Lerner has an interesting graph showing correlation between buzz and actual TV ratings for broadcast versus cable TV.  For some reason (I'm curious why this might be) the correlation between buzz and ratings is quite a bit higher for broadcast TV than it is for cable.  Something to mull over... anyone have any speculations why this might be the case?

Nielsen found that online buzz tends to correlate with actual ratings more strongly among younger demos than older demos: for the 50+ cohort, the correlation is low across the board (males, females, and all persons), 35-49 is somewhat correlated, and the highest correlation between buzz and actual ratings is seen among 12-17-year-olds.  I'm guessing that the overall volume of buzz is higher among the younger demos (although I suppose there could be millions of 50-something women breathlessly posting about Gossip Girl).

More interesting insights from Nielsen on online buzz and TV shows: discussion boards and blogs are far and away the biggest sources of buzz about TV shows, compared to Facebook (including Groups).  In fact, the volume of buzz on Facebook including Groups basically looks like it flatlines across the TV season, while blogs and discussion boards show increasing buzz along the lines described in the previous blog post.

Nina Stratt Lerner from Nielsen presented some great data from Nielsen's research on the connection between online buzz and TV viewership, which shouldallow TV broadcasters (and advertisers) to make predictive observations. One slide shows the volume of online buzz over the course of the TV season for four shows: Jersey Shore, The Bachelor, Modern Family, and Gossip Girl.  For most of the shows there is a preliminary spike around the premiere, followed by slowly mounting buzz in mid-season, and then a big spike around the finale.

funny, and perhaps predictable: the Expedia campaign produced different results for male and female visitors with ad creative centered on an alluring brunette in an old-fashioned two-piece that wouldn't be out of place on the side of a WWII bomber.  More than twice as many men as women clicked on the image, but the women who did click were more likely to actually proceed to a transaction.  I'm guessing some of the guys were just ogling those dynamite gams.

"continuous testing" is integral to successful social media campaigns, says Barenblat (rounding out a very data-centric day). One of the nifty success stories from Context Optional and Efficient Frontier was a Facebook campaign for Expedia called Friendtrips, which attracted over a million new fans (a 750% increase) and approximately 30 times more wall mentions of Expedia.

Brands shouldn't just build a fan base for its own sake, according to Kevin Barenblat, the co-founder and CEO of Context Optional here at the Social Media Insider Summit... but once they start building, scale is key to success.

according to panelist Aly Cohen.  Panelist Russell Aaron says he converted to Facebook and ditched MySpace forever with the advent of photo-tagging.  All the panelists on the 20-something panel are also on LinkedIn.

Young adults log in to Facebook on 18 out of every 30 days, spending a total of 11 hours per month on social media (the lion's share going to Facebook), according to Michael Holmes of Ball State.

that's a lot of media behavior -- the amount measured by Michael Holmes, director of insight & research at the center for medis design, Ball State University.  It's especially impressive because he's only 25!  (he claims)