Nielsen says it is now measuring Instagram as part of its Social Content Ratings, which also gauge Facebook and Twitter. While programmers and advertisers alike still grouse about Nielsen numbers, the company has been working in recent years to address those concerns. One of its responses was the set of social ratings, which launched in 2016 as a way to track both organic and owned activity across social networks.
When Nielsen launched its Twitter TV Ratings in the fall of 2013, it hoped to measure a great deal of the conversation about TV shows taking place in the social-media sphere. Now the company will have to contend with a lot more chatter. The company will expand its work to Facebook, and, at a later date, Instagram, and will measure aggregate-level conversation related to TV shows taking place in posts shared with friends and family, with followers and with the public at large.
