Nielsen isn’t yet seeing its new Twitter TV ratings impact broadcasters’ advertising rates, but the company says that’s because the system is still too new.

Deirdre Bannon, Nielsen SocialGuide VP of product, told the Lost Remote conference in LA Friday that while Nielsen anticipates that the new Twitter ratings will start entering the dialog between advertisers and networks, they can’t demonstrate any impact just yet.

“I wish I could sit here and say, yes but the answer is no,” Bannon said.

Twitter TV ratings were unveiled in March, and are designed to give advertisers and networks a clearer picture of the breadth and depth of the conversation people are having about individual shows on the social media platform.

The reports highlight two basic data points: how many individual Twitter users are posting about a particular show, and how many people in the broader Twitter community see those posts.

Nielsen decided to focus its initial social TV tracking efforts on Twitter rather than Facebook because the microblogging site allows anyone in the world to see what’s being shared, whereas Facebook is a closed system.

“Nielsen set out to measure observable consumer behavior,” Bannon said. “Twitter is an open public platform, so we found the vast majority of social media conversation about TV happens on Twitter. Hence our focus on Twitter.”

But Bannon said that Nielsen is open to working with Facebook if more of the conversation about TV on the Internet shifts towards that platform.

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