Measuring television success with social analytics can be a complex process. A show that is extremely popular and is ranked high by viewers could generate less of a buzz on social media while lower-ranked shows are talked about all over the platforms. So everything isn’t always as transparent as one would want.
Measuring the efficiency of social TV activities
The metrics that advertisers and marketers need are nowadays driven by customers. When customers tweet, post and generally voice opinions on social media, they unknowingly set new barometers that let advertisers and brands know about the success of their campaigns and products. And Twitter is by far the main action-driven platform.
Twitter has long incorporated social TV analytics within its platform to measure the impact of television content on social media. In 2013, Twitter took a step further, and acquired Trendrr, a company in New York [that] specialized in collecting and measuring social conversations related to specific television content. It had also previously bought BlueFin Labs for similar purposes. A more recent initiative is the partnership between Twitter and Nielsen, Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings.
The framework for Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings is set, according to Nielsen, “to investigate how networks, agencies and advertisers could leverage information to anticipate how social a program will be, as well as identify whether a given program is under- or over-performing on Twitter.” Using variables and investigating how certain TV shows perform on social media Nielsen is able to draw models and estimate tweeting related to program episodes. Its analytics start from analyzing characteristics such as viewers’ age, type of network, language of program, type of program and duration of program.
How does measuring of social TV activities benefit broadcasters?
Social media is powerful media. Positive tweeting can encourage people to act in favor of a broadcaster: people can choose to turn on the TV or change a channel. Negative tweeting on the other hand can have negative repercussions for the brand. Social TV analytics help broadcasters deliver the right content at the right time to the right people.
Measuring of social TV activities delivers accurate and more powerful insight to broadcasters. Broadcasters can have a better understanding of the audience and of the ways in which an audience interacts with TV content. Moreover, it analyzes the relationship between the social buzz and audience tune-in. Social TV measurement also delivers real-time understanding of impact of television content. Whereas it would take longer to analyze, for example, audience tune-in by standalone TV metrics, time is significantly reduced with social TV analytics.
How does measuring of social TV activities benefit advertisers?
Nielsen stated that, “advertisers and agencies can anticipate [through Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings] how social a new program will be before it premieres.” This becomes important for agencies and advertisers because, as social TV analytics define which programs are more social than others are, advertisers can send brand messages to the right audience. Measuring of social TV activities also lets advertisers know about the audiences that are more likely to share branded messages. These benefits can shape ad sales strategies and support sponsorship and integrations.
