Meanwhile VKontake - the main social media platform for Russians - saw more than 650,000 new fans join the Olympic page, with a total of three million visitors during February.

The United States were the most active team participating in social media activity, logging 22,598 posts across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, while Canada and Great Britain followed with 15,716 and 9,867 posts respectively.

The US enjoyed a successful Games - which included Sage Kotsenburg winning the first gold medal of Sochi 2014 - and this was replicated with social media engagement
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In terms of statistics, the most commonly used hashtag during the Olympics was #sochi2014, with almost 11,000 uses, while the busiest days were February 7, the day of the Opening Ceremony, and February 8, when the figure skating team competition and women's freestyle skiing moguls took place.

As the VKontake statistics suggest, there was also substantial use among Russian people, with athletes including Adelina Sotnikova, Yulia Lipnitskaya and Evgeni Plushenko gaining more than 400,000 new followers during the Games.

"Russia has had its first social media Olympics, and for the IOC it is important to engage and connect with the home team," said IOC director of communications Mark Adams.

"The Games have come to an end, but the social legacy lives on as we want to keep connecting with our millions of new Russian fans, telling them about the Youth Olympic Games and of course Rio 2016 - the host city of the next Summer Olympics."