Twitter has had the largest growth of any digital network globally as reported by GlobalWebIndexOne. They have experienced a growth of 40% in monthly worldwide active users from Q2 to Q4 in 2012.

Over the past couple of months we have seen businesses react with lightening speed in harnessing opportune moments in sports for their own benefit. Companies such as Oreo, Audi and Walgreens took to Twitter during the Superbowl power outage, while Under Armour created the #DeAndreDunkFace campaign on Instagram, following DeAndre Jordan’s earth-shattering alley-oop.

During the beginning of the third quarter with the Baltimore Ravens up 28-6 over the San Francisco 49er’s, the unimaginable occurred in the Superbowl, the lights went out. This delay was seen as an fitting time for brands to market themselves in a creative way through Twitter.

Oreo had an ad running during the Superbowl which was promoting their Instagram account, getting users to let them know which part of their famous cookie was their favourite.

But it was mission control with the brand team from Oreo and their agency, 360i, in a media type war room which stole the show, with their quick thinking Twitter post. The Oreo graphic (below) was “designed, captioned and approved within minutes” said Sarah Hofstetter, President of 360i.

The post was ‘retweeted’ and ‘favourited’ thousands of times within 15 minutes of it going up.

Audi, like Oreo had already aired an ad during the game, but decided to take on their competitor Mercedes-Benz. Now Mercedes-Benz, @MBUSA, is the naming rights holder for the Superdome, therefore Audi saw the opportunity to promote their unique LED lighting on their cars, by offering Mercedes-Benz some help.

Not to be outdone the supermarket giant Walgreens got in on the act with these two witty posts themselves.

These are just a few examples of companies which saw an opportunity to reach users on Twitter with their comical posts.

Another creative campaign which was aired last week via Instagram and Twitter was Under Armours “Show Me Your Dunk Face”. Under Armour saw an opportunity when their sponsored athlete DeAndre Jordan of the Los Angeles Clippers threw down one thunderous ally-opp dunk on Brandon Knight which was being labelled, ‘Dunk of the Year’ across the web. The video is below for your viewing pleasure.

This sparked Under Armour into action which created an Instagram contest, requiring fans to submit their best impersonation of the face DeAndre Jordan made at the end of the play walking back to the bench. A simple contest followed by the #DeAndreDunkFace hash tag.

De Andre Jordan Show Me Your Dunk Face

This has lead to Under Armour creating two limited edition graphic t-shirts to honour the ridiculous play encapsulaity the dunk and DeAndre Jordan’s face.

One of the limited edition t-shirts from Under Armour

One of the limited edition t-shirts from Under Armour

With the continual growth of active users on twitter and other digital platforms companies are able to become creative when attempting to engage with their audience. It also allows for instant communication and reach before the topic becomes saturated and losses its effectiveness. This means Sporting organisations need to be ready for any situation in which they deem or see could potentially become viral. It now comes down to how quickly they can turn around the production of the campaign as effectively as Oreo and Under Armour, but I am sure the examples given won’t be the last.

Let us know of a campaign which has impressed you within sports.