It will provide insight into how and when audiences engage with TV content across Facebook and Twitter, with Instagram insights to be added at a later date.

Social Content Ratings will replace Nielsen Twitter TV ratings in all markets including Australia, Italy, Mexico and the US.

In addition to measuring total social TV for TV networks and over-the-top (OTT) streaming providers, these ratings will include social TV advertising and engagement tools to help TV networks, agencies and advertisers with the social impact of their cross-platform strategies.

Sean Casey, president, Nielsen Social said: "With social media playing an increasing role in consumers’ lives and TV experiences, its value for the media industry continues to mature."

Nielsen uses more than one million classifier combinations to measure organic and owned activity on Facebook and Twitter. Classifiers are programme-related terms, including accounts, handles, hashtags, talent names and other phrases associated with programmes, and are identified and applied to measure relevant social activity when a programme is airing, and on a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week basis.

Nielsen receives aggregated anonymous topic data directly from Facebook and accesses APIs from Twitter. Facebook Messenger data is not available to Nielsen and will not be included in measurement.

Social Content Ratings metrics are designed to adhere to the social media measurement guidelines created by the Media Rating Council (MRC).