Audiencing Through Social
Media: A Brief Overview
Darryl Woodford, Katie Prowd & Axel
Bruns

INTRODUCTION
• Social Media Audiences & The Australian Twittersphere
• Prequel: Big Brother US
• Brief outline of Sabermetric approaches
• Excitement Index
• From US to Australia (or chasing the $$$)
• The HypometerTM
• Sequel: Work in progress
• Caveat: Some questions we can’t answer

BIG BROTHER USA
“Receiving a message from a highly followed individual is
a status symbol in itself.” (Marwick & Boyd, 2011, p. 139)
Boyd Quote
To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter. (2011). Convergence 17(2), p. 139-158

BIG BROTHER USA VS AU (AUDIENCE)
• In US, for Big Brother (&
shows generally), there is little
correlation between viewers
and tweets.
• In Australia, for Big Brother
and other shows in our one-
week pilots, high correlation
between viewer count and
tweets.
• Highlights that applying US
models to Australia is not
possible

NIELSEN SOCIALGUIDE TWITTER RATINGS

NIELSEN SOCIALGUIDE TWITTER RATINGS
Cable
Channel vs
Major
Network?

NIELSEN SOCIALGUIDE TWITTER RATINGS
Cable
Channel vs
Major
Network?
Why is
having more
followers the
important
statistic?
(Follower
counts are
problematic)

BUT ALSO
Cable
Channel vs
Major
Network?
Why is
having more
followers the
important
statistic?
(Follower
counts are
problematic)
2.5 hour
special
1 hour
show

SABERMETRICS

BASIC VS ADVANCED METRICS
From ERA to xERA: Includes factors under pitchers control (hits, walks etc)
other than Earned Runs..
From xERA to FIP: Accounts for the shortcoming of fielders beyond a scorers
adjudication of errors.
Weighted Tweet Index: Accounts for factors unrelated to the show itself:
network, day, month, etc..
Replacement Value: Just as a ‘free agent’ in baseball has some minimal level
of performance, anything shown at 8pm on CBS or Nine will get *some*
viewers.. Ratings shouldn’t start at 0 (unless it’s a Houston Astros game)

EXCITEMENT INDEX

EXCITEMENT INDEX

EXCITEMENT INDEX

SEASONAL MODELS • Blue Line represents the
ratio of total viewers,
Orange Line represents ratio
of tweets (to season average
per show).
• In both one run seasons
(top) and those with mid-
season break (bottom),
tweets are highly
exaggerated version of
traditional ratings model.
• In other words: Users tweet
much more around
premieres & finales than
regular shows. Metrics must
account for this.

FROM US TO AUSTRALIA (CHASING THE $)

FROM US TO AU
310 million 22 million

FROM US TO AU
US Networks

FROM US TO AU
AU Networks

FROM US TO AU
“While our products have always
included data from multiple social media
services, the reality is that Twitter is the
platform where the overwhelming
majority -– about 95% – of public real-
time engagement with TV happens.” --
Bluefin
Our Australian pilot study
has shown Twitter and
Facebook are closer to
53.49% and 46.51%
respectively.

SOME ARE WORSE THAN OTHERS...

PILOT RESULTS

42.6% 67.4%
27.7% 72.3%
10.0% 90.0%
PILOT STUDY RESULTS

91.5% 8.5%
62.4% 37.6%
56.7% 43.3%
PILOT STUDY RESULTS

CONNECTING THE DOTS
Seasonal Models
SabermetricsBig Brother US
Excitement Index
Australia

THE HYPOMETERTM

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
• HypometerTM
(s) - Movies, Politics, Sport…
• Computation modeling - Patrik Wikstrom - How do we
model TV audiences? What are the implications for
different actors?
• What is the value of a Facebook ‘Like’? More than a
favorite, less than a retweet?
• Increasing integration of external data: Ratings, TV
Listings etc.

Questions?