Kantar is  pairing with Twitter to soon launch Twitter TV Ratings in Europe much like Nielsen has done in the United States. You may be baffled and swearing that you don't even watch "Twitter TV" so why should you care?

Well, obviously, Twitter TV does not exist but Twitter TV Ratings are very real. In 2013 alone there were 263 million Tweets about live TV  which left a whole slew of networks asking "Who will be seeing all of this free Twitter advertising?" Typically, Twitter would shrug and the users would go on tweeting about their favorite shows.

Nielsen, however, put a stop to that by pairing with Twitter to get rating and demographic information. The UK wants to join in. 

Twitter is turning on TV ratings in the UK, in partnership with WPP subsidiary Kantar Media. The service — which includes a variety of metrics, the creation of a TV-metric specific data feed, and an analytics dashboard — is set to go live by the middle of October. -  Ingrid Lunden (@ingridlunden)

Ratings

Twitter will be the first social network to do assist markerts and broadcasters in ratings via social media. There are high hopes that this will become a standard tool in the industry.  What exactly will determine these ratings? Start tweeting photos of your cat along with your favorite TV series to find out! Or, see below. 

Ratings include: 

• Tweeters and their affinity to brands, channels, and programs
• Using data only available to Kantar Media, they will be able to measure the number of individuals viewing tweets related to specific programs or shows 
• Impressions and interaction with Tweets 
• Tweets and retweets before, during, and after transmission
• Averafe tweets per minute and highest volune per minute ascribed to the television program 

With that being said, one study was released that showed: 

• 40% of UK Twitter activity is about television during peak viewing hours
• Twitter TV activity correlates with audience size on a broad level 
• 11% of broadcasts experienced an increase in Tweets followed by an increase in viewing levels and those with a positive effect from Twitter to TV, got a 2% boost in audience

Marketing Land laid it out loud and clear. Those in the industry will be able to leverage social media on a  large scale to determine ratings. Twitter may be two-timing on Nielsen with its competitor Kantar, but it is also making a name for itself as a crucial tool for broadcast ratings. If you don't own a multi-million dollar broadcast station, or even if you do, you can leverage Twitter with us for your business too. 

Demographics

So, we get how the ratings will work, but what demographics will come from it? Unlike other platforms, Twitter does not require your actual name or  demographics to be listed when signing up. One thing to keep in mind is that Twitter TV Ratings is not breaking news. This has been happening in the U.S. for awhile now, and we are confident that if anyone could figure it out it would either be Nielsen. 

The models for deriving demographics are based on a combination of features, including things like the user’s first name, accounts it follows, details found in the bio/profile text, as well as text of the user’s recent tweets, handle and more. Those results are then validated against Nielsen’s Online Panels. -  Sarah Perez (@sarahintampa)

They opened doors with their model that will make it easier for this to become a regular practice internationally. 

What to Expect 

By mid- October Twitter and  Kantar to bring those in the industry Instar Social Analytics Dashboard. 

The dashboard will include a live, real-time leaderboard, providing a snapshot of the top Tweeted programmes as they happen, with the ability to drill down and view actual content of the Tweets in real-time. Eventually we will also be seeing a new API from the two companies. 

The launch of the first official Twitter TV metrics in the UK gives the broadcast industry official insight for social TV engagement to complement the BARB gold-standard TV measurement currency,” said Andy Brown, Global CEO and Chairman of Kantar Media, in a statement. “Using the Kantar Twitter TV Ratings; broadcasters, planners and advertisers will be able to assess programmes and series, plan programme promotions more effectively and assist media buyers and sellers to integrate social data more comprehensively into the TV component of their media mix. - KANTAR MEDIA

We can all step back and watch our technology merge together to make a global conversation easier. As marketers or broadcasters, this allows us to track and see how well we are doing in real-time.