Are endless pictures of beach volleyball players and pretty Instagram shots of the Olympic stadium at night flooding your social media newsfeeds too?

As this is the first social media Olympics, it’s understandable that everyone has gone slightly mad with the #London2012 hashtag and the lucky ones with golden tickets to Olympic events are bragging on Facebook.

With so much noise about the Olympics, how are brands making sure they are still being heard?

We’ve taken a quick look at 5 great examples of brands talking about the Olympics, but in a more creative way than simply ‘Go Tom Daley!’

1. Innocent

Of course, the social media giants are posting some great images that are perfectly timed with upcoming Team GB events. Take this example of a ‘good cyclist’s breakfast’ posts on the morning of Bradley Wiggins’ time trial, and it’s also relevant to their healthy eating mantra.

2. The Poke Yesterday the entertainment site posted an excellent image of a doctored road sign in Suffolk to their Facebook Page. Again, the post was well-timed and amusing, which led it to be shared 381 times by Facebook users and also other publications including Stylist Magazine.

3. Wonga.com

Caption competitions are hugely popular on Facebook at the moment, particularly as there are so many great images coming daily from London 2012 official site and the Beeb – including the excellent picture of Boris yesterday stuck on a zipwire! Wonga.com are posting some excellent images daily and are simply asking the community to come up with the best caption. Simple but effective.

4.      Time Out London

The magazine posted a great image to Facebook this week which mirrored a lot of what Londoners are thinking right now – where is everyone? With Oxford Street shops complaining about the lack of tourists, and London Underground stations running smoothly we thought this image captured the mood perfectly and so did 2,000 others who ‘liked’ the image.

5.      Battersea Dogs & Cats Home

Perhaps the most creative of all the examples, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home posted a very sweet album of their three resident Chihuahuas Helen, Heather, and Wiggins – all named after Team GB’s Gold Medal winners. Genius! The comments underneath the album are full of people desperate to re-home the lovely dogs.