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What in the world are Engagement Points?
Just signed up for analytics. What in the world is "engagement points"? I see my posts each have some, but I can't see where this comes from. Also, when I look at individual posts and compare it to the overall chart (Engagement activity) of engagement for all posts, the two don't match up. That is, I have a two posts with by far the most engagement points when I look on the analytics page for the post (clicking the letter on the overall chart), but these posts aren't the highest on the overall chart.
Thanks,
JMR
Thanks,
JMR
I’m confused
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Inappropriate?Hi Jonathan -- Ahh yes, the big question... Ilya's comment to this blog post sheds a bit more light on engagement points: http://marketingtechblog.com/blogging...
And we are working on a more comprehensive explanation at present.
However, in the mean time... So we track a bunch of social metrics sources. More info on that here: http://www.postrank.com/postrank#sources. Now not all activities are created equal (more info on that on the same page). E.g. clicking a link doesn't require much work or show a whole lot of interest compared to, say, leaving a well-thought-out blog comment. So each type of social metric is weighted depending on how much engagement it shows -- how much "work" it is for the person to do it, how much interest it indicates, etc.
A numerical value is then assigned to each weighted metric, and that value is an engagement point (or points).
As each post amasses more engagement activities, we collect and analyze them, weight them, and tally up the number of engagement points. Voila -- engagement score.
We don't show our exact weighting scale or algorithm anywhere, of course, since that's our secret sauce, but that's the general overview.
If you think something's amiss with your feed, we're more than happy to take a look. Just post the URL here or email me: melanie@postrank.com.
Hope that helps! -
Inappropriate?Thanks...I'm more concerned about the other issue with the graphing. My URL is http://www.doseofdigital.com.
I did notice that if you search for my site on PostRank, there are two instances of it. One has 3 subscribers, one has 8. One worked when I set up analytics, one didn't. -
Inappropriate?Hmm, weird. I saw the duplicates you mention, though oddly, they do go to the same page (showing the same number of subscribers).
I've asked the guys to take a look at it and will give you a holler as soon as we know more. Thanks for the heads up. -
Inappropriate?Jonathan, digging into the data here... I think I see what's happening!
The peaks do not line up because the bulk of the engagement for each of those stories did not come immediately after you published it. The graph events (letters) show you when the story was made public, and the engagement / pageviews always trail that event.
Depending on how quickly and wide the story spread, your engagement & pageviews may come in the first day, or in the following days (your case).
Hope that makes sense?
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Inappropriate?Yes, good question. I just signed-up today and I feel "engagement points" should be explained more. I'm the kind of person that engages problems like this, but most people are probably like "what are engagement points? Nothing here explains it. Oh well...back to google analytics."
You should have a button or link (like many sites now) that when you hover over "engagement points" there's a tool tip that says "What's this?" and clicking will open a window explaining the concept.
Furthermore, I know you don't want to give away your algorithm, but it would help to give a brief, general description of what these are, or for each individual post, what kind of "engagement events" occured to produce this score - otherwise it's like "Oh, cool. 45 engagement points. What the Hell does that mean?"
Just a suggestion. After reading the above description by Melanie, I'm much more interested. But honestly, after the first 5 minutes looking at the site, and being alittle confused I was like "Ok, it's basically google analytics plus almost nothing. Not worth $108, see ya."
If you add a little more explanation of what I'm looking at and make it more clear how this trumps google analytics, then I'll be more likely to not cancel my account. Perhaps a short video of how I can benefit, or an example case study where someone learns a ton and improves traffic/business/effectivesness somehow as a result of using postrank.
Just a good natured suggestion. I do hope you guys succeed and provide good value!
THANKS! =)
I’m excited to learn more about post rank
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This answers the question
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Hi Jesse - as noted, more explanation is something we're working on. We have made some updates to the metrics display to to show the sources that contribute to engagement points. We can't provide a whole lot more of the secret sauce than we have here: http://www.postrank.com/postrank - but we can certainly present it in an Analytics-specific format that'll be more clear.
We're also not competing with or trying to replace Google Analytics. In fact, integrating your Google Analytics into your PostRank account is one of the things you can do right when you sign up. The two services are meant to compliment each other. -
Inappropriate?Thanks for your response, Melanie. I understand you're not replacing google, and I did plug-in my google analytics when I signed-up.
I'm just still trying to figure-out what value you provide beyond Google Analytics (or rather, if the additional value is worth $108/yr). I have a feeling it is, but I don't fully understand what the value you provide is - I'm still confused about the benefits of postrank. Sell me some more. gimme a video telling me how great your service is and why it's great. show me an example.
I’m just trying to help me and you
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This answers the question
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Well, at the moment we only have one video, and since it's on the homepage, you've probably already seen it. :) (And, really, we'd rather have people try the service out for themselves and prove its value rather than hope a shiny, hand-waving video would do the selling.) :)
To give you an explanation that would make sense to you, I'd have to know more. I don't know what your blog is, what you write about, what your goals or intentions with it are, etc. If it's just a hobby, Analytics might well be more info than you need.
Well, at the moment we only have one video, and since it's on the homepage, you've probably already seen it... (And really, we think actually poking at the product has more power to convince.) :)
To give you an explanation that would make sense to you, I'd have to know more. What's your blog? What do you write about? What's your audience like, and how big is it? What are your goals or intentions with having the blog?
Analytics can help you see over time how your audience is reacting to what you write. Typically you can see trends in what topics, writing styles, etc. engage them. To increase that engagement, addressing those topic or styles more can help. You can also see how those posts are doing from a high, at-a-glance level (engagement score), or more granularly (specific numbers for each relevant metric - do you get more tweets, or do your posts tend to get bookmarked more, that sort of thing).
If using your blog to engage with the readers directly, start conversations, get feedback, answer questions, develop a community, etc. is important to you, Analytics can help by showing you who is saying what, where they're saying it, and when they said it. For some folks/venues, real-time engagement with the audience is very important, and Analytics facilitates that.
Some functionality we're hashing out now will be able to help more with the "so now what?" aspect of analytics -- you have the numbers, so what should you do to improve them?
If your blog is just a hobby, Analytics might well be more info than you need. Same if you prefer drawing your conclusions more anecdotally.
So, hope that helps. If you're looking for more specific info, let me know some answers to those questions above and we can go from there. -
Inappropriate?cool. thanks for the info! Actually, I haven't watched the video, I guess I should check that out! (sorry!)
Wow, you can see "who is saying what, where they're sharing it and when they said it" !? How do I find-out that information, that's the kind of thing I would love to know.
Can you tell me how to find that on the Post-Rank user interface?
I’m excited about post rank
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This answers the question
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Yup, the "who's saying what..." etc. is in what we call the Conversation Feed. When you're logged in to Analytics, if you go to the Analyze view, then click on a specific post that has metrics, if you scroll down beneath the Engagement Activity Graph, the stream of metrics (tweets and things like that) are there.
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Oh, wow! I didn't see that before! Awesome. Thanks for your help Melanie!
on one of our posts there was a tumblr thing, but it doesn't show-up in the "conversation feed." Is it just tweets that show-up in the conversation feed? (obviously blog comments don't either, I see you click the comment icon to view them on your blog). -
Nope, all the trackable metrics should show up there -- comments, tweets, FriendFeed, Reddit, etc. If they're not showing up for your blog, send me the URL or your account email and we'll take a closer look: melanie@postrank.com.
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Inappropriate?Ok, round one of the explanation of engagement: https://analytics.postrank.com/docs/e...
More info's coming, along with snazzy graphics and such. Let me know if that does the trick, if parts aren't clear to you, or if there's anything missing that you really wanted to know about.
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