• by Wayne Friedman , December 9, 2016

Analyzing Twitter TV-related social media activity for October 2016, Nielsen found that total TV social media engagement -- retweets, replies and shares -- for “organic” content, tweets authored by TV viewers/audiences, accounted for 81% of all social media engagement for TV shows. Just 19% came from network-owned or directed tweets. 

“Organic” engagement includes retweets, replies and shares three hours before a new episode of a TV series a new episode of a TV series airs and three hours after. “Owned” engagement includes the same parameters but from talent, program or networks. This can come using “handles” such as the ‘@’ sign before a word.

But Nielsen says looking at each piece of “owned” content has a higher social media value.

For example, for October 2016, there were an average of 70 engagements with each “owned” tweet compared to just 8 engagements per original “organic” tweet.

In this regard, Nielsen says: “Networks have a unique opportunity with owned properties to create quality content, post it at the right time and promote it strategically to drive engagement.”

Nielsen measures U.S. Twitter activity for TV programs on English- and Spanish-language broadcast and national cable networks from three hours before through three hours after linear telecasts, local time, and on a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week basis.