Now sitting in on James Robinson's lecture on analytics and metrics #UnderstandingAudiences #CAJ2015
People tend to use measurement as a path to insight- James Robinson
Robinson says he is less concerned about measuring engagement- almost an impossible task- and more with understanding engagement #UnderstandingAudiences #CAJ2015
Explicit questions vs implicit questions- Robinson is more concerned with implicit questions- habits, hypothesis, things that haven't been asked yet. #UnderstandingAudiences #CAJ2015
Most people only read one article on NYT website- very few read more than two - James Robinson #UnderstandingAudiences #CAJ2015
Three challenges every editor faces with understanding analytics
1. Define your audience
- online has greatly changed and fragmented audiences
- an example of this is the NYT project "The Jockey"
- who would enjoy this piece? Hypothesis: long read fans, newspaper readers, sports fans
- what about horse-racing fans?
- if horse-racing fans don't love the story, then the opportunity has been lost
- target more narrow audiences via the internet
- moving from monolithic audience to a broad, growing, unknown audience
#understandingaudiences
#CAJ15
"Who are the audiences and how do we learn about them?"
Reddit is a huge driver of traffic for New York Times- you can't really promote stuff, but reddit picks up on a lot of unexpected content
#understandingaudiences #CAJ2015
More than the traffic it drives, the engagement and conversation is the most interesting part of reddit
#understandingaudiences
#CAJ15
NYT encourages and trains reporters and editors to jump in on reddit conversations #understandingaudiences #CAJ15
While reddit frowns on self-promotion, there is a way to have very engaging experiences on reddit- helps to prove your identity first!
#understandingaudiences #CAJ15
Three challenges every editor faces with understanding analytics
1. Define your audience
2. Listen to your audience
3. Adapt to your audience
#understandingaudiences
#CAJ15
New York Times Knicks beat reporter had huge feedback on reddit when he posed question, what team should I cover for quality basketball? #understandingaudiences #CAJ15
Working relationship between analytics people and newsroom people - mutual humility
Analyst must have respect for judgement of editorial staff
#understandingaudiences #caj15
Journalists need to stop bombarding analytics people with the same questions- what are the numbers, how did I do?
Analysts have similar skills to journalists- a combination of resources and values
#understandinganalytics #CAJ15
NYT uses standard web analytics tools, google analytics but also much more... Capture all their own raw data
Also has a research team that looks at data and focuses on groups
#understandinganalytics #CAJ15
Comments are important for us because they provide communication and conversation- the NYT has a team of moderators for their site comments
#UnderstandingAudiences #CAJ15
Robinson says analytics can be used to measure value of long form vs short form journalism and how it is being consumed and shared
#understandingaudience #CAJ15
Robinson would like to see a tool that for any given story could tell him how many New York Times readers would be interested, which he could forward to editors and journalists ... Currently resources and technical fire power are in the way
#UnderstandingAudiences #CAJ15
"I think we're still obsessed with numbers. We haven't made that transition from looking at numbers to audiences" James Robinson on analytics
#UnderstandingAudiences #CAJ15
Small audiences can have real value to the New York Times. Hundreds of subscribers makes a huge difference. Depends on business model.
#UnderstandingAudiences #CAJ15
Thanks to James Robinson for a very informative lecture on Analytics and Understanding Audiences #CAJ15