“Now that news is a conversation, one of the greatest challenges facing journalists is how to manage, and leverage, that conversation… in the digital age information wants to be analyzed, shared, synthesized, curated, aggregated, commented on and distributed.” – JournalismNext, p. 277
Key ideas:
-interactivity
-transparency
-immediate feedback
-participatory
-social
-building community is hard work
Comments:
-At best, comments add layers to a news story that a newsroom cannot.
-At worst, comments are senseless, drivel, and mean-spirited.
-Pay attention to comments. Respond to the real ones.
-Not legally liable to comments, but they do reflect on content.
Web Analytics
“To build you audience online, you need to analyze what you publish, what your readers like and don’t like, and then do more of what they like. You also need to make sure that your content, especially content your current readers have shown interest in, can be found by new audiences through search and shared through social media.” – JournalismNext, p. 311.
Some basic terminology:
-top posts and pages – most visited posts and sub pages
-pageviews – total number of pages viewed in a given time period
-visits – number of times everyone accesses a website
-unique visitors – number of computers that access a website
-referrers – where your traffic comes from; links to your site)
-search engine terms or queries – what words people searched to get to website
-subscribers – individuals who subscribe or follow your posts (get information via feeds or email alerts)
-clicks – URLs that readers click to go away from your site
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – understanding how to optimize your web content so it can be found by search engines.
“Google Juice” Top 10 Most Important Google News Ranking Factors
