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PostRank Connect and Analytics for Bloggers
It has come to my attention that not every blogger knows about or uses PostRank.
My mission today is to change that!
You see, PostRank is one of the tools that AdAge uses to determine their Power 150. But, even if your goal isn’t to get into the top 10 (like it is ours – I’m not competitive), the information it gives you, layered on top of your Google analytics, helps you make extremely informed decisions about your writing, your community, your social shares, your geographic reach, and more.
So let’s take a look at the analytics for two blog posts that ran on Spin Sucks this week. The first is the one I wrote about online community and the second is the one Matt Royse wrote about how social is changing PR.
It gives you pageviews, how long a person spent on the page, “engagement” events, Twitter, comments, Facebook likes, Delicious bookmarks, and linkbacks.
Now, it’s not totally accurate (we’re still trying to figure out WTH is going on) because the online community post actually had 113 comments, 35 likes, and 98 tweets. And Matt’s guest post had 19 comments, 42 likes, and 269 tweets.
What it does tell us, as much as it really pisses me off (sorry, mom, for saying that, but it does!), people like to RT the heck out of lists. But what makes me feel better is they don’t comment as much on lists so I still win in the battle of content that makes you think builds trust (as evidenced by my 113 comments). I also win in average points per event. Ha!
You can also look at trends for a certain amount of time (I chose the past three months for this exercise).
And you can look at where people share your content the most (for the same time period).
Depending on what your goals are: Highly engaged community, lots of traffic, social shares, moving your content to other referral sources, etc., is what PostRank can help you measure.
All you have to do is go to PostRank, click on CONNECT in the upper left-hand corner, they’re going to ask you a bunch of questions about how you blog and what types of information is OK for PR firms to send you (you have to do this because the service is free) connect your social platforms, add your RSS feed, and verify your site. It takes about 20 minutes and you, too, can have a ton of wisdom about your blog!
For us, you’ll likely see more guest posts that include lists, more information on how to keep your content and online life more private, more how-tos (like today), and I clearly need to take on Edelman again because that drives some serious pageviews! Don’t worry guys; I won’t do that (unless you do something silly soon). Instead I’ll do what my friend Doug Davidoff advises me to do from time-to-time and “get my enemy back.”
Thank you for this very detailed post. We can all always learn more about our favorite services and tools.
Bloggers need to realize how very important PostRank is - and I believe even more important as time goes on - and not just for the AdAge Power150. I find the emails they send very useful and have been encouraging bloggers to sign up with PostRank - and the sooner the better.
GrowMap I love the emails they send, too! I don't have to log on to get my stats...they're right there when I wake up in the morning.
Ok, I followed your directions; what does -3 mean?
I'm glad to know I'm not a total slug and actually bring some value to your site. This doesn't grade on content quality does it?
Who knows, maybe one of these days I will actually have use for an analytical tool............like this....:).
bdorman264 Um, it means you have your work cut out for you?
ginidietrich Or, it means I'm beyond hope. I am signing up for your webinar only because you said you have to be familiar w/ the technology NOT know it....................:)
I love PostRank Analytics! It's pretty revealing to see how my posts are getting shared socially. And really, sometimes, when I think a blog post is going to be a hit, PostRank shows me otherwise.
I'm using they're WordPress plugin so I can see my stats when I log into the dashboard. The thing I look for is what posts resonated with people the most, who shared it, etc. This way, I can try and replicate my success with one post versus the other. Ya know?
Ricardo Bueno I totally know! I'm a big, big fan!
Hurray for PostRank missions! Case studies from folks who are actually using the services to do better work are always the best stories (even when something's weird with the metrics). :)
To clarify a bit, the on-site metrics come right from Google Analytics -- pageviews, time on site, etc., so you'll need to integrate Google Analytics to get those stats along with the PostRank analytics, which are off-site metrics -- what's going on with your content off your site and on the social web (which is 80% of the engagement activity these days).
Re. the screwy stats,we're taking a closer look, but I suspect it might have something to do with Facebook likes happening on your site rather than on Facebook. Basically, because Facebook's data is not very publicly available, the only way we can fully access those likes and such is if our Facebook app is installed (http://help.postrank.com/help/kb/facebook-app/connecting-your-facebook-account-and-authorizing-the-postrank-facebook-app). That auto-publishes your newly published content to the Facebook page(s) you select, and then we can detect and analyze those metrics and add them to the other sources in the Analytics dashboard. But if people are liking the original links, or articles on the site, we can't access that. (I'll email you with a few questions from our end.)
Looks like at this point we're actually picking up more tweets than the Tweetmeme chiclet, so that's good.
One of the guys took a look at the comments, and it looks like you've got comment-related data coming in through both WordPress and Livefyre. We're gathering the WordPress stuff, but not Livefyre. that's been added to the list to add as a comment platform we support.
Hope that helps, and thanks again for the post!
Melanie Baker
Community Manager, PostRank
PostRank Ahhh. Super helpful! Yes, we have our analytics in there so that's all good. But I want to get us in the top 20 of AdAge so we may have to consider changing our comments system because I think that's the only thing holding us back on your score. Do you happen to have a delivery date (even if it's a year off) on when you'll support Livefyre?
Thanks for stopping by, Melanie! I'm a big, big fan!!
ginidietrich We contacted Livefyre to get the necessary info that we need (about a week ago), and haven't heard back yet. If they respond with useful data, we can add support fairly quickly, but at this point it's out of our hands.
PostRank ginidietrich Hey Melanie, can you email me at jenna at livefyre dot com? We must have missed the email because I sent you one a few days ago as well, thanks a bunch! We have to keep our bloggers on top! :)
jennalanger Done. I also forwarded your message to Ilya, since he can tell you better than I what info we'd need. Should be pretty straight forward from there. :)
PostRank jennalanger You both rock! The boys in the top 20 better watch out. Here we come!
I need to know this stuff, I need to spend the time getting to know this stuff. It's on the "will I ever get it DONE?" list. Thanks for the breakdown, Gini.. I like free tools.
3HatsComm I had it on my list FOREVER, Davina. And then I was mad at myself for taking so long because it was so easy. And they send you a nice little report once a day so you don't even have to go log in.
ginidietrich Easy works, I've signed up and can handle easy.
If you're using WordPress there's a plugin that will add PostRank to your site. It is, believe it or not, named "PostRank." Love it. Regardless though you will need to sign up for PostRank and verify your site before the stats show up. One issue I have with the plugin is that it doesn't always show the correct PostRank score inside of WordPress - need to go to the site for that. Might be part of their strategy? 3HatsComm
RobertDempsey I'll check out the plugin, thanks.
RobertDempsey 3HatsComm Actually, it's not any kind of secret strategy. :) Hard to explain in a comment, but basically there are two kinds of rankings: feed-based and thematic. Feed-based analysis is limited to specific recent content from that one site, whereas thematic is broader and calculated a bit differently.
I know I'm late to this, but I've never understood how AdAge (and other rankings) use PostRank? Is it the overall "rating" assigned to a post?
KellyeCrane There are five things they consider: Todd Ranks (their internal guy, so very subjective), PostRank, Yahoo! backlinks (this one is the hardest to figure out), collective intellect, and Alexa. You can score 150 points between the five, which determines your ranking (we have 124 points - we're SO CLOSE!). Does that help?
KellyeCrane There's an old post here about how AdAge does their thing: http://adage.com/article/power-150-blog/postrank-analytics-lets-score/141413/
And a bit of an update from us here from a year later: http://blog.postrank.com/2011/01/ad-age-power-150-and-postrank-an-update/
One of the sneaky ways you can use PostRank too is to see what content from other blogs is most popular. So if you're planning on doing guest posts, or just looking for a bandwagon to jump on, you can use PostRank to search. Great way to come up with more ideas.
On my site I actually removed the WordPress popular and recent post widgets and installed the PostRank one instead. It's always interesting to see how many more pageviews the content that is already considered "popular" or "high ranking" on the site gets by virtue of it having a number there. Not that I'm complaining though :)
RobertDempsey Oh definitely not complaining! :) I'm going to do that test, too. Thanks for the idea!
So glad you broke it down for us! I just recently installed PostRank ( I think it was shonali and WUL where I first read about it? ) and have been very excited to have another view of my blog world - I am a numbers geek and LOVE to analyze something to the nth degree.
Installing it however and understanding it are 2 completely different things! Since I only recently installed it, I'm having the same issue Brankica is having with old posts. Will check out wabbitoid suggested tip to see what I can do to bring them into the picture. Thanks!
I like PR and find it useful, but have to admit that sometimes I feel like I have far too much information to process. It can be overwhelming.
TheJackB I agree. You have to dig through and find what's most relevant to your goals.
Thanks for the tip! I went away and started exploring this. More data to mull over !!!! Great stuff, thanks Gini
jonbuscall Oh you'll like it, Jon! This is right up your alley.
Informative post here. I have seen AdAge around but not on almost every blog, so never paid attention. Now reading your post, feel like going there and knowing more.
So thanks for a wonderful post on Sunday morning.
Make it great for yourself
Fran A
Mywritingworld You're very welcome, Fran! Happy Sunday to you!
I like this Gini! Thanks! It's on my To Do list for next week - I'm off for the weekend!
Have a good one everyone!
Lori
OK, PostRank expert (I actually waited for one to show up!) this is what I need to know - How do you get PostRank to pick up some of your older posts. My blog has been over there for a months now and it is showing rank for posts posted after it was included. Is there a way to get some of your older posts picked up?By the way, I agree that not many are using it which is a shame cause it is great!!!
Brankica The easiest way is to make sure they are in your RSS feed and that PostRank knows it. There is one more secret that I know will work, sadly one post at a time. I am sure that identi.ca - also a Canadian company - has its feed go directly to PostRank. Post a link up there with a short description so you aren't spamming and PostRank will get it.
(there Ginny ... .I revealed one of my darker secrets .... happy now? :-) )
wabbitoid Brankica I actually didn't know that so thank you, Erik!
Brankica It depends on two things: a) whether or not your site was in our system before you added it to your site, and b) how many posts your RSS feed is set to show.
We can only gather content starting when your feed was added to our system. If you're lucky you have a fan who added it a long time ago, so we will have a longer archive. And some people have their RSS feeds set for hundreds of posts, but others have them set to show only 10, so 10 is all we can gather. Hope that helps.
This was great Gini. I'm headed over now to sign up so that eventually, when I'm ranked #1 on the Power 150, just ahead of you and DB, I can say it all started the day your taught me about PostRank ;-) (Yes, I'm full of it and I'll just be pretty thrilled to crack the list before 2020 ;-)
In all seriousness though, this was great and I very much look forward to checking out my new stats.
Have a great weekend Gini!! :-)
Marcus_Sheridan Please, Marcus, don't butter ginidietrich up any more - she's already insufferable at the best of times... ;-)
DannyBrown Marcus_Sheridan There is NO WAY you'll beat Danny or me. But nice try. You can have the third spot.
I tried and loved postrank for the my blog. The issue was that it broke three crucial plugins. I survive on Editorial Calendar for Wordpress. ED contacted PostRank and they said they were working on a fix. That was nearly a while ago. When I switched to 8Bit's Standard theme I ditched PostRank. I would go back but I can;t afford to lose the other plugins. Their customer service was a bit clunky as well.
johnflurry That's crazy it lost your plugins! I haven't had that problem, but I can definitely see why you ditched it.
johnflurry Yeah, we wish we could keep up with all the changes to WordPress, Firefox, etc., but the reality is, as a small company, that we have to focus most of the resources on the sites that will bring in revenue, and smaller tasks like that tend to get pushed onto the backlog for "the future".
johnflurry I am now told that the devs have released an updated version of the plugin that corrects a JS issue. If you try updating to the latest version, it should play better with other plugins: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-postrank/
PostRank johnflurry Very cool. I will give it another run and let you know! Thanks.
Thanks for this. Been using it for quite some time and it does provide some great info. Oh, and by the way, you're welcome. I've been commenting and sharing your stuff a lot lately, so I'll take some credit for your numbers. Oh, and I can work harder to make sure you beat out your guest posters...for the right price...
KenMueller LOL! Keep going! We have to get to 35 so we can beat DannyBrown !
ginidietrich KenMueller I see it happening within 4 weeks :)
Thanks for sharing this application Gini, I'm installing it today - it's much appreciated ma'am : )
Mark_Harai Same here!
jennwhinnem We're a little slow to the party, but we're getting there...
: )
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