How publishers use social media is in a state of flux. At some level, that has always been true, but with the Facebook algorithm once again causing anguish, messaging and chatbots well-established as core platforms and a flight to quality for business reasons, the shifts are especially seismic. If social isn’t only — or even primarily — a distribution channel and funnel for website traffic, what is it? What can it be instead?
The next three weeks on MetricShift we’ll be asking those questions with a special series on social metrics. We start Friday with a special #MetricShift Twitter chat on a very fundamental questions: How do you define audience engagement? Helping organize the chat is Jeff Weisbein, founder of analytics firm KYA. Jeff will also be leading an advanced training on May 31 that you can register for here.
Then through interviews, case studies and guides, we will hear from some of the smartest journalists exploring this question right now. A special note of thanks to Kim Bui, who helped immensely in putting together this series and has taught me a lot of what I know about where social is headed for news publications.
To follow along with the series, join our MetricShift Facebook group, sign up for our Media Metrics Roundup weekly newsletter, or follow MediaShift on Twitter. New stories will be added to the list below as they are published.
Series Posts
Doing Social Media Without Numbers by Kim Bui
Want To Reach A Chinese Audience? 10 Tips For Using WeChat by Kaidi Yuan
How ProPublica Defines Success for Engagement Projects by Julia Haslanger
Posts will be added here as they are published.
Twitter Chat & Training
Join us for our Twitter chat at the #MetricShift hashtag on May 12 at 1 p.m. ET.
DigitalEd Training: How to Get the Most Out of Content Analytics
Other Coverage Of Social Metrics On MediaShift
Instant Articles Continue to Outperform Regular Links on Facebook
Which Facebook Pages See the Most Engagements Per Post?
How Publishers Can Measure Facebook Live Videos
Here’s Why the Washington Post Is Growing On Facebook
Parse.ly: Facebook is the Referral Traffic Story of 2016
3 Ways to Put News Metrics to Work
#MetricShift Chat: Measuring Social Media
How Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Measure Engagement
4 Takeaways from Pew’s Social Media News Report
Facebook Should Treat Smaller Publishers More Fairly. Here’s How.
Making Sense of Engagement Editors, Social Metrics and Analytics
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.