Nielsen Expands Social Ratings for TV Talent

Nielsen said it has expanded its Social Content Ratings product so that its measures the impact when show talent promotes TV programming on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The product gives media owners, marketers, agencies and talent more information about their social media power and strategies.

“For our clients, it’s critical to effectively manage the investments they are making across social platforms," said Sean Casey, president, Nielsen Social. "The true impact talent has on the social engagement around TV shows has always been a big blindspot. The challenge for us was crafting a methodology and technology that could determine the program relevance of talents’ social posts at scale for the tens of thousands of actors across thousands of TV shows. In conjunction with our relationships with Twitter and Facebook, Nielsen was able to deliver this measurement to the industry.” 

Nielsen said almost 60% of all social engagement for TV programs is driven by posts by talent. Nielsen’s Social Content Ratings found that more than 6,000 talent accounts published more than 164,000 pieces of social content during the 2018 TV season. Those drove 170 million engagements for TV programs.

“Leaning into a trusted data source to better understand how our talent is engaging with their respective fan bases helps our teams scale these interactions and further drive to our programming,” said Don Robert, executive VP, research, at A+E Networks. “We recognize that our incredible talent has the power to influence consumer discovery and behavior, and Nielsen Social Content Ratings is an important tool that enables our social teams to refine strategies for increased efficiency and impact.”

Nielsen said that the top talents on social media last week were Kim Kardashian West, who had 1.1 million owned engagement promoting an appearance on The Tonight Show, Ellen DeGeneres, who got 926,200 owned engagements for her daytime show, and Gabrielle Union, who had 837,000 owned engagements for America’s Got Talent.

“As the producer of two of the world’s largest reality competition formats, America’s Got Talent and American Idol , we work with our talent to create extremely high levels of social engagement that keep our fans connected to these brands,” said JR Griffin, VP of digital marketing and business development at Fremantle, U.S. “By leveraging Nielsen’s Social Content Ratings, we are able to accurately measure our talent’s social influence and refine our strategies in real time in order to create the most impactful campaigns.”

Jon Lafayette

Jon has been business editor of Broadcasting+Cable since 2010. He focuses on revenue-generating activities, including advertising and distribution, as well as executive intrigue and merger and acquisition activity. Just about any story is fair game, if a dollar sign can make its way into the article. Before B+C, Jon covered the industry for TVWeek, Cable World, Electronic Media, Advertising Age and The New York Post. A native New Yorker, Jon is hiding in plain sight in the suburbs of Chicago.