• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, May 8, 2017

The Nielsen launch of enhanced capabilities within Social Content Ratings, supports the analysis of owned and organic activity within the total social TV conversation by measuring the engagement with content posted by owned accounts associated with a program or network, in addition to organic accounts from the general viewing audience.

By breaking down total Social TV activity into owned and organic, networks will now be able to better understand the efficacy of their social strategies and pinpoint influencers among the general viewing audience. Similarly, agencies and advertisers will be able to leverage these actionable insights to help inform brand content strategies across social channels.

 Johann Dudley, Senior Vice President, Global Product, Nielsen Social, says “ … networks are continuing to invest in social strategies to drive awareness and engagement around programs… being able to provide both owned and organic analysis now gives clients and the industry a trusted source of syndicated measurement… to understand the return on those investments… and how they play a role in driving the overall social conversation about television…”

 The methodology employs over 50,000 unique program, network, cast, team and athlete social accounts, and attributes their activity when relevant to provide precise syndicated measurement at scale. Nielsen accesses full-fidelity APIs from Twitter, and is the only measurement provider with direct access to aggregate, anonymous program-related Facebook topic data in order to measure total social TV activity across social networks, says the report.

 During a week in March, 64% of program-related Twitter engagement was driven by organic content, while 36% was engagements driven by owned Tweets. This split varied based on program type and series genre. Across program types, sports events tended to have a higher share of organic engagement compared to series.

 In all, 33% of Twitter engagements for primetime and late fringe series were driven by owned content, while 53% of engagements for talk and news programs stemmed from owned Tweets. Comparing reality, drama, and comedy series programs, owned accounts played a varying role: 21%, 26% and 38% of engagements, respectively, says the report.

 Acknowledging these benefits, Harriet Seitler, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, says “We know that large social fan bases for OWN shows like ‘Greenleaf’ and ‘Queen Sugar’ help drive their success. With these advanced analytics, we can now optimize the content distributed on our social platforms and identify our most engaging content and handles, as well as key audience influencers”

 These Benchmarks show how audience engagement behavior differs between types of programs, and can be especially helpful when comparing a specific program with the rest of the pack. Visibility into what types of content are driving social engagement allows networks to have a deeper understanding of their program-related conversation, analyze audience behavior across programs, and allocate resources accordingly.

 For additional information from Nielsen, please visit here.