Focus on what you should be measuring so you can streamline your PR measurement tracking

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises

When it comes to the latest in PR measurement, the mere thought of it may make you feel like it’s impossible to “keep up.” Before you overwhelm yourself, take a deep breath and focus on growing your skills by incorporating these three principles into your regular routine. By focusing on these simple – not to mention, free! – tips to refine your skills, you’ll become a measurement star before you know it!

1. Simplify and Streamline Tracking

As I mentioned in a previous Socialbrite post on creating a measurement program, most of the time we don’t have access to fancy dashboards; because we are often limited by client budgets in the tools we can and cannot use. That’s ok, because I’ve found that the more uncomplicated you keep tracking, the better.

Here’s how you can do this:

• Use an Excel or Google spreadsheet to track outputs and outcomes
• Making sure the time frame within which you’re tracking different things – e.g. traffic, downloads, purchases, whatever – is the same
• Watch your Analytics (at the very least, Google Analytics) at the same time, and regularly look to see if there is a correlation between outputs and outcomes.

2. Two Tools to Know and Love

Let me preface this by first reiterating one of my big “don’ts” – don’t get caught up in shiny new measurement tools. Focus on what you should be measuring, as opposed to getting bogged down, overwhelmed, or limited by a tool. That said, there are some tools and techniques that are just crying out to be used.

I’ve already referred to it once, and I’m doing so again: it’s time to become BFFs with Google Analytics and the Google URL Builder. The tracking of URLs has been around in the marketing world for a while now; and it’s something PR pros should know how (and why) to do. Especially for campaigns where you’re driving calls-to-action online, it’s one of the best ways to understand what is driving actions, clicks, downloads, purchases, sign-ups, etc.

After all, it’s only when you know what is and isn’t working that you can adjust your strategy to make it more efficient, effective, and ultimately more successful.

3. Spread Your Measurement Wings

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.” Just as it’s important to continue to track and measure the growth of a campaign or initiative, it’s equally important to facilitate our own growth as industry professionals… and that means seizing every opportunity for learning when we can.

Here are a few free ways to spread your measurement wings:

• Read. It’s that simple. By regularly reading smart bloggers who regularly talk about metrics (Lee Odden and Jim Dougherty spring to mind) you’ll be one step ahead on the PR measurement front.

Want to go the extra mile? Make a point to add a couple of smart books to your library. Social Media Metrics by Jim Sterne is one of my faves.

• Events. Attending or taking advantage of free events seems like a no-brainer, no? Here are just a few:

○      AMEC Measurement Week: presented by Cision (disclosure: client) and Vocus, this free five-day event takes place September 15–19, 2014 in New York City. It will bring together more than 16 speakers who are experts in measurement and analytics across the communication spectrum, and includes keynotes from Mark W. Schaefer and Peter Shankman… and me! Seriously – if you’re going to be in/around NYC next week, you really should attend. Register here, and the hashtag to follow on Twitter will be #AMECatWork.

○      #measurePR Twitter Chat: As the founder of #measurePR, I’m clearly biased, but I’m proud that in its fourth year, #measurePR still connects measurement geeks across the world. From newbies to old hands, they (we) all congregate here… and I hope you will too! #measurePR takes place the first Tuesday of every month, 12-1pm ET (the September chat, however, is on the second Tuesday, Sept. 9, to accommodate returning from the Labor Day holiday).

○      Webinars: Find and participate in free webinars focused on measurement every chance you get. Now, I know it can be tough to find really good webinars (though Cision – and yes, I’m mentioning them again – offers them frequently), so head to PRSA and IABC’s online events calendars to see what they have coming up. That’s a very good place to start.

I hope this helps you get started on spreading your measurement wings. And remember if you’re going to be at AMEC Measurement Week, or drop in at #measurePR, please give me a holler – I’d love to say “hello”!

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Listen, implement & measure to keep up with your users’ needs

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, metrics specialists, educators.

Guest post by Ritu Sharma
Social Media for Nonprofits

Like many of the nonprofits Social Media for Nonprofits works with, we were excited by the recent release of Beth’s new book, Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using Data to Change the World.

In line with the book’s focus on turning data into knowledge through powerful, insightful measurement and analytics of social media efforts, we wanted to share three simple tips and resources that nonprofits can put to work.

All of these platforms have been profiled at our recent Social Media for Nonprofits conferences, which is about to produce its final U..S program of the year in Seattle on Monday, before we head to New Delhi in December, and then back to New York City, Silicon Valley, Vancouver, plus most other major U.S. markets in 2013.

And now, for those tips and tools:

Get to know your audience

1Want to know what makes your online audience tick? Then check out Simply Measured. In particular, their free reports give you your social audience’s pulse on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, and other platforms. There’s a gold mine of intelligence presented in their 8-10 insightful, colorful analysis tools. Learn who your followers are, what issues they care about, which posts are firing up your base, and what types of content are gaining steam and going viral.

Make your website shine

2How can you make your web footprint work for you and complement your social strategy? Nonprofits get free access to Google Analytics, a robust tool that tracks what turns your audience on or off when they land on your site. This tool highlights the behaviors that are most important to understand, including where your audience came from, what content they looked at, how long they stuck around, where you lost them, and to what extent your readers engaged with your content.

Monitor social conversations

3Discover a social treasure of other cause-driven folks like you connecting with like-minded professionals, sharing content, and tracking followers by analyzing your nonprofit’s social media presence. Keep an eye on all your social conversations, wherever they take place, with Sprout Social (think HootSuite on steroids).

Nonprofits can save 50 percent on this low-cost tool, which gives you the ability to engage with your base, strategically search for better followers, identify posts that get superb traction, and of courser, schedule your posts in advance. Note: Pre-scheduling posts should only be used for Twitter and LinkedIn posts, but Facebook de-prioritizes posts scheduled via third party platforms, so that’s a no-no. Thankfully, you can now pre-schedule posts on Facebook directly.

We hope you decide to take advantage of these powerful tools, and that you join us at any of the upcoming Social Media for Nonprofits conferences around the world for more insights, tips, and tools. Come see great speakers like everyone’s favorite, Beth Kanter, plus Guy Kawasaki and senior leaders from leading social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, plus nonprofit executives from National Geographic, American Red Cross, Greenpeace, Kiva.org, Story of Stuff, DonorsChoose, and charity:water. To ensure broad accessibility, we keep conference registration fees down to about $100, including breakfast, lunch, and access to the full-day program. Scholarships are available for smaller nonprofits.

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Book giveaway: Win the book to grasp the power of metrics!

If you’re like most nonprofit professionals, you’ll eventually admit that you could do a better job of measuring.

The good news is that you’re not alone. Most nonprofits (and in fact most for-profits) are struggling with the challenge of measuring relationships, which is essentially what social media is all about.

To help you keep your eyes on the prize, Beth Kanter and Katie Paine sell the benefits of measurement in their new book, Measuring the Networked Nonprofit.

Win a free copy of ‘Measuring the Networked Nonprofit’

Want a free copy? Leave a comment below about what measurement has done for your organization. Co-author Beth Kanter will be randomly select a commenter to receive a free copy of “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit.” Feel free to share this post on Twitter, too!

Chapter 4 outlines 12 reasons that measurement is powerful:

1. It helps you get to where you’re going. Because social media is essentially about relationships, continuous feedback is required to improve them.
2. It stimulates new ideas on what to do next. Analyzing data is not just data dumping. It’s discovery!
3. It gives you credibility. You’ll need this to get support for your awesome ideas.
4. It helps you discover what tools and tactics work best for your particular goals.
5. It saves you time. If you know that you’re not getting results from a particular approach, you’ll stop doing it.
6. It increases the likelihood of success through informed planning.
7. It helps you raise more money. If you know why potential donors abandoned transactions, you’ll fix it. If you know which messages turn one-time donors into repeat donors, you’ll use them.
8. It helps you work smarter. Unicorns and rainbows just don’t cut it anymore.
9. It fuels your passion. We all could use more of this, right?
10. It generates excitement. Ditto.
11. It helps you change the world.
12. The last thing I’ll say about Measuring the Networked Nonprofit is that it will help you begin to improve – starting from where you are right now.

Don’t forget to leave a comment below to win a copy of the book!

Update: Our comments service, LiveFyre, has been up and down all day because of a power outage at Amazon AWS. If you don’t see comments below, please check back.

Related

• Metrics tips & best practices (Socialbrite)

The post 12 ways measuring can empower your nonprofit appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, Instagram users.

Guest post by Beth Kanter
bethkanter.org

Instagram, the mobile photography app (and company) purchased by Facebook, has been getting a lot of attention lately. From critics saying it is killing photography to hype and hoopla from marketing pundits saying it is a must-have as part of your “visual marketing tool box.”

In Steve Rubel’s Ad Age post, The Revolution Won’t Be Televised; It Will Be Instagrammed, he points out some underlying trends that might make some of the hype less hype:

• Smartphone use has become pervasive, citing recent research reports from Pew  Internet for America Life research.
• Visual marketing is becoming an important part of the online marketer’s tool box – especially because images are global, easy to digest and distributable.

There are some nonprofits experimenting with Instagram.  I’ve been following charity:water, which has been posting a photo of the day. Charity:water’s CEO, Scott Harrison, is also using it quite skillfully to share imagery about his organization’s work. Like many nonprofit leaders and staffers,  Scott is “mixing up the personal with the professional brand.” I think Instagram is a terrific platform to do that if you have a culture that is comfortable with mixing it up and, of course, people who like to share photos.

Others are using Instagram by sharing visual stories about their programs using a branded profile, like Children’s LA and Unicef USA. Take a look at the how the US Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand, uses it.

Instagram is one of those channels where a nonprofit could start with a small pilot that is strategically linked to communications or marketing objectives, and pick a success metric to track. First, however: best practices and measurement, learning, and improving. This guide for business marketers is relevant to nonprofits.  It boils down the techniques to: Curate, Snap, Hashtag, Engage, and Repeat. Simply Measured offers a free report that lets see which of your photos/stories was most engaging.

I ran an analysis on my Instagram experiment and discovered that my most engaging photos included monks, clouds, and cats! Porter Mason from UNICEF USA also suggests this other measurement tool: Staigr.am.

Is your nonprofit experimenting with Instagram? What have you discovered? How are you defining and measuring success?

The post Is Instagram useful for nonprofit marketing? appeared first on Socialbrite.

If you don’t know what you want to achieve, it doesn’t matter how many people ‘like’ you

This is the first part of a two-part series on creating a strategy for your nonprofit or social cause.

Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, cause organizations, brands, businesses, government agencies.

Guest post by Melissa Foley
Netroots Foundation

Deciding how to measure your social media efforts can be a challenging undertaking. Number of likes? Number of followers? Level of engagement? Which measures are right for you?

Believe it or not, these measures are virtually meaningless. In fact, all measures are meaningless — unless they are tied to your goals.

Think about it: An organization working to raise awareness about an issue and an organization working to pass legislation are likely to have very different goals, even though they are likely to use many of the same tools (eg., Facebook and Twitter). One-size-fits-all “Top 10 social media metrics” lists can be tempting but dangerous. Each organization should choose measures that align closely with your goals.

Figure out what you want

Your first step is to figure out what you really want to do, how and why. I recommend using the following strategic planning process. Don’t let “strategic planning process” scare you — one or two well thought-out bullets for each step is sufficient:

• Step 1: Goal & objective
  Your first step is to carefully define a high-level goal (eg., pass this legislative bill) and a measurable objective (eg., get six key legislators to vote for the legislation).
• Step 2: Strategy
  Next, you need to decide at a high level how you want to go about doing this. For example, influence newspapers in key districts to write stories about community support for the legislation.
• Step 3: Tools and tactics
  Once you’ve got your strategy, map out an action plan for using new media and other tools to execute your strategy. For example, follow local newspapers on Twitter and engage in conversations with them, breaking news related to the legislation. Target communities when possible.

Decide how to measure your outcomes

Once you’ve clearly mapped out your goals, it becomes easy to select the right measures or metrics. Think about it first in real-world terms: How will we be able to tell if we’re successful? In the example above, we will know the organization is successful if local newspapers report on the issue.

Next, think about how you can measure that best, given the tools you have. For this example, we may want to measure the number of articles and posts on Facebook and Twitter by the target newspapers.

Sure, this process takes time. However, the measures you end up selecting using this method will be much more informative than measures chosen from a top 10 list. If the organization hadn’t gone through the strategic planning process and instead chose to measure their total number of Twitter followers, they would have no idea how well they were actually doing.

Agree? Disagree? How do you begin formulating a metrics program?

The post To create a metrics program, first identify your goals appeared first on Socialbrite.

Make it easy to participate, make it mobile — and don’t forget the fun!

One of the great success stories of online advocacy has been DoSomething.org, a not-for-profit that encourages young people to use the power of online to “do good stuff offline.”

Last fall I moderated a panel at BlogWorld Expo with DoSomething chief technology officer George Weiner, and last month I co-presented a Social Media for Social Good bootcamp at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service with George.

So during a brief break in the action I got him to talk about how DoSomething spurs 1.2 million young people a year to take action on behalf of a social cause they care about.

“Young people have this amazing thing they can do that doesn’t require car, money or an adult,” he says. Simply put, any young person — 25 or younger, with a sweet spot of 16- to 17-year-olds — can launch a social cause campaign about any cause they feel passionately about.

The nation’s largest cause site for young people, DoSomething has about 30,000 cause projects started by young people.

Watch, embed or download the video on Vimeo

Success comes down to a combination of factors

The annual DoSomething Awards airs on VH1 in August.

The site’s success comes down to these factors:

• They make it easy to participate by lowering the barriers to entry.

• They’re laser-focused on catering to young people.

• They make it easy to take part in campaigns via mobile devices.

• They try to make causes fun by emphasizing use of participants’ social networks.

“This generation is far more engaged than anyone can possibly understand or measure due to the amount of conversations going on in social media,” George says.

For instance, DoSomething partnered with Better World Books on the Epic Book Drive, a campaign that collected more than 250,000 books to benefit the Recovery School District in New Orleans.

Head to DoSomething to find a cause that resonates with you. And don’t forget to look for the DoSomething Awards on VH1 in August. Have a question or need help? Text HELPME to 30644.

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This is day 4 of the 31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media. Yesterday we spoke about measuring stats on your blog. Today we’ll be gathering some stats on where you’re at on Twitter.

In two weeks we’ll discuss how to analyze your network more deeply to build specific strategies. For now, we want to set a baseline so you can measure growth over the next 2, 3 and 6 months.

The three basic measurements

1. Followers

This number indicates reach. Your followers number is the number of people that have shown on interest in your Twitter stream. Track how your follower numbers grow by jotting it down every month or so in an excel spreadsheet. You’ll notice the more followers you gain, the faster this number will grow (to a point). Keep in mind that some of these folks only followed you in hopes that you’d follow back and may not be part of your actual community.

2. Following

This number has meaning when put next to your followers number. Are you following more people than the number of people following you? If so, you might want to look at adding more value on Twitter. If you’re new on Twitter, keep in mind that this number might be higher than your follower number. That will change with time and effort.

3. Lists

This number indicates the amount of value you create for others on Twitter. Look though the lists that people have put you on to see how people perceive your contribution on Twitter. For example, if you look at the lists I’m on, most of them have to do with non-profit social media topics.

Measuring network and impact

Measuring your network and your impact can be done in a number of ways (and with a number of tools), but remember, you simply want to document where you’re at on Twitter right now.

Two tools make it easy to measure your impact. Both are free.

4. Measure Your Network with Twitter Friends

Twitter Friends is a free tool for measuring the health of your network. There are three basic reports you should study:

Network overlap: This graph shows you the level of two-way conversations you have with folks.

Conversation Quotient: The Twitter-Friends FAQ states, “People with a high CQ are using Twitter to have direct conversations with other users. People with a low CQ are using it more for broadcasting links or status messages.”

Retweet Quotient: This tells you what percent of your tweets are retweeted by others.

5. Measure Your Impact With Twitter Grader and Klout

Twitter Grader is a free tool from HubSpot that grades your use of Twitter and offers recommendations for improvement. Of course, a computer won’t take into account the nuances of your blog strategy, you can get a few useful suggestion, and a grade of your use of Twitter from 0-100.

Klout is another free tool that allows you “track the impact of your opinions, links and recommendations across your social graph”. I like this tool, because, like Hubspot’s Twitter Grader,  it’s very easy to understand. For example, they give you an overall klout score and even suggest what “personality type” you are:

You can also see a list of your most retweeted posts:

Measuring how your content is tweeted

6. Tweetmeme Analytics

Tweetmeme is a tool that allows you to analyze how people are talking about your content on twitter. You need to set up an account with Tweetmeme so you can view the analytics directly in WordPress (download this free overview of Tweetmeme’s reporting).

Homework: Capture these 6 sets of Twitter stats in an excel spreadsheet. Update as often as you like, but at least note the date when you collected today’s homework.

If you don’t want to miss out on the 31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media, please sign up.

Cross-posted from JohnHaydon.com.

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We’d all like to think that our efforts to make friendly connections on Twitter and Facebook are bringing us more visitors, subscribers and customers. It feels so good to tweet back and forth that we assume it’s also good for business. But that simply may not be the case. 

9 crucial stats to measure on your blog

Your task today is to put emotion aside and measure. But don’t focus too much on the metrics –- just do so enough to set a baseline of your current state. Use a tool like Jing to capture screen grabs of various reports and save these in a folder called “Social Media Optimization –- Current Baseline – 1/4/2010.″

Key metrics for your blog

You want to get a sense of how many visitors are coming to your site, where those visitors are coming from and what they’re doing when they arrive. If you haven’t installed Google Analytics on your blog, please watch this screencast on How To Install Google Analytics On Your Blog.

1. Traffic source

In Google Analytics, the Traffic Sources Overview will tell you how people are getting to your blog. Are they finding you mainly through search? Through referring traffic? Or do they visit directly? In my case, most of my traffic comes from search, followed by referring sites (social media, inbound links).

2. Referring traffic sources

The Referring Sites Report will show you, in acceding order, which sites are sending you the most traffic. You can then drill down into these sites for more details. For me, I get the most traffic from Twitter, Facebook, Headway and Stumbleupon. We’ll talk about how to increase traffic from these sites, but for now, we’re just setting baselines.

3. Correlate spikes and events

Look At The Spikes on the graph for each report and ask yourself, “What did we do on this day that caused this spike?”

4. Know your popular posts

Within the Content report, there is a sub-report called “content by title.“ This will help you understand what topics people are interested in and what you should be writing more about. This report is also a list of pages that should be optimized to increase new customers, more donations or whatever other business goal you have for your blog.

5. Page views per visit

In all the reports, there is a column called “Pages/Visit.” This shows you if folks coming to your blog from Twitter or Facebook or wherever are going deeper into your blog’s content or quickly leaving.

Don’t be discouraged if your page views are lower than you thought. The very nature of social media encourages folks to have extremely limited attention span. Later in this series, we’ll talk about how to get people to stick around more on your blog.

6. Percent of new visitors

This report gives you a sense of whether you’re succeeding in converting people to loyal visitors. For example:

7. RSS stats

If you’re using Feedburner for your RSS feeds, you’ll be able to see stats on how many people are subscribing to your feed over time and how many people are viewing your content received via RSS. You can also see what posts people are reading most.

8. Email stats

Most email marketing services have comprehensive reporting on subscriber growth. I use Aweber because it lets me create various email lists where I can measure subscriber growth, opens and unsubscribes (25 percent discount for nonprofits).

9. Heat maps of your pages (extra credit)

Crazy Egg will create visual maps of what people are clicking on when they visit your pages. This is a great way to research before updating the layout of your site.

Homework: Get these stats into an Excel program (note the date)

If you don’t want to miss out on the 31 Day Challenge To Optimize Your Blog With Social Media, please sign up.

Cross-posted from JohnHaydon.com.

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One of the first assignments in our series on optimizing your blog for social media is to take the pulse of your blog using Google Analytics.

How much traffic are you getting from search? From referring traffic? What pages are people viewing the most? Knowing this data will enable you to set specific and achievable goals for social media.

Check out the screencast at top.

The post How to install Google Analytics on WordPress and Posterous appeared first on Socialbrite.

Photo by the TruthAbout

The success of your blog, or any social media effort, depends on your willingness to solicit feedback and take corrective action when necessary. If you want to have a successful blog that supports your organization’s goals and adds value, improvement should be continuous. You need to pick the right hard data points, or metrics, that will help you harvest insights and improve your blog.

Analyzing your blog content
First, you need to set overall goals for your blog and understand your audience. Next, you need to know the right metrics to use, and employ the proper tools to collect the data. Most important, you need a strategy—either for yourself or for a team—to gather insights from your metrics. Remember, it isn’t about the numbers alone.

Avoid Analytophilia
Alexandra Samuel coined that phrase in a post on social media analytics and metrics about the greatest peril of social media: analytophilia. It’s about obsessing on raw numbers and constantly checking the number of Twitter followers or retweets or Facebook insight clicks. She recommends that you don’t go into your analytics or stats program without composing a specific question first. I’ve been advocating this approach for a long time and offer you a set of data points and questions.

Here are seven tips to help you start measuring social media efforts.

Readership growth

1This means content consumption. There are two different kinds of web viewers: subscribers and visitors. Subscribers have made a commitment to regularly receive (and hopefully read or at least scan) your blog. Visitors are people who occasionally visit your blog. You should pay attention to monthly trends of content consumption over time. This will tell you a lot about your readers’ satisfaction with your content.

• Hard data points: Look at the feed subscribers trends from Feedburner and unique visitor trends from Google Analytics. Understand how Google Analytics calculates unique visitors and how Feedburner calculates subscribers, but please don’t get so hung up on the geeky part of measurement that you don’t have enough time to gather insights and apply them.
• Gathering insights: Is the number of visitors and subscribers increasing? If not, why? If yes, why? Think about your publishing frequency, the length of posts and the mix of topics.

I get a notice when someone unsubscribes to my blog. I send them a personal follow-up e-mail asking why. I’ve received excellent feedback from my inquiries about how to improve the blog’s publishing schedule, topics and more.

Reader engagement index

2This looks at how much your readers are interacting with you and your content, as well as how they are sharing your content with others.

• Hard data points: For this, I use the PostRank tool, which ranks your blog posts with a number from 1 to 10. I pick out all posts that score a perfect 10. The scores are based on analysis of the “5 Cs” of engagement: creating, critiquing, chatting, collecting and clicking. You should understand how this model works, but don’t get distracted by trying to find flaws in how engagement measures are constructed.
• Gathering insights: What topics do the posts that receive high scores cover? Are these posts longer and more in-depth, or short and focused on one topic? Do they include information from a lot of outside resources? What’s the tone—formal or informal? Do they include tips? What is the quality of the conversation in the comments section? What did you learn from the conversation your readers started? If you have a group blog, are there differences between authors? Why? Did anything surprise you?

I have discovered a number of patterns in my highest ranked posts—for example, length, titles, the number of ideas covered in a post, the tone, style and so forth. This has been the single best source of improving the quality of the content on my blog.

Reader bookmarking

3This measures whether readers are bookmarking your content for later retrieval which provides some indication of how much they value it.

• Hard data points: You can find out about bookmark saves from PostRank numbers, although the program doesn’t make it efficient to grab data over time. Remember bookmarked items can also positively influence your blog traffic.
• Gathering insights: What was the topic of the post that was bookmarked? Are the posts focused on providing tips, resource roundups or other formats? Are there patterns? And if so, what are they?

Conversation rate

4Conversation rate refers to the amount of commenting and conversation that is happening on your blog.

• Hard data points: You can get a list of the most commented on posts from PostRank. If you use WordPress, Joost Blog Metrics will give you a post-to-comment ratio.
• Gathering insights: What is the style of the writing? Do posts with more questions in the title and questions in the end generate more comments? Did you do any outreach to encourage commenting? Is there a conversation happening between people who comment? What do you do to facilitate it? What’s the quality of the commenting—are you learning? Are the comments positive or negative?

Authority

5This refers the number of links to a post. This metric gives you an indication of the value of the content by showing you how many people are linking to your content. It can also influence traffic.

• Hard data points: Conduct an analysis of the number of links to a post using Yahoo Site Explorer.
• Gathering insights: Pull out the top 25 linked posts on your blog. Analyze the types of posts (content and format) that get linked and the impact of that linking in referrals using Google Analytics. Are there any patterns?

Page views

6This is the number of times a page (unit of content) was viewed. I’m not sure how much this will tell you about your content quality, but it could give you some insights about your outreach.

• Hard data points: You can get these metrics from Google Analytics.
• Gathering insights: Why are certain blog posts getting higher page views than others? Look at the referral traffic (including which sites visitors to your site click from or what keywords they searched to get to your site or blog). What was your outreach strategy?

Industry index

7This metric involves evaluating your performance in relation to other blogs in your space using the same metrics.

• Hard data points: I use the List of Change, which indexes several hundred nonprofit blogs across different metrics.
• Gathering insights: I review other blogs on the list to see if there are ideas that I can incorporate into my own blogging. Where is my blog on the index—high or low? What are the qualities that the top five blogs have in common? How do they compare to my blog?

This may seem like a lot of work, but it takes me about an hour every month to gather up the numbers into a spreadsheet and then set aside some time for reflection on how I can improve my blog. It is an essential part of my blogging process and success.

This article was originally posted at CW Bulletin and Beth’s Blog.

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