Audience Analytics Journalists (And Everyone Else) Can Use: Readefined
A holistic approach and actionable approach to tracking reader engagement on digital content
Do page views matter to journalists?
Not really.
That’s the opinion of Tom Rosenstiel, Executive Director of the American Press Institute, who argues terrible content metrics are destroying the journalism industry.
Mario Vasilescu, co-founder and CEO of Digital News Innovation Challenge (DNIC) participating company Readefined, would agree.
Right now, page views, click-through rates, and social shares are the primary metrics used to track user engagement.
But those metrics, argue both Rosenstiel and Vasilescu, offer a very limited view into user engagement.
Unfortunately, most content analytics tools don’t delve much deeper into how readers engage with content.
That’s where Readefined comes in, a content analytics platform that takes a more holistic approach to tracking user engagement.
“We’re obsessed with what happens when you’re actually viewing content,” said Vasilescu, who created Readefined.
“We look at the behaviour patterns of every visitor. And that’s not just time or depth, that’s checking the patterns of behaviour to check if a person is really paying attention.”
How users scroll through a page, at what speed and cadence, heat-mapping where a cursor travels, and what types of text are highlighted are all metrics tracked by Readefined, among several others.
“Those things all come together for us to, with a high degree of confidence, answer whether someone was focused, skimming, or not paying attention at all,” said Vasilescu.
Actionability is at the core of Readefined, allowing news media publication to go beyond data and benefit from several of the product’s novel features.
For example, a news article’s comments section can be hidden to readers unless they’ve actually read the piece.
Alternatively, if a reader’s tracked engagement level is quite high, a pop-up box can appear, prompting the user to answer why they found this particular piece of content useful.
Both are tools Readefined can offer digital publications right now, according to Vasilescu.
Most importantly, however, Readefined is easy to use, customizable, and was created with the needs of publishers, editors, and the individual journalist in mind.
“We’re trying to shift the narrative to make a data tool that everybody can use” said Vasilescu.
Article written by Michael D’Alimonte
