One of the most competitive sectors in social TV is the analytics and metrics space, and this week one of the big players made a key hire. Trendrr picked up Meghann Sills Elrhoul, the former manager of analytics at Nielsen, and named her its new VP of client services and analytics. “Meghann is one of the few people on earth following the analytics side of the industry as closely as we are, which makes her qualified to help us define the next wave of social TV measurement,” said Trendrr CEO Mark Ghuneim. “Opportunities in the social TV market have exploded.”
One of the great opportunities of social TV is establishing an “engagement rating,” but coming up with trusted metrics is more than a math problem. While most television networks, producers, showrunners and distributors understand the value of listening to the social “return loop” of television, there’s no consensus on how measure engagement and incremental tune-in — and how it translates into real dollars. Over the last few decades, Nielsen has created widely-accepted metrics around assigning value to TV, and Elrhoul’s hire should bring more industry credibility to Trendrr’s efforts on the social TV front. Of course, Nielsen is hard at work on its own social metrics, joining the list of competitors like Bluefin Labs, Networked Insights and SocialGuide.
Trendrr says Elrhoul will work with the company’s growing list of clients — more than 30 TV networks along with dozens of brands, studios and media organizations — while helping beef up Trendrr’s measurement methodologies. As we reported back in June, Trendrr is working on a local social TV data service, which will start rolling out in the next few months.
“I watched as Trendrr was one of the first companies to really define social TV metrics and have kept a close eye on the organization as it continues to set the pace,” said Elrhoul on Trendrr’s blog. “I am thrilled to be with a company on the forefront of what amounts to one of the biggest industry transitions since mobile viewing.”