Mary Kom in the social media: 50,000 tweets, Twitter trends,& #salute

Mary Kom has been a 5 times World Champion already before the Olympics. Yet she was popular among only boxing enthusiasts and people from Manipur perhaps. Everything changed with the 2012 Olympics. She became a favourite of the media and the masses. I was observing the Mary Kom frenzy ever since she won her first fight and went to quarter finals. Perhaps it was that India was a losing spree for the 1-2 days (courtesy archery, hockey) before the boxing matches started and suddenly there was this Indian woman who came out all confident and seemed to won with so much confidence.

On the media front, for the first time, many media persons flown down to Manipur to capture live feed from her family members and home town. It was not just the Indian media but the international media had already done many documentaries on her even before the Olympics.

On the social media front, for the first time, Twitter was abuzz with tweets about her, with more than 20,000 plus tweets peaking during her matches. Overall, we can presume she had more than 50,000 tweets during the Olympics. See below.

Source: Topsy.com

Source: Hashtracking.com

Courtesy Mary Kom, there were multiple trending topics – Mary Kom and Manipur.

Many Facebook pages of brands in India wished her luck. Bollywood and sport celebrities wished her luck. Amul did their latest ad based on her.

The 2012 Olympics is gone and yet today the buzz continues. They are now making a film on her.

Mary Kom finally won what she deserved all along – thousands of fans in admiration, and in their own tweets: #salute #respect