It's difficult to measure the popularity of TV shows, largely because viewing numbers are based on such small sample sizes. Nielsen, however, is trying to keep up with technology to offer accurate numbers, and will soon be factoring Facebook activity into its ratings.

Nielsen is no stranger to social media use for calculating TV show popularity. The company began using Twitter to complement its data back in 2013.

Facebook activity will be added to the data collected from Twitter, and the company will create a new measurement, which it calls Social Content Ratings.

"This is the next big step for us because now, for the first time, we are going to be able to really have a holistic understanding of the social activity across platform(s)," said Sean Casey, Nielsen Social president, in an interview with USA Today.

It's important to note that Nielsen won't be getting any user-specific information, so don't worry about losing any privacy over this. Instead, Facebook will supply data to the company, and data from posts shared publicly as well as with friends or family will be used.

This is a pretty big move for Nielsen, and a good one, too. Technology is changing and not everyone watches TV through cable subscriptions anymore. With streaming services like Netflix and Hulu rising in popularity, Nielsen needs to find different ways to calculate popularity, and this will help it do so.

According to Nielsen, data from Facebook will begin being used in the first half of 2016. Instagram information will be added to the mix at a later date.

Via: Digital Trends