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Back in 2017, I wrote a Plus report about editorial analytics, and since then, many people have asked me questions about this. So, in this updated guide, let's refine and clarify this focus with a simple model, and use that to illustrate the importance and usefulness of editorial analytics.
We will talk about what editorial analytics is, what it can be used for, how it's measured, how it helps prove the value you create for your readers, and why it's an essential element for any journalistic institution.
There are obviously many different types of analytics. Most publishers are well aware of normal website analytics, the kind that give you pageviews, bounce rates, etc. Some publishers have extended and are now doing much deeper content analytics, even to the point of scoring individual articles across multiple parameters.
We also have audience analytics, which is all about understanding your readers better. This gives you subscription rates, churn, and metrics about how people consume your articles.
And then we also have internal analytics, like the kind of analytics you use to track and evaluate the performance of your journalists.
Here is the thing though, all of the above are based on relatively simple metrics of what people are doing on your site. But this is not what editorial analytics is about. In fact, editorial analytics is something completely different.
Editorial analytics is a tool that you use specifically within the newsroom to better focus your journalism. It's used to help guide you to cover stories better, to better align your focus with reality and the public, and it's used to evaluate what impact you have as a publisher.
You specifically use editorial analytics for two separate reasons:
In other words, editorial analytics is what you use to keep you on track.
So let's talk about how this actually works, how you measure it, and how to use it.
There are many ways you can use editorial analytics, but let's start with the simplest example of all.
One of the worst things you can do as a publisher is to be out of touch with your audience. When you do this, you might still get a lot of traffic, but your audience no longer reads your articles because they don't find them to be personally useful.
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