At the Online News Association’s 2017 conference, in the exhibitor booths on the Midway, in panels on products and business revenue, and in sessions from conference sponsors like Knight Foundation and Chartbeat, the topic of metrics and impact was not the separate track that it’s been in years past, but rather an essential part of nearly every conversation.
Before the conference started, Parse.ly’s Clare Carr said this is the state of the industry now. “I expect to hear more about newsrooms that have adopted basic metrics and analytics and are now saying ‘what’s next?’ in terms of, what do we do?” she said. Indeed, some of the most popular sessions covered subscriber segments, push notification analytics, knowing your audience in order to cultivate membership, and rich metrics for engagement. Metrics that measure the success of news products got an especially large amount of attention in a year of innovation in mobile, email newsletters and digital subscriptions.
Whether you couldn’t attend the conference or just couldn’t get into the standing-room-only rooms, here are MetricShift’s highlights of ONA 2017.
Newsletter Metrics
Podcasting Metrics
Facebook Live Metrics
Push Notification Metrics
Video Metrics
Metrics in Product Management
New Frontiers in Metrics
Audience Engagement Metrics
And a final word…
Jason Alcorn (@jasonalcorn) is the Metrics Editor for MediaShift. In addition to his work with MediaShift, he works as a consultant with non-profits and newsrooms.