How Twitter is more relevant than Nielsen

It’s the most powerful engagement measurement tool there is, pure and simple.

Why Twitter?

 The service that empowers personal feeds has signed up a cross-section of cultural influencers ranging from celebrities and athelets, authors and philosophers, advertising and marketing wizards, to His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  Most importantly, Twitter is a filter that collects active participants and early adopters of media.

How does it work?

 Everyone on Twitter is talking about something.  A single “tweet” has the potential to reach thousands of people, as feeds are shared.  The most “tweeted” somethings are advertised to the entire Twitter community as “trending topics.”  Twitter Search allows anyone interested to leverage the entire Twitter community and to see exactly how many people are talking about something, and what they are saying. 

What’s an example?

   Oprah is one of the first producers of mainstream media to incorporate Twitter into her program and use it to build audience.   She’s well on her way to 1 million followers, and following just about every broadcast many of these Twitter users reply to her with messages and feedback.  

What’s the point?

As a result, the millions upon millions of people who follow this group of Oprah viewers have messages involving Oprah visible in the feed of their friends and family on Twitter.  Topics pertinent to Oprah’s agenda are advertised to the millions of people on Twitter as they become “trending topics.”  Suddenly ABC, Oprah’s distributor, has an advanced method of measuring the impact of her program and offering advanced opportunities to advertisers.

How can we use  Twitter as a measurement for media impact?

 This is the name of the game.  There are a few noteworthy services that provide in-depth metrics and analysis on Twitter trends, including TweetStats and Twist.

~ by plentitube on May 1, 2009.