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Nielsen's Twitter TV Ratings And What It Means For Radio
October 8, 2013
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Nielsen's Twitter TV Ratings (NTTR) has been unveiled – a proprietary, first-ever syndicated metric focused on the amount of exchange that TV shows generate on Twitter.
The measurement is smart as it studies and captures all keywords (beyond calculated hashtagged words or phrases) relevant to the TV shows Nielsen monitors. It not only rates chatter around individual TV shows but provides many other data points that are really useful to producers and writers.
One of the many examples Nielsen showed me (below) is a breakdown of the Top Series Genres. As you see, reality TV and music type shows like the VMA's garner the most online talk, at least for now.
Nielsen will be studying three types of tweets that drive impressions:
- Earned: Organic tweets from fans
- Owned: Tweets from talent, network, etc...
- Paid: Promoted tweets
And while there's no doubt that some tweets indeed drive tune-in, what's important to note here is the metric's design. This isn't about Twitter "creating ratings," that's just not the case.
Nielsen's Twitter TV ratings have been formulated to show overall Twitter activity to help networks and advertisers come up with ways to better use this platform to drive awareness and tune-in.
The slide below tells a strong story. At the early stages of this metric, the more mass appeal a show is with already high ratings, the more opportunity it has to increase tune-in:
But Twitter is not a magic wand. It doesn't create ratings. Here's why:
Just because your station has followers does not mean you have attention.
Nielsen's Twitter ratings are quite sophisticated and being rolled out at the same time Twitter unveils its IPO filing, legitimizing Twitter's 215 million monthly active users to the business world.
And while Twitter ratings don't directly apply to radio right now, the takeaway here is that metrics are evolving.
Nielsen has already introduced Twitter ratings to many ad agencies. There are some agencies that are resistant to understanding this new exchange metric and there are many advertising execs that want to be the first ones to embrace this concept and lead the pack.
So getting on board now with a real understanding of Twitter's strength will give your station/personality show/company a leg up when this metric comes to radio. And even if that's a long way off, there is so much you can learn about studying Twitter TV ratings and applying it to your own brand.
I've shared early commonalities between the successful programs that stand out in traditional ratings and now in Twitter ratings with Jacobs Media clients and there's no doubt fan energy is something that is earned in this space.
We are not entitled to an active social fan base.
This is hard work. Just because there's no cost to creating social accounts doesn't mean it's effortless.
Free does not equate to easy.
Nielsen's activity with Twitter and TV foretells an interesting future for those of us in radio.
But remember that social is personal and the last thing folks think about when they fire up any platform or app is to interface with brands.
However if we're paying attention, acknowledging fans and creating cool, unexpected moments, they are likelier to be more interested in us socially.
Reach out to me anytime on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter.
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