Yesterday we wrote about new research from Nielsen that showed a strong positive correlation (79.5%) between Twitter TV activity and general audience engagement. Nielsen measured the latter by analyzing the neurometrics of 300 participants for emotion, memory, and attention.
Following up on the release of the report, Anjali Midha, Twitter’s Global Media & Agency Research Director, posted a chart illustrating the volume trends for the March 4 episode of ‘Empire’ where the top tweets per minute align with dramatic peaks in programming. 
Writes Midha:
Not only can networks and media planners use Twitter x TV data to distinguish the programs that have the most potential to deliver engaged viewing audiences, but the benefits also cross over to brands and marketers as prior Nielsen research has shown that ads perform better on memorability in TV shows with high audience engagement.
More, our analytics partner Canvs is already in the business of measuring Nielsen’s Twitter data for sentiment (one of the three things – emotion – that Nielsen Neuro measured for this); what people like and dislike about a show as expressed on Twitter is extremely powerful data for advertisers and media buyers. ‘Empire’ is the best example of how sentiment analysis and tweet-per-minute data could have been used by both the network and buyers early on. Before the show exploded, both groups could have seen the potential of the show by leveraging this information.
For networks, it will be interesting to see if this data will be used to save shows underperforming across linear metrics but that are resonating emotionally with Twitter audiences.