No matter what media channel a mention comes from; the story, article, post or clip only tells half the story. There is a wealth of information to be discovered from the analytics that accompanies every single media mention. However, sometimes diving in and making discoveries from the analytical data can be an intimidating concept. What does it all mean? Why does it matter? 

All of the data that accompanies a media mention helps answer the questions of ‘who, what, where, why, and how (much). Some of the data is very straightforward, for example the headline, author and location of the publication help answer the questions of ‘who and where’. Other data sets can be trickier to ascertain what is happening?

Today we are going to break down the different kinds of analytics that are provided with Newz Group content, along with other common metrics in the media monitoring industry. 

Even though the process of how we monitor hardcopy newspaper has changed over the last twenty five years, the analytical data we collect for every newspaper mention and the method we use to calculate it have largely remained the same.

Headline: The headline of the article

Publication: Name of the newspaper that printed the article

Publication Date: What day’s edition the mention appeared in

City/County/State: Location of the newspaper

Processing Date: What day the mention was found and processed by our readers

Keyword: What keywords were mentioned in the story that caused the story to be sent to your account

Circulation: Print circulation is the average number of copies of a publication

Reach: For print reach we use the industry average, that for every paper that is circulated, 2.3 people read it

Square Inches: This is the size of the article in square inches. The average American newspaper page is 229 square inches

Sentiment: Newz Group uses list based learning to automatically determine whether an article is positive, negative or neutral about the subject matter being discussed.

Advertising Value Equivalent: For traditional newspaper monitoring, Advertising Value Equivalent (or AVE) is calculated by taking a newspaper’s standard black and white per column inch advertising rate multiplied by the square inches of the newspaper article with the keyword mention.

This gives you an idea of what the article would cost if you purchased the same amount of space.

In the Newz Room, this data is presented both in writing accompanying clips and also visually on the analytical dashboard. Charts and graphs like the county heat map allow clients to see exactly where their keywords are being mentioned within their state.

This screenshot from the Newz Room analytical dashboard shows how many times the account keywords were used and in what counties the account keywords were published in. The darker the blue of a county, the more mentions that appeared there.  

Analytics and data are extremely important in online monitoring, almost anyone can create a news site or blog overnight, making it crucial to have corresponding data to determine how many people articles are reaching.

Headline: The headline of the article

Domain: This is the name of the website that the keyword mention appeared on. 

Page Views: Like many online monitoring companies, Newz Group determines the visits for each website automatically using a mathematical model that is based on the website’s Alexa rank. This value is automatically updated every three months. The general definition in this case is: A visit starts when a user makes the first page impression on a website by clicking. All following impressions are assigned to this visit within a timeframe of 30 minutes.

 Reach: Reach is a Key Performance Indicator that Newz Group uses to make cross-media comparisons possible. This is because the range of all our channel specific analytics is so far spread.  For traditional online media and blogs, we divide the visits by 30, this is based on studies about how people interact with websites and reading.

Sentiment: Newz Group uses list based learning to automatically determine whether an article is positive, negative or neutral about the subject matter being discussed.  

AVE: To determine the advertising value of online articles, we use a propriety formula based on the Google Ad rate and average ad display network cost per impression.

Example of charts depicting sentiment  and mentions over time from the Newz Room dashboard. 

There are so many ways the data and analytics can help you learn more about your organization’s coverage, reputation and more. Watch this short video to learn some of those ways.

Celebrating its 25th year, Newz Group provides state press associations with publisher support and archiving services alongside the most comprehensive newspaper monitoring in the greater Midwest. Newz Group is the primary media monitoring source for over 1/3 of American newspapers. For more information visit: www.newzgroup.com

Jenn Langdon is the Business Development Director at Newz Group. She has also been a contributing writer to the Sedalia Democrat and The Kansas City Pitch and was recently named the 2nd Best Newspaper Columnist by Missouri Magazine for the third year in a row. Jenn has been with Newz Group for two years.