Following SecondSync’s social TV partnership with Facebook last month, a new white paper, “Watching with friends: how TV drives conversation on Facebook”, has been released.
Available on SecondSync’s website, the paper questions assumptions around TV-related conversations on Facebook, as well as revealing that 80% of TV conversations on Facebook come from mobile devices.
SecondSync, a social TV analytics provider, agreed the partnership with Facebook to analyse TV-related chatter in multiple territories. The agreement has enabled analysis of total discussion levels on Facebook for the first time, using aggregated and anonymised data to protect user privacy.
Social data has become increasingly important as a way for broadcasters and agencies to understand audience reaction to TV output and is used across many areas including audience measurement, TV planning and direct response advertising.
Commenting on the partnership, Andy Littledale, managing director of SecondSync, said: “TV-related discussion on Facebook is fascinating and something that all our clients are interested in understanding.
“We’re very excited about this partnership and the opportunity to provide an additional perspective on social TV behaviour that draws on Facebook’s rich demographics and broad reach.”
Research The Media’s Richard Marks has argued that the report is long overdue.
In an opinion article published on Wednesday, Marks said: “It is fascinating reading, particularly in the context of TV researchers having seen so much analysis of Twitter data up to now, but so little from Facebook.
“In that sense it can seem like the door opening on a pocket universe that we knew existed but our telescopes could not see. The report is also significant for comparing data from more than one country.
“On the face of it some of the headline data appears startling in the context of what we have seen from the Twitter universe – 2 million Facebook ‘interactions’ during the UK X-Factor final, 4.5 million during the Breaking Bad finale in the US. That netted to an impressive 10% and 24% of the viewing audiences, respectively.”
Marks added that he hopes the report is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of insights from Facebook.
“Facebook is celebrating its tenth anniversary, but Twitter is also a healthy eight years old. As they both move out of infancy we need to understand even more about how these maturing media interact with each other and how they impact and are impacted by television.”
