Tuesday, 11 Octorber 2011
Social media continues to influence how consumers interact with brands and share content every day. Increasingly, TV viewers leverage social media as a platform to talk about and engage with TV content. These conversations are not only opening new channels for consumer engagement with their favorite TV shows and fellow fans alike, but also are providing insight into which viewers are driving the conversations and when. A recent analysis by NM Incite and Nielsen sheds light on which demographics are engaging with TV across social media and highlights some differences in composition between the general social media population and the population on social media sites talking about TV specifically.
| Who Is Talking About TV? |
|---|
| General Online Population (%) | Social Media Population (%) | Population on Sites Talking About TV* (%) |
|---|
| Male | 47% | 45% | 55% |
| Female | 53% | 55% | 45% |
|
| < 18 | 16% | 34% | 12% |
| 18-24 | 9% | 10% | 14% |
| 25-34 | 16% | 17% | 29% |
| 35-49 | 26% | 27% | 30% |
| 50+ | 32% | 31% | 24% |
|
| Hispanic | 12% | 12% | 13% |
| Non-Hispanic | 88% | 88% | 87% |
|
| White | 78% | 78% | 76% |
| Black or African American | 11% | 10% | 12% |
| Asian or Pacific Islander | 3% | 3% | 4% |
| Other | 8% | 8% | 8% |
Source: Nielsen and NM Incite
Volumes represent the average March 2011 site visitor demographics for the top ten boards, blogs, groups, Twitter, and Video and Image sites discussing television in general. |
The social media population overall, skews slightly higher among females (55%), than males (45%). However, when comparing this demographic split to that of the population on social media sites talking about TV, this split reverses skewing higher among males (55%), than females (45%). There are several interesting demographic shifts when comparing general social media users and the portion of the population talking about TV specifically on social media. Those under age 18 account for 34 percent of the overall social media population, yet make up only 12 percent of the population on social media sites talking about TV. The opposite shift happens when focusing on the 25 – 34 year-old demographic. This age break comprises 17 percent of the overall social media population, but jumps to 29 percent of the makeup of the population on sites talking about TV. Within these age groups it’s interesting to note that, the difference in percentages across ethnic backgrounds remains relatively unchanged for African Americans, Asian, Hispanic and Whites.
