We all know that social TV is the wave of the future when it comes to viewers engaging with television content…..but until now, none of the big industry players have really gone ALL IN.
Finally it’s all about to change, as Nielsen and Twitter announce an exclusive multi-year agreement to create the “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating” for the US market. Under this agreement, Nielsen and Twitter will deliver a syndicated-standard metric around the reach of the TV conversations on Twitter, starting around the fall of the 2013 TV season.
What does all this mean? Since TV viewers discuss TV content on Twitter, it creates a new dynamic between audiences and programming. Twitter’s more than 140 million active users send one billion Tweets every two and a half days. The majority of which is public and conversational, making Twitter data a necessity in producing standardized metrics representing online and mobile conversations about television. Now, this new “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating” will serve to complement Nielsen’s existing TV ratings, giving TV networks and advertisers the real-time metrics required to understand TV audience’s social activity. The rating will attempt to do more than just provide information about how many people have tweeted about a specific show, aiming to also tally up the number of people who’ve read each comment.
This new rating is a meaningful step forward for the industry, particularly as programmers develop more captivating live TV and new second-screen experiences, and advertisers create integrated ad campaigns that combine paid and earned media.
A Twitter spokesperson claims that Twitter has become the world’s new digital water cooler, where conversations about TV happen in real time “The extensive growth of smart phones and tablets has generated a substantial ‘connected’ TV audience that is simultaneously watching TV and accessing the Internet through these devices”. Just last year a study was released stating that approximately 70% of tablet owners and 68% of smart phone owners use their devices while watching TV. When you can combine the instant feedback of Twitter with Nielsen ratings, it certainly can benefit program content producers, and assist marketers and advertisers in capturing their target audiences with greater strategic precision.