Nielsen adds Facebook to Social Content ratings


Details

Michelle Clancy

| 24 January 2016




Nielsen will be expanding Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings to include Facebook conversation for the first time.



The expanded set of metrics, dubbed Nielsen’s Social Content Ratings, will measure programme-related conversations on Twitter and Facebook, including posts shared with friends and family, with followers, and publicly. Nielsen will track social media conversations for original video programming from TV and over-the-top streaming providers for linear airtimes, as well as on a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week basis.

A recent study from the ratings company found that nearly 60% of smartphone and tablet owners use their devices while watching TV several times a week or more. Consumers are using these second screens to browse the Internet, connect with friends about what they’re watching and read social discussion of programmes. Combined with social media, this multi-screening behaviour has transformed watching television into a social experience to be enjoyed with friends, family and fellow fans.

With the launch of Nielsen’s Social Content Ratings in the first half of 2016, Nielsen will provide a holistic view of social programme conversation, to support cross-platform strategies for networks, agencies and advertisers. The new ratings will look at the total amount of social conversation for a programme, and when how audiences engage with programme content across social networks. It will assess whether programme audiences respond to and discuss programs differently through varying social networks and the relationship between programme activity on each social network and consumer behaviours such as linear viewing, digital viewing and visits to programmes’ web properties. It will finally ask how do promotional strategies across digital, social, and linear channels relate to programme activity on each social network.

“The development of Social Content Ratings reflects Nielsen’s commitment to continually adapting our services to meet the needs of the industry and is part of Nielsen’s ongoing effort to evolve our measurement to reflect the total audience across screens and platforms,” said Sean Casey, president, Nielsen Social. “Nielsen Social measurement is evolving to provide a comprehensive, standardized picture of how consumers are responding to programme content through social media, wherever and whenever.”

The expanded ratings are slated for commercial availability in the first half of 2016 and will be made available in the four markets where Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings are currently available (Australia, Italy, Mexico and the US).