How many people really do read your online media coverage?

Is it possible to get a more accurate handle on how many people really do read individual online media articles? Defaulting to metrics such as Unique Monthly Visitors as a proxy for possible readership is clearly a cop out. But what realistic alternatives do exist?

Before that, its worth looking at exactly what online media consumption really looks like today.

Take a specific example. According to SimilarWeb, bbc.co.uk receives around 650 million visits per month from 87 million unique visitors. If you gain media coverage on this site, then you might think that 87 million people had the “opportunity” to read and be influenced by the article.

Of course, this “potential” is non-existent.

Let’s look at the numbers more closely. First, the bounce rate for bbc.co.uk is about 50pc. In other words, half of all sessions are to a single page. People turn up, look at the page, and then leave without viewing a second page. Couple this with the fact that nearly 2/3rds of all visits to bbc.co.uk are direct (because people have bookmarked a page or can type in a URL from memory); and the vast majority of these visits are to the home page.

What this means is that the typical bbc.co.uk reader never goes beyond the home page = thus the only thing they really ever see are headlines and a few words of introduction at best. They never click through to read the full article.

SimilarWeb also reveals cross-readership between media sites. One way of looking at the BBC’s colossal visit numbers is that as the leading media brand, they have a much larger share of the “light” news consumer. Over half of people who visit bbc.co.uk in a given month don’t visit any other major news sites. “Heavy” news consumers will visit multiple media sites in any month – and will spend more time reading articles. If news consumption is a category, light news consumers don’t visit news sites that often – and when they do, they will almost certainly gravitate towards the top brand(s). Because it is the most familiar and easiest to recall. And light news consumers represent most of the market.

But what about social media amplification? Again, just because media coverage is published and shared via social media, that doesn’t necessarily translate into traffic to the full article. BBC News publishes links to its stories via its Facebook page. But again, it is only a line of text, a thumbnail image, and the headline. According the Buzzsumo, the average number of engagements on BBC News Facebook posts is around around 9000. Data from EchoBox suggests average CTR rates for publisher content on Facebook are around 2.5pc. SimilarWeb numbers show that direct and Google search traffic easily account for the vast majority of media site traffic and corroborates the low level of traffic sent via social media posts.

Of course, the BBC is just one example. But this pattern plays out across all media sites.

So what does this mean for media coverage evaluation? Fairly, obviously, the true reach numbers for actual article readership are far lower than you might think.

There are now a number of tools that will try and estimate what the real article readership figures are - CoverageBook and OPoint being two prominent examples.

However, just because these article readership figures are smaller doesn’t mean that media coverage is not as valuable as you think. For example, if coverage contains a followed backlink, then this SEO value will continue to be passed on over time. Also, it is often overlooked that online media coverage often has high rankings in Google – and thus editorial content can continue to gain readers and visibility long after it has been published. Again, given that Google search is typically the biggest driver of traffic to any media site PRs are overlooking the long term value of online media coverage (don’t forget tools like Visably.com can show you where your editorial coverage is gaining search visibility in relation to specific keywords and brand terms over time).

In short, it is perfectly possible to carry out more accurate media coverage evaluation and measurement – and PRs should not be afraid of finding out that the readership metrics revealed are not big vanity numbers. If we are serious about demonstrating real impact, we have to start by being more grown up about using numbers that reflect reality, not vanity.

Social Media Ad Market to Overtake TV In 2022, Zenith Forecasts

According to Zenith Media: “Social media ad spend will rise to $225 billion by 2024, when it will account for 26.5 percent of all advertising, followed by paid search at 22.5 percent and television at 21.0 percent."

The ascendancy of social media as the top ad spend channel is worth noting. Paying for guaranteed visibility on a social network is now just a fact of life. Equally, PR people should have access to budgets and resources to create more editorial driven content that can be supported organically and via paid means.

CoverageBook 2 is now out

The latest version of CoverageBook is now out. As mentioned above, I've long admired the fact this tool attempts to give you a more accurate figure for online media coverage readership. Lots of new features in version 2. In particular, I like a lot of the new metric enhancements. For example, it attempts to estimate Twitter impression numbers - compared with the actuals, it does a pretty good job. This is handy when you don't have access to the account impression numbers provided via Twitter. The ability to create and add your own Customer Metrics is another nice addition. Worth checking out.

New display options in Google Data Studio

Long time readers will be well aware of my enthusiasm for Google Data Studio as a way for PR professionals to take more control of how they report on measurement and evaluation metrics. Having built hundreds of GDS dashboards over the last 5 years, I'm extremely aware of the vital importance of user experience. Paying attention to who the dashboard is intended for and what they want to get from it should have a huge influence on your dashboard design. Google has introduced some new features that provide more flexibility in how data is organised and displayed as well as helping users to find what they want more quickly. These might seem like minor cosmetic features, but will make it easier for dashboard creators to tell data stories more easily.

That’s it for issue #5. All feedback gratefully received. Please do let me know what you think in the comments. I’m all ears for ideas and suggestions as to what to cover.