CRE to Study Social Media Impact on TV Viewing

Nielsen-funded independent think tank the Council for Research Excellence (CRE) has initiated a study to determine how social media impacts television viewing.

The initiative kicks off with a quant survey conducted by word-of-mouth specialist Keller Fay Group of up to 1,600 participants (recruited by Nielsen), who will check in multiple times each day over the course of a week via a mobile app. A social media analytics project will then be undertaken by Nielsen/McKinsey joint venture NM Incite, with 'social TV' analytics delivered by Bluefin Labs.

Finally, Nielsen's digital ethnography unit Nielsen Life360 will track 200 panelists who will record media/technology usage for seven consecutive days using their own smartphones or Nielsen-provided phones. A subset of these users will also be invited to submit related videos.

Dr. Peter Fader, Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and co-director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative, will work alongside a team of academics, and with Keller Fay, Nielsen, NM Incite and Bluefin Labs, to review the data collected from the quant and analytics portions of the study.

CRE's Social Media Committee Chair Beth Rockwood (pictured) comments: 'This learning will allow us to better understand how viewing patterns are changing and how measurement of those behaviors can be improved. Since no single approach is likely to provide the full picture, we felt it best to study behaviors simultaneously from three different perspectives. In addition to learning about social media and television, we will also gain more insight about the research methods employed.'

Web site: www.researchexcellence.com .