ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a collection of interrelated methods and metrics for assessing social media-based audience engagement with broadcast media and lives events, focusing for purposes of illustration mainly on Twitter, but also flagging the translatability of such approaches to other key social media platforms, especially including Facebook and Instagram. Building on the measurement of the overlap between audiences, and their spread across the Twittersphere, is the idea of developing a 'panel' of users that can stand in for the wider user base. A panel-based approach to social media analytics addresses and works around important technical limitations for social media research. A combination of social media analytics with more conventional research methods in audience studies will be able to generate an even richer and more detailed perspective on audiencing practices. The chapter highlights the limits of social media Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
