Well this is my last post for my Digital PR module. Hopefully I can continue this blogging when I go out into the big bad world of work in PR. For the past few weeks I have been using Google Analytics and been watching YOU, yes YOU and how you search for my blog and how you access it. It has been interesting...
Many arguments from the "old" media camp quite rightly argue how Public Relations can measure campaigns that use digital media or online communicating. It is all well and good if we have a web counter, which just gives us the number of visits that this blog has had. That is just a number, we don't know WHO was looking at the website; WHERE they were looking at the website from; WHEN they looked at it and for how long; WHAT system they were using to access the interent; and WHY they were looking at the blog.
From a PR perspective all these factors are important. When doing a PR campaign with online resources such as social media websites, Google Analytics can show us the answers to the who, what, where, when and why! It is important to analyse the findings to gain a better understanding of who the PR campaign wants to target and who is interested in the campaign in the first place. I was surprised when I had a look at my Google Analytics personal page to see that my blog was being watched not only by people in UK and Ireland, but also Spain, Romania, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Greece, Canada, the USA and Australia. You can see how many times and the exact location where these viewers are, which quite frankly is a bit strange to see at first. There is an important lesson here, Curtin and Gaither (2007) in "International Public Relations: Negotiating Culture, Identity and Power" commented on how cultural differences should be addressed when promoting PR in different countries. "...glocalization emerges as a productive way to ease the tension between global and local." Therefore, it is important to keep in mind audiences from other countries and cultures.
Many of my viewers have been members of my class and my friends from outside the university bubble. However, there have been many visitors who have visited that are new to me! It is thanks to promoting my blog on Twitter that has helped new visitors click onto my web page and I say thank you to them for bothering!
So, do I highly recommend using Google Analytics for PR purposes? Yes! It is a tool, like I said before, that can measure the people who visit your website and also gives you an insight as to how people search for your website and how they use it. It can also give you nice percentages, that all PR people like when trying to promote campaigns! Therefore, it is very useful!
Here are some of my stats that maybe of interest:
87.65% of viewers to my webpage via Blogger, Twitter or Facebook
I had 22 North American hits.
I had 216 hits from the UK and Ireland.
I had 13 visits from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe
I had 8 visits from Bahrain and 1 visit from Australia.
(please note that these numbers would be larger had I worked out how to use Google Analytics properly, so I'm missing data - I'm being honest!!)
Good Morning, Good Day or Good Night - wherever you may be viewing from! Thanks to everyone who has had a look at my blog and many thanks to those who have contributed and commented on my blogs. Hope you have enjoyed my blog, as much as I have enjoyed creating it!
Keep those comments coming :)
Pictures from blogspot. and vquence
As far as I can see we have all enjoyed Google Analytics but had troubles installing it from the very beginning...
ReplyDeleteFor me it was fun to use. I regret not using Facebook to promote my blog:( What was I thinking!?
First, thanks for visiting Your PR Guy. Oh, and for reading my blog of the same name too. You're on to something by using Google Anatylics to gain insight into how readers are finding your blog and consuming its information. That's important information. But it's not all you need to know.
ReplyDeleteSince PR is all about the relationships we build, sentiment is important too. And that can be measured through what others say about your content in other places on the web, or in the comments here.
While Google can tell us a lot that helps us position our content online, sentiment can tell us about the intensity of our relationships.
Thank you for your comment! I agree with what you are saying and will take note of it when I'm in the big, bad world! I think a mixture of both keeping a record of what is being said and using Google Analytics will give PROs more information on their audiences than ever before.
ReplyDelete