Nielsen / NM Incite Buy Social Media / TV Analyst

Nielsen and its McKinsey joint venture NM Incite have announced the acquisition of SocialGuide, which provides analysis of social media conversations about TV programs. Terms were not disclosed.

Nielsen says the buy underlines its commitment to delivering comprehensive media measurement solutions, and will expand NM Incite's social media research and analytics capabilities - an estimated 33% of Twitter users actively tweet about TV-related content.

SocialGuide offers a real-time capture service covering programming across 232 US TV channels in English and Spanish, and over 30,000 programs. The firm's software technology and data streams will be integrated immediately into NM Incite, redoubling the latter's efforts to quantify the relationship between social media and TV ratings to help optimise ad spend.

NM Incite Andrew Somosi comments: 'The opportunity in social TV is too big to ignore and there is a need for standard metrics and research to uncover the effect of social TV on programming and advertising strategies. TV networks are expanding their research, advertising and engagement efforts across social media.' According to SocialGuide founder Sean Casey, 'Nielsen is the industry leader in providing cross-platform and multi-media measurement solutions. There is no greater opportunity to establish industry metrics and standards in social TV than bringing Nielsen, NM Incite and SocialGuide together.'

NM Incite, a joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey, operates in over 30 markets, including the USA, Canada, the UK, Germany, China, India, Japan and Australia.

Web sites: www.nielsen.com , www.nmincite.com and www.socialguide.com .