The past few years have seen an ever growing interest in using data to make decisions and chart growth. Organizations are using analytics to apply for grants, entice advertisers, track progress, tighten up internal operations and so much more.
But more times than not, the road to properly collecting, processing and analyzing metrics is long and winding, full of many dead ends and incoherent road signs.
MediaShift is here to cut the confusion surrounding metrics and analytics so that you can make the informed decisions to better reach and influence your readers.
Early next year, MediaShift will be starting a new section, MetricShift, that will focus on metrics, analytics and measuring impact in the digital age.
Please take our 3-minute user survey to help give us feedback on what you’d like to see in the section. One random respondent will win an Amazon Echo!
Why are you doing this?
Funding from our partner, the Bay Area Video Coalition, through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will serve to enhance our coverage of the tools and processes surrounding the topic of analytics.
The Gates Foundation has long be interested in solving issues that have big impact. Without concrete ways of measuring and understanding “impact” it’s harder to understand the successes and failures of a project, and thereby harder to grow, learn and better serve communities.
A number of tools have emerged to help people track and process their site and social data. Google Analytics, a 10-year veteran in the field has been joined by services like Parse.ly and Chartbeat. And an ever-growing number of social media apps are growing and enhancing their analytics platforms to compete.
But these tools are often difficult to use and understand. They’re layered and complicated. They use unfamiliar terms to describe unfamiliar concepts. Their power is lost to confusion. And new tools and ways to measure impact emerge every week.
We’re here to break down the barriers between you and your metrics.
Meet the team
Alexandra Kanik
The people who will be bringing you this in-depth coverage will be Alexandra Kanik (that’s me) and Tim Cigelske.
I studied graphic design at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore before taking a job at PublicSource, a startup non-profit news organization in Pittsburgh, PA. I’m a developer, designer, analytics fanatic, cyclist, and avid appreciator of fine beers. You can find me on twitter here.
Tim Cigelske has reported and written for the Associated Press, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, Budget Travel, Adventure Cyclist and more. Today, he is the Director of Social Media at Marquette University as well as an adjunct professor teaching media writing and social media analytics. You may also know him as The Beer Runner blogger for DRAFT Magazine. Fun fact: He appeared on 20/20.
Tim Cigelske
What we’ll be covering
Every week, we’ll be writing about metrics that you should be caring about. Everyone knows about pageviews, time on site and unique visitors. But these metrics only touch the surface of our impact. They speak of quantity, not quality.
We aim to get at the deeper analytics, the ones that help us not only answer questions on who and how many, but why. Why do your users only say on your site an average of 45 seconds? Why are your social media campaigns unsuccessful at soliciting donors? Why are your stories not gaining traction with returning visitors?
In addition to writing original posts that will fill current gaps in analytics coverage, we will be aggregating news from around the web, hosting online community chats and facilitating hands-on trainings.
We’ll bring you up-to-date reviews of tools and methods for managing your metrics and turning them into actionable analytics.
We’ll help you sift through these tools, understand their pros and their cons so that you can choose the ones that best suite your needs.
Our major goal is to improve the ways you interact with your metrics, from what you track to how you analyze.
We will be writing about analytics that touch all forms of online media including investigative journalism, social media, radio, podcasting, video, documentary films and apps.
We want to know what you want to know
There are hundreds of different ways we could approach this, but our main aim is for you to get the most out of our coverage. So don’t hesitate to make contact. Tweet to us, join our Facebook group and ask questions. Comment on our posts, or raise your hand to contribute a guest post.
Please take our 3-minute user survey to help give us feedback on what you’d like to see in the section. One random respondent will win an Amazon Echo!
Also, be sure to sign up for our email newsletter to get a weekly roundup of news related to media metrics!
Alexandra Kanik (@act_rational) is the Metrics Editor/Curator for MediaShift.
