Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings to Include Demographics

NEW YORK: Nielsen has now incorporated demographic data for its Twitter TV ratings, providing info on the age and gender of the people who tweet and see tweets about television.

Initial analysis of Twitter TV demographics across 273 broadcast and cable program episodes has revealed three key findings. First, there is a broad age and gender distribution across programming. Second, there are significant differences in age and gender profiles across programming types. Third, the analysis highlights how Twitter enables TV networks and advertisers to reach audiences beyond their core demos.

The people who see TV-related tweets (audience) outnumber those who tweet about TV (authors) by a 50-1 margin. New analysis shows that the Twitter TV audience is more demographically balanced than Twitter TV authors. This means that Twitter can be used as an important tool to reach audiences beyond a program's core viewership.

“The nexus of television and social media offers tremendous opportunity to reach consumers,” said David Shiffman, the executive VP of research at MediaVest. “Metrics like these advance our ability to evaluate and measure the impact of those opportunities and complement our clients' TV investments with social activation that can improve overall marketing performance. Social TV audiences data is already enabling us to measure, understand and successfully activate in this space. As it matures, it will also provide a richer narrative about consumer viewing habits.”

“The social TV phenomenon offers networks, advertisers and agencies an exciting opportunity to engage with consumers, amplify messaging and build loyalty,” added Deirdre Bannon, the VP of product at Nielsen Social. “In order to take full advantage of this opportunity, it is critical to understand who is participating in and being reached by the conversation. With demographic data now available for Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings, clients can build campaigns and engagement strategies that consider the audience reached by social TV activity and how that may complement or build on target audiences reached through traditional TV.”