A new study from CitizenNet attempts to quantify the relationship between Facebook “Likes” and TV viewership. The short version: they found a correlation. A 3% boost in “Likes” correlated to a 1% boost in TV ratings. Our sister blog AllFacebook has some of the details:
Read more

We all know that Twitter is a big TV driver, thanks to the open nature of the platform and the company’s relentless efforts to work with the industry. But Facebook has always been a bit of a mystery. The majority of interactions on Facebook are private, and until recently, its search product has been essentially useless. But we all know that Facebook maintains a tremendous reach advantage over Twitter.

Read more

Nielsen’s just-released “Social Media Report” for 2012 drills deep on mobile, illustrating the inexorable relationship between social and mobile devices. “Time spent on mobile apps and the mobile web account for 63% of the year-over-year growth in overall time spent using social media,” the report said. Specifically, mobile apps, which dominate over mobile web in time spent. Read more

While nearly all voters (92%) followed election returns on TV, just over one-quarter (27%) of them followed the results simultaneously on TV and the web on election night, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center. For those under the age of 40, the number of “dual screeners” jumped to 39%. If you ask us, that’s a surprisingly high number; most second-screen studies just measure proximity — if people are on their devices while the TV is on — but these numbers illustrate true simultaneous engagement.

Read more

It seems like a week doesn’t go by without another second screen study — here’s one from last week — but Nielsen’s reports are watched very carefully within the industry. Nielsen’s Cross-Platform Report (.PDF) is out, and it provides even more solid evidence of the growing proximity and overlap between devices and televisions.

Read more

Nielsen and NM Insight, a joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey and Company, has acquired social TV tracking firm SocialGuide. Terms of the agreement were not immediately available. Brooklyn-based SocialGuide has focused a substantial amount of its efforts on Twitter, which has become the de facto home for real-time conversation surrounding television. SocialGuide’s platform tracks conversations around more than 30,000 programs, across 232 English and Spanish-language channels.

Read more

The consumer research house GfK MRI has released one of the best second-screen studies we’ve seen about tablet usage, breaking down the multitasking phenomenon in some detail. The study concluded that 63% of tablet owners multitask in front of TV at least once a week, and 41% of total tablet time is spent in front of TV — the most popular multitasking activity. Millennials top the list of the most active TV multitaskers, but the activity is rather pervasive across all demographics:

Read more

I don’t know about you, but the rapid growth of tablets has been mind-boggling. They’re the fastest-growing consumer electronics device ever made: 31% of online Americans now own a tablet, more than doubling the ownership rate from October of last year (14%). Nearly half (45%) of online consumers told the Consumer Electronics Association that they expect to purchase a tablet within the next two years, and tablets are the #1 “most wanted gift” for adults this holiday season, according to the CEA survey released this week. Read more

While a growing crop of startups battle it out in the social TV space, there’s one that’s been around since 2006 that’s established a tremendous head start. Twitter, as we know, dominates conversations around TV — 95% of public conversation about TV happens on Twitter, the company says, and 25% of the U.S. audience tweets about TV. Read more

According to Twitter, 7.2 million tweets were sent during last night’s Presidential debate. From the Twitter blog: Read more