WSJ Asia 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics Social Poll Case Study
At the end of June, over 40,000 WSJ Asia readers voted on a social poll about which sport should be added to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Spoiler alert: bowling beat karate!
WSJ Asia covered the Tokyo organizing committee’s announcement of the 8 sports shortlisted for inclusion at the 2020 Olympic games on their Japan Real Time blog with an article that included a Wedgies social poll.
News coverage about decisions are always ripe for a poll—especially one as big as adding a new sport to the 2020 Olympics. WSJ readers were sure to have an opinion and jump at the chance to share it. The poll fit perfectly with the Tokyo decision story and got readers talking about the article.
Make sure to vote for bowling on this @WSJ @wedgies poll! http://t.co/WT3j0HLAgy #bowling #olympics pic.twitter.com/ZoxWels7XR
— Rolltech (@rolltech) June 26, 2015
The poll was shared thousands of times over Facebook and Twitter—driving a substantial amount of new voters and readers back to the original story and poll. It also gave WSJ Asia data for an interesting follow-up story that all the people who voted would want to read. Here’s how it happened.
On June 22nd, the Tokyo Organising Committee announced a shortlist of 8 sports being considered as an addition to the summer olympic games. With sports like Bowling, Karate, and Baseball being considered, a huge audience of avid fans were waiting to share their opinion about which sport should be added.
8 Sports Considered for 2020 Olympic Games
1. World Baseball Softball Confederation – WBSC
World Karate Federation - WKF
International Roller Sports Federation – FIRS
International Federation of Sport Climbing - IFSC
World Squash Federation - WSF
International Surfing Association - ISA
International Wushu Federation – IWUF
The Olympic committee wouldn’t be narrowing the list down until July 22nd, or making a final decision until 2016, but that was no reason to keep WSJ readers from making their own decision with a Wedgies interactive poll. WSJ Asia created a poll and embedded it in their Japan Real Time story on the announcement.
WSJ Japan Real Time Article
WSJ Asia runs a blog called Japan Real Time, catering to its readers in Japan about breaking news. The WSJ staff jumped on the new summer Olympics sports announcement and published an article with their interactive poll on the same day—riding the wave of the discussion.
Instead of the story reader engagement going into the comments section to die, the poll brought in 40,000 votes in just 2 days. Page views were amplified by thousands of shares on Facebook through the interactive polls share buttons—along with shares across Twitter and Tumblr.
With interest still rising, they posted a follow-up story 48 hours later.
WSJ posted this followup article with a breakdown of the poll results after collecting over 40,000 votes in two days. Bowling and karate topped the list, with the closest straggler over 16,000 votes behind. Bowling was the clear favorite, with much of the Twitter chatter reflecting that result.
WSJ Asia, like other premium Wedgies users, have access to analytics for each poll, and they’re able to see the stats on the number of times the poll was shared over Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr shares. They can also find where referral traffic comes from, getting an idea of how their audience finds them.
Coverage of this announcement led to two articles which prompted thousands of likes, shares, and tweets that amplified the discussion around this story for WSJ. This is the perfect example of how to use social polls to add value to real-time news coverage.
Anytime you cover a story based on a decision or vote, a poll can get you more traffic and shares. It’s easy to create and embed a Wedgies poll, try it out here.