Social Sights

Measuring the Social Report #1: Network Television Ratings

As you may know by now, Networked Insights measures the social. Well, so far we’ve talked the talk, but now we’re walking the walk. Today we are proud to release our first Measuring the Social report. The first installment focuses on network television ratings based on social interactions (download the full report here).

What is measuring the social? Today, social media measurement only analyzes about 15% of people who actually contribute content online. Rubicon Consulting puts this number even lower, at 10%. No matter the number, the reality is that the vast majority of people are interacting online in other equally important ways, and to truly understand the social, these actions need to be taken into account too.

Networked Insights measures the entire online audience, including those who post and those who interact by reading, rating, sharing, linking and inviting. Equally important, we also take into account the influence of each interaction — if Tiger woods shares a golf video with some friends, that interaction carries far more weight than you or me doing the same.

For our first report, we set out to measure the social for ratings of network TV shows in comparison to Nielsen’s age-old weekly top 10 TV ratings that have been the standard for television show measurement for years. Nielsen’s ratings have largely defined where and how much money advertisers spend, but as more and more ad dollars continue to shift online, these measurements are becoming irrelevant as they are not accurate across other mediums, such as online.

Enter Measuring the Social, and our first report proves this phenomenon. As you will see, Networked Insights’ top 10 television shows among the online audience is far different from Nielsen’s:

Some of our key findings…

• Half (5) of the shows in the Networked Insights top 10 list do not appear in the Nielsen list: Criminal Minds (2), NCIS (5), Brothers & Sisters (6), Cold Case (7) and Family Guy (9)
• Two and a Half Men has a strong hold on the top spot among online audiences, but is a distant fifth in the Nielsen ratings. Strong online engagement is due to Two and a Half Men’s “quote following” — a high level of interaction around specific quotes from the show
• Criminal Minds does not appear on the Nielsen top 10 list, but is the second highest rated show on Networked Insights’ list, likely due to the psychological nature of the show and its complex criminal storylines
• Likewise, the second highest rated show on Nielsen’s list, Desperate Housewives, has very low engagement among the online audience due to the lack of passion and pain in the show’s content

Online engagement around television shows varies dramatically from offline viewership, stressing the importance of advertisers measuring the social to understand their target audiences and where to spend their ad dollars. As economic times continue to get tougher for advertisers, making the most of each ad dollar is more important than ever before. It’s no longer about trying out campaigns and seeing what sticks, it’s about making your online marketing stick the first time.

Stay tuned and subscribe to the SocialSights blog for continued measuring the social insights and the next installments of the Measuring the Social report that will explore other topics and areas of interest from our unique social perspective.

Dowload the full Measuring the Social report here.