Audiencing Through Social Media: A Brief Overview

Audiencing Through Social Media: A Brief OverviewDarryl Woodford, Katie Prowd & Axel Bruns

INTRODUCTION

• Social Media Audiences & The Australian Twittersphere• Prequel: Big Brother US• Brief outline of Sabermetric approaches• Excitement Index• From US to Australia (or chasing the $$$)• The HypometerTM

• Sequel: Work in progress• Caveat: Some questions we can’t answer

BIG BROTHER USA

“Receiving a message from a highly followed individual is a status symbol in itself.” (Marwick & Boyd, 2011, p. 139)

Boyd Quote

To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter. (2011). Convergence 17(2), p. 139-158

BIG BROTHER USA VS AU (AUDIENCE)• In US, for Big Brother (&

shows generally), there is little correlation between viewers and tweets.

• In Australia, for Big Brother and other shows in our one-week pilots, high correlation between viewer count and tweets.

• Highlights that applying US models to Australia is not possible

NIELSEN SOCIALGUIDE TWITTER RATINGS

NIELSEN SOCIALGUIDE TWITTER RATINGS

Cable Channel vs Major Network?

NIELSEN SOCIALGUIDE TWITTER RATINGS

Cable Channel vs Major Network?

Why is having more followers the important statistic?

(Follower counts are problematic)

BUT ALSO

Cable Channel vs Major Network?

Why is having more followers the important statistic?

(Follower counts are problematic)

2.5 hour special

1 hour show

SABERMETRICS

BASIC VS ADVANCED METRICS

From ERA to xERA: Includes factors under pitchers control (hits, walks etc) other than Earned Runs..

From xERA to FIP: Accounts for the shortcoming of fielders beyond a scorers adjudication of errors.

Weighted Tweet Index: Accounts for factors unrelated to the show itself: network, day, month, etc..

Replacement Value: Just as a ‘free agent’ in baseball has some minimal level of performance, anything shown at 8pm on CBS or Nine will get *some* viewers.. Ratings shouldn’t start at 0 (unless it’s a Houston Astros game)

EXCITEMENT INDEX

EXCITEMENT INDEX

EXCITEMENT INDEX

SEASONAL MODELS • Blue Line represents the ratio of total viewers, Orange Line represents ratio of tweets (to season average per show).

• In both one run seasons (top) and those with mid-season break (bottom), tweets are highly exaggerated version of traditional ratings model.

• In other words: Users tweet much more around premieres & finales than regular shows. Metrics must account for this.

FROM US TO AUSTRALIA (CHASING THE $)

FROM US TO AU

310 million 22 million

FROM US TO AUUS Networks

FROM US TO AU

AU Networks

FROM US TO AU

“While our products have always included data from multiple social media services, the reality is that Twitter is the platform where the overwhelming majority -– about 95% – of public real-time engagement with TV happens.” -- Bluefin

Our Australian pilot study has shown Twitter and Facebook are closer to 53.49% and 46.51% respectively.

SOME ARE WORSE THAN OTHERS...

PILOT RESULTS

42.6% 67.4%

27.7% 72.3%

10.0% 90.0%

PILOT STUDY RESULTS

91.5% 8.5%

62.4% 37.6%

56.7% 43.3%

PILOT STUDY RESULTS

CONNECTING THE DOTS

Seasonal Models

SabermetricsBig Brother US

Excitement Index

Australia

THE HYPOMETERTM

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

• HypometerTM(s) - Movies, Politics, Sport…

• Computation modeling - Patrik Wikstrom - How do we model TV audiences? What are the implications for different actors?

• What is the value of a Facebook ‘Like’? More than a favorite, less than a retweet?

• Increasing integration of external data: Ratings, TV Listings etc.

Questions?