“Social Media Ad Trust Grows; Old Media Ad Trust Shrinks?” That’s right.
According to a number of sources, as more and more people go online trust in social media ads, generally presented in the framework of frank conversations about the companies and people they’re about, are more trusted than their print and television counterparts.
Moreover, activity on social media sites about television is now a common measure with some TV execs, like CW President Mark Pedowitz, who told The Hollywood Reporter “I had an epiphany in December, when I started looking at the social-media grids like Get Glue, where our shows constantly are in the top 10.”
Platforms like Get Glue, TunerFish, and IntoNow, allow people to communicate on what they see on TV shows like The Vampire Diaries or Mad Men. In the example of Mad Men, Get Glue measures the number of fans who “check in” to the Mad Men room, and then their engagement: chats posted on the field about the show over the duration of the telecast – the more of this one does, the more points one can accumulate and then use to make some kind of purchase.
In fact, the higher the audience for the show, the greater the number of check-ins – a fact that holds for movies too. In that case, the top check-ins are held by box office champions, according to Get Glue.
Given the fact that Nielsen itself lacks a product like Get Glue or TunerFish, or IntoNow, can and will these platforms replace the Nielsen Ratings System? Well, looking again at a Get Glue study, the data analysis shows a direct correlation between Get Glue check-ins and Nielsen Ratings – the greater the check-ins, the higher the ratings.
I would venture a hypothesis that’s also true for Twitter Trends and Nielsen Ratings; the answer is yes. And as it turns out, Nielsen’s not just aware of this, but is doing something about it. Zapit’s “TV By The Numbers” reports that Nielsen is replacing its people meters with a measure of Facebook Likes and Twitter Trends. But what I don’t get is why Nielsen doesn’t just partner with Get Glue, TunerFish, and IntoNow?!
According to Paid Content, Get Glue says it shares “some data” with Nielsen, but from the read of the post, Nielsen doesn’t have full access to Get Glue’s platform, or perhaps doesn’t culturally know how to value it, so it only takes what it understands as a company. Just a guess.
The question is for now long will entertainment properties put up with this “catching up” with the times on the part of Nielsen? At some point, and unless Nielsen quickly and cleanly alters its entire way of measuring audience involvement in television programming, the company could find itself out of business.
Stay tuned.