blog post 4

Social networks in a battle for the second screen

After “Breaking Bad” drew 10.3 million viewers to one of the most crowd-satisfying finales in television history on Sunday, Twitter and Facebook raced to tell the news media about the throngs who shared their instant reactions to the show on the social networks. They both see the social conversation around television is a good way to increase use of their sites and win a bigger piece of advertisers’ spending. Sorting out which site deserves the crown, however, is tricky. Each company uses its own standard for determining social TV conversation, and unlike other types of Internet traffic, there is no neutral arbiter. Twitter said about 600,000 people had posted more than 1.2 million messages, or tweets, while Facebook said three million people had chimed in on its service.

Still, there is little question that television is a favorite topic for users. About half of Americans visit social networks while watching TV, and one in six Americans posts comments about shows during their broadcasts, according to a coming report by eMarketer, which found that people in some countries like China and India are even more active in their chatter. The research firm has found that the average audience for Twitter messages about a TV show is 50 times the number of people posting messages about the show. If 2,000 people are posting messages about a show, for example, an average of 100,000 people are seeing those messages. Also, it appears that heavy Twitter activity around a popular broadcast can drive more people to both the show and Twitter.

Twitter, considered by many to be the leader in social conversation around live TV, has spent much of 2013 courting networks like Fox and MTV and consumer brands like Heineken. Such partnerships have created a significant new revenue stream for Twitter. Facebook, whose social platform is built more around each individual’s web of relationships than rapid-fire conversation, has a more complicated relationship with TV.

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