A Handy Conversion Chart For Audience Data
There’s a scene in the US version of The Office where the boss, Michael Scott, asks the receptionist, Pam, to keep track of the scoring at the company’s ‘beach day’ Olympiad. After several different events, he asks Pam who’s in the lead. “I think they’re even,” she responds. “At various times you gave Jim 10 points, Dwight a gold star, and Stanley a thumbs-up. And I don’t really know how to compare those units.”
“Well, check to see if there is a conversion chart in the notebook,” he replies.
This is the scene I think of when I hear companies trying to compare their audience data across print/online/newsletters/blogs/podcasts. There’s a lazy temptation to assume that one gold star and one thumbs up are the same, when they very obviously are not.
This has been particularly stark for me as I see more people — both on a corporate and personal level — pushing newsletters as an alternative, both to traditional media streams, and also to new media , like podcasts. I feel like I need to say this loudly, for the people at the back: 100 subscribers to a newsletter is not equal to 100 listeners to a podcast (100 listeners to a podcast, incidentally, is not equal to 100 subscribers to a podcast). You are comparing gold stars and thumbs up.
