she seems to entertain them with all the more appealing posts and performs very well on Instagram in particular, which secures her second place. Dario Cologna enjoys good ratings as "Everybody's Darling" on Facebook and Instagram and thus reaches his 3rd place.

But there were also a surprising number of athletes under the age of 24 in the top 10. For example, Andri Ragettli (born in '98), Fabian Bösch (born in '96) and Patrick Burgener (born in '94). Although they all came up empty at these Olympics, they have managed to successfully build a fan base on social media and continuously entertain them with good quality posts. The YouTube posts of Andri Ragettli and Patrick Burgener in the form of VLOGS are regularly watched by a large audience. Completely independent of classic media presence, these young athletes skillfully use the media usage behavior of their generations. Fabian Bösch even managed a viral hit during the Olympic Games that was seen by an audience of millions thanks to Facebook, Reddit and the like and also made it into the classic media.

Conclusion

The reasons for the successes on social media may be complex: General media exposure (especially outside of the Olympics), athletic success, self-promotion, and the sport's reputation among the general population certainly play a role. "An athlete today has to build and market himself as a personal brand on the social web in order to be interesting to sponsors. Andri Ragettli, for example, has understood the claviature of the social web very well," said Dino Ceccato, Digital Director, PRfact. "But the young athletes are generally very successful in using social media. It is precisely these athletes who are likely to offer the greatest potential for potential sponsors in the future - assuming sporting success" as Ceccato goes on to note. It's already clear that we'll be hearing a lot more about these athletes in the future, and not just in Beijing in 2022.