Overview of Blog Analytics

Most of my friends ask me about blog analytics – what exactly is blog analytics and how we do it?

Well, blog analytics is quite an interesting field, if you like reading blogs or are a blogger yourself. It’s quite simple, yet intriguing as one needs to be creative and capture insights from the blogs.

Off late, most of the US corporations are getting involved in blog analytics or as some people name it as brand reputation management. I cannot highlight the importance of listening to the “voice of customers” and acting upon it.

One of the best ways to gauge customers opinions is via Social Media (especially blogs), whereas other mediums of Social Media, such as podcasts are mostly used while promoting the brand.

How we get started on blog analytics?

· Identify keywords on which you need to run your search on

· Define the time frame

· Identify blog search engines

· OR alternatively run a search with specific keywords within a defined time frame on a web crawler

Metrics used in Blog analytics:

· Tonal analysis

· Thematical analysis

· Ascertaining the sentiments of the consumers

· Identifying connectors/Influencers

o Number of comments

o Trackbacks

o Profile of the author

o Frequency of occurrence

· Top URL’s and domains

· Recommendations on changing sentiments of consumers or/and online promotion of
products on top occurring domains/blogs

These are the metrics that I’ve used in blog analytics. If anyone is aware of any other metrics that are being widely used, please feel free to drop a note and we can discuss.