P&G holds early gold in Olympic social media

• P%26G started its YouTube push months before the Winter Olympics began
• One key to successful YouTube videos is to tell a good story
• Visa continues to tweet and re-tweet items on ski jumper Sarah Hendrickson

We're about halfway through the Winter Olympics, and if there's an early gold medal for social media, it would likely go to Procter & Gamble.

The maker of such familiar brands as Tide and Charmin is the most buzzed-about brand of the Sochi Games as measured by YouTube views. P&G is leaps and bounds beyond all corporate competitors, with more than 27 million YouTube views through the first seven days of the Winter Games, according to a new study by Kontera, which, at USA TODAY's request, tracked total English-language YouTube views through midday Thursday.

"P&G did a bunch of things right leading into the Games," says Ammiel Kamon, executive vice president at Kontera, a brand insights specialist. "Most of all, they've been at it for months."

The silver medal goes to Visa, with 10 million YouTube views. And a very distant bronze goes to Samsung, with 1.8 million.

While each sponsor spends close to $100 million over the course of a Winter and Summer Games just to flaunt the Olympic rings, and millions more on TV commercials; it is ultimately the social media engagement that each sponsor tracks and relishes. Here are the keys to Olympic social media success:

•Post early. By the start of the Games, P&G and its brands had posted 38 different YouTube videos, says Kamon. In fact, the day the Winter Games began, P&G already had 15.8 million views for its "Pick them Back Up" YouTube video about moms picking up their kids after they fall.

•Tell a story. The key to a successful Olympic YouTube video is to come up with a video storyline that is creative "work of art," says Kamon. That's exactly what P&G did with its "Pick Them Back Up" video, which shows moms helping to lift up their kids through the years.

•Push the tale. Besides posting an engaging video about Olympic ski jumper Sarah Hendrickson — the first woman to ski jump in an Olympic competition — on its YouTube page, Visa is retweeting everything she says and featuring the ad in a heavy TV rotation, says Kamon.

•Go long. Social media success might seem to be about six-second, Vine-like videos, but that's not the key to Olympic success for P&G and Visa, many of whose videos are two minutes or longer. It takes that long, says Kamon, to tell a good story.

While P&G did the best job garnering interest before the Games, Visa has most moved the needle during the Games, says Kamon. It's pushed out videos on Olympic athletes. Says Kevin Burke, chief marketing officer at Visa. "Success is measured on how people engage with your content.