Mike Snider

USA TODAY

Much of that chatting on Facebook about TV shows will soon be factored into Nielsen's social TV rankings.

The research firm's social media unit is improving its current Twitter TV Ratings — started in 2013, as complementary to its traditional broadcast TV ratings — by adding Facebook activity to create new Social Content Ratings. Like the current Twitter TV ratings, the Social Content Ratings will track online activity around live TV events, including sports, as well as original series from TV networks and streaming providers.

"This is the next big step for us because now for the first time we are going to be able to really have a holistic understanding of the social activity across platform(s)," said Sean Casey, president of Nielsen Social.

Facebook activity such as posts shared publicly and with followers, friends and family will be integrated into the ratings during the first half of 2016, with Instagram activity expected to be added after that, Casey said.

Nielsen launches TV Twitter ratings

The ratings currently track not only tweets and number of authors about a TV program, but also the reach of Twitter about programming, based on online activity from three hours before a program airs (local time) to three hours afterward. That includes retweets, likes and other activity. For instance, Sunday's Democratic presidential candidates' debate and Thursday's Republican presidential candidates' debate drove about 1.1 million and 1.2 million tweets, respectively, according to the latest weekly ranking. But slightly more Twitter users (6.5 million) saw the tweets, compared with the 6.4 million who saw tweets about the Republican debate.

The public rankings that Nielsen makes available (see them here on NielsenSocial.com) only include live linear TV programs. But Nielsen also tracks Net-delivered video programming on Netflix and other online video providers.

"The social TV phenomenon is really documented," Casey said. "Today when people are watching TV, they are not watching alone on their couches or waiting until the next day to go into work and talk about programs. They are doing it immediately on their second screen across social platforms."

TV networks have been using social networks for awhile to engage viewers. "They are also interested in understanding ... the relationship it has to TV ratings," Casey said.

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