Industry welcomes Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings Australia launch

Nielsen's Twitter TV Ratings will be available in Australia in the second half of the year, the company announced today. The system allows TV networks and advertisers to measure tweets, unique authors, impressions and the unique audience of TV-related conversations on Twitter.

“No longer will the success of a brand-integration or TV-led campaign rest solely on the number of people we’re told sat in front of the TV,” said Jeremy Clark, social director, OMD Word, Australia. “This gives rigour to the show’s online reach and buzz.”

Clark added a caveat though: Twitter has around 2 million active monthly users in Australia (out of a population of 22.68 million), so brands should be cautious and not view it as a complete picture of social sentiment.

Nielsen said 44 per cent of the online population in Australia participates in 'social TV'. In the past, social-TV measures focused on how many people wrote about TV shows, without revealing the size of the audience that actually saw those tweets.

Shailesh Rao, Twitter’s VP for APAC, Latin America and emerging markets, stressed the importance of the company’s deep ties to television at an event the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) hosted in Singapore in November. TV shows over the past few years have been a significant source of chatter on social media, especially Twitter, and all that banter has driven an increase in TV’s viewership and reach, Rao asserted.

In the US, where Nielsen first rolled out the Twitter TV product, more than 90 networks, agencies and advertisers have adopted it. According to Twitter’s corporate blog, 32 million people in the US tweeted about TV programming last year.

“I expect a greater focus from marketers on real-time engagement strategies for Twitter, leveraging and building on the reach that their TVC’s already provide and extending the conversations online in a more engaging way,” said Chris Bell, senior account director at SapientNitro.  

According to experts, the great opportunity for the region will come when the platform is activated in markets such as Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines where Twitter usage is high and TV watching is still a group activity.

“Nielsen’s product helps brands see the wider reach and conversations around TV advertising and sponsorship,” said Paul Gage, regional planning director with Iris Worldwide. “This would be valuable in the Philippines and Indonesia where Twitter is incredibly popular and TV advertising still has good reach.”

Gage said it's important for Nielsen to consider more than just Twitter. “Platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Line from Japan, KakoaTalk from Korea also have branded conversations,” he added.