Case Study: Twitter correlates TV engagement with Twitter activity using Nielsen Holdings Consumer Neuroscience

Understanding the Effect of Social Media on TV Program Engagement

Twitter wanted to understand whether higher program engagement was associated with more Twitter activity in the general viewing population. To study that question, Twitter worked with Nielsen Holdings and Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience.

Nielsen Holdings used electroencephalogram (EEG) and eye tracking to monitor neurological activity in more than 300 participants as they watched programs with different levels of Twitter engagement and TV viewership volume. Nielsen found that Twitter conversations were directly correlated with neurological engagement, with the chart showing an R value of .795. The findings also suggested that neuroscience could help optimize programming and that Twitter metrics could identify shows with engaged audiences.

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