A Conference Note From Phil Leggiere

Roy presented data on two case studies at the conference, which he said dramatized how Twitter Inc. can significantly extend both the reach and frequency of impressions of TV.

First, he showed a graph of tweet creation and distribution activity generated around the broadcast of a single March 3 episode of The Walking Dead, an AMC Networks Inc. hit drama. During the one-hour airing of that episode from 9 p.m.-10 p.m. EST, Roy noted, Twitter users tweeted tens of thousands of tweets per minute throughout the broadcast. Tweets reached 16 million impressions in Twitter newsfeeds, a number nearly 50% higher than the number of households tuned into the episode.

“If you look at the distribution curve, we see a tidal wave of impressions created by what starts out as a small cluster of tweets,” Roy said. “When a show is simultaneously broadcast and followed on Twitter millions share the context around a shared event.”

Additionally, Roy said, while a Twitter conversation around the episode spiked during the hour of airing, it continued at a very high level of intensity, driving new impressions in the hours and even days after airing.

Roy's second example was ESPN (owned by The Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Corp.) sports broadcasts. He said Twitter data showed during many broadcasts, such as NCAA football and basketball, the number of tweets viewed exceeded, sometimes two-to-one, the number of people watching the game. "Increasingly people follow games when they're not around TV by following tweets of people who are watching the game," Roy said.

This kind of live reach via digital is unique. While Facebook Inc. and Google Inc.’s YouTube can point to enormous aggregate reach, neither platform can yet begin to match TV, as Roy suggested Twitter can, in the ability to reach a critical mass as a unified bloc in real time.

Roy said the emergence of such social data spheres around television was creating an entirely new paradigm for not only measuring the impact of TV programming and advertising but also of dramatically increasing that impact. He added Nielsen's new partnership with Twitter to measure tweet activities in relation to TV programming was based on the growing recognition by broadcasters and advertisers of the "fundamental value to be gained from grafting the largest global mass media, TV, and the highest-engagement social media" and a clear signal that Twitter is on the verge of becoming a central component of TV ad campaigns.

“Twitter is fast becoming the social soundtrack to TV and the cultural life of the moment,” Roy said.

Though not mentioning Twitter's deal with Comcast Corp., announced Oct. 9 and enabling Comcast subscribers to use Twitter to record or watch programming, Roy predicted that TV broadcasters would increasingly use Twitter to broaden their own distribution of content, a process that would be a strong fit with pre-roll advertising.

Roy's comments about the increasingly effective synergy between Twitter and TV are consistent with OTR Global findings in our Sept. 26 Facebook note that, at least among a select group of brands, Twitter is increasingly being included as part of TV campaigns rather than relegated to an online display ad buy, something Facebook still has not been able to do.

If, as Roy predicts, the integration of TV and Twitter becomes far more widespread, Twitter could be very well positioned to hold a strong, long-term premium in pricing over online rivals.

What: MIT Technology Review Emerging Technologies Conference
When: Oct. 9-10
Where: Boston
Who: 300 representatives of start-up technology firms, IT technology consultants, venture capitalists and large IT firms