Twitter Releases Research on TV Ads and Social Media

February 5, 2014, SAN FRANCISCO: Hashtags in TV ads drive positive brand conversation, according to Twitter, and a viewer who tweets while watching television is less likely to change the channel during the commercial breaks.

Twitter says it conducted a study of more than 500 TV commercials for consumer electronics, and analyzed over 63,000 comments for those ads over 100,000-plus airings. Ads with hashtags had 42 percent more tweets about the spots than those without hashtags. Working with Symphony Advanced Media, Twitter also found that audiences using Twitter while watching TV changed channels during the ad breaks 8 percent of the time; those not multitasking on a mobile device tuned out 17 percent of the time.