‘Twitter TV audiences 50 times bigger than amount of tweeters’

The average Twitter audience for a live TV show on the social network is 50 times bigger than the number of those tweeting about the show, according to the debut release of Nielsen’s Twitter TV ratings, which suggests TV programmes’ social reach is much higher than previously thought.   

Twitter logo

For instance, if there are 10,000 Twitter users tweeting about an episode of The X-Factor, the number of people viewing here tweets will be 500,000, according to the US ratings, dubbed The Social Guide. 

The data also shows the cross-over between Twitter and TV audiences demonstrating the number of tweets about live programming numbered 263 million in the second quarter, 2013 – an annual increase of 38 per cent. 

A blog post detailing the release, reads: “Until now, only the amount of Tweets and respective Twitter authors has been measurable. 

“Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings complete the picture by measuring both Twitter TV-specific activity (Authors, Tweets) and reach (Unique Audience, Impressions).”

The data also shows the number of “Twitter TV Authors” has increased 24 per cent in the last 12 months to 19 million in the US. 

Meanwhile, The Social Guide also contains a weekly Twitter TV Ratings chart, ranking shows by four metrics: the number of tweets generated by an episode, the number of ‘authors’, the number of impressions generated, and its total unique audience (see below).   

Nielsen-Twitter-460

It remains unclear when The Social Guide will contain information specifically about UK audiences, but the release demonstrates Twitter’s attempts to prove its value to both TV advertisers and broadcasters. 

Nielsen’s data comes as the social network aims to prove its cross-over with TV audiences ahead of its anticipated $1bn IPO later this year.    

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Seb Joseph

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