Facebook and Twitter tell TV giants how much buzz their shows are generating
Facebook is stepping up its its battle with Twitter to win more advertising dollars.This week it will ill begin sending weekly reports to America’s four largest television networks, showing how much chatter their shows are generating on the social network. Twitter is also getting into the action.
Facebook: Info for networks
The Facebook reports will reveal how many “actions” — likes, comments, or shares — a television episode has inspired on the social network and how many members participated in an action, says the Wall Street Journal.
Disappointingly for the media-buying universe, Facebook, will not make the results generally available. Instead, it will share the data reports with ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS, and a small number of select partners.
Facebook and Twitter are in a heated fight "to own the Web’s town square," says the WSJ, because becoming the go-to hub for real-time events like television shows could draw more user activity and more advertising dollars.
The key to this is data — proving to networks and advertisers that the activity on their service is meaningful.
Twitter, expected to give details of their initial public offering soon, is also to begin to distribute the “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating,” its first measurement report in partnership with media measurement giant Nielsen..
The report will measure how many people participated in a conversation about a particular show, and how many people saw those tweets.
Based on Facebook posts and tweets Sunday night on the series finale of "Breaking Bad," Twitter appeared to be the early leader -- at least in terms of volume.
"I was watching the feedback on both Facebook and Twitter, and Twitter had the edge by a long shot -- 20 to 1," said Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies . "The instantaneous reactions off of Twitter were pretty high but it's way too early to tell who's going to do the best job."