For newsrooms “news analytics” are better than web analytics

L. Fernandez
Pagelytico, editorial analytics.
2 min readMay 6, 2023
Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash

In today’s digital age, newsrooms are facing an ever-growing need for analytics to measure audience engagement and track performance. Web analytics tools such as Google Analytics may no longer be enough for them to gain a competitive edge in a constantly evolving media landscape. This is where news or editorial analytics come in, and why newsrooms must embrace them.

There are some differences between editorial analytics and web analytics. Web analytics focuses on measuring website traffic, page views, and click-through rates. These metrics are useful for measuring the performance of a website or individual articles, but do not necessarily provide a complete picture of audience engagement. Editorial analytics, by comparison, takes into account factors such as social media engagement, reader feedback, and sentiment analysis to provide a more well-rounded view of how readers are engaging with news content.

News analytics take into accounts parameters as author engagement reading times, scroll depth and others such as bounce rates to provide an integral view of the audience interaction with a news or article in particular or a section or category in general

News analytics can help newsrooms track audience sentiment, identify trending topics, and even predict which stories will be popular before they are published.

One of the advantages of news analytics over web analytics is the ability to monitor social media engagement. Social media is playing an increasingly important role in how news is distributed, consumed and shared. Newsrooms must have a strong understanding of how their content is performing on platforms like Twitter or Facebook. News analytics tools track shares, likes, and comments on social media platforms, providing valuable insights into how readers are interacting with news content.

Editorial analytics additionally provides the ability to personalize news content for individual readers. Analyzing user data, newsrooms can gain insights into reader preferences and deliver more relevant content to each individual. This will help newsrooms increase engagement and build stronger relationships with their readers.

News analytics provide newsrooms with the ability to measure the impact of their reporting on society. Tracking reader sentiment and identifying trending topics, help newsrooms gain insights into how their reporting is influencing public opinion and driving conversation on important issues.

Web analytics are useful tools for measuring website traffic and page views, but news analytics provide a more well-rounded view of audience engagement and allow newsrooms to stay ahead of the competition. By embracing news analytics, newsrooms can gain insights into reader sentiment, identify trending topics. Including these tools into the editorial process and using their analysis to make editorial choices will improve the capabilities of publications to deliver high-quality, engaging content to their readers.

--

--

L. Fernandez
Pagelytico, editorial analytics.
0 Followers

MSc in Physics, working to bring science and data to the editorial world since 2014.