• by Wayne Friedman , October 7, 2013

Nielsen started its anticipated Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings on Monday -- an effort to measure not only TV-related social media conversations, but who is reading those messages.

While there has been ample data concerning social media activity and TV-related subjects, Nielsen says what is new here is determining “reach," the unique audience/impressions.

Initial analysis of TV activity shows that the entire Twitter TV audience for per episode is, on average, 50 times larger than the authors. If, for example, 2,000 people are tweeting about a program, 100,000 people are seeing those Tweets. Those 100,000 aren’t necessarily viewers of that particular TV episode.

Nielsen notes that Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings are a separate set of metrics to traditional National TV Ratings. They do not change traditional National TV Ratings. But many believe they will complement each other.

“We are just beginning to understand the dynamic relationship between social media and television,” states Beth Rockwood, senior vice president of market resources and ad sales research at Discovery Communications.

Graeme Hutton, senior vice president of research, Universal McCann, also stated: “The potential value of SocialGuide and Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings is that it provides a pathway for an advertiser to turn audience energy into brand momentum.”

Coming from its SocialGuide unit, Nielsen says its Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings are available across over 215 English-language U.S. broadcast and cable networks. In addition, it is currently working with Twitter to accurately measure and report Spanish-language networks.

Twitter activity of TV in the U.S. has grown recently -- to 19 million unique people in the U.S. composed of 263 million Tweets about live TV in the second quarter of 2013 alone. This is a 24% increase in “authors” and a 38% increase in Tweet volume, according to SocialGuide.

Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings will be released overnight via two platforms: SocialGuide Intelligence and Nielsen National TV View. In addition, there will be a Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings Weekly Top Ten list available at SocialGuide.com on a weekly basis .