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ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
SOCIAL MEDIA & ANALYTICS CAPSTONE PROJECT
Kaveh Kaghazi, Kerry Leary, Mila Mimica and Lizzi Rinehart
Spring 2012
Executive Summary
Our group entered this project having little to no knowledge of analytics. The beginning was very overwhelming as we attended Brad Best’s Interactive Advertising II class -- an upper-level Strategic Communications class that seemed light years away from our reporting classes.
The project involved us working hand in hand with Brad’s class, but we were unaware that his students wouldn’t be delving into Omniture or the Post-Dispatch project until the middle of the semester. We conducted conference calls toward the beginning of the semester with Bob Rose, the deputy managing editor of the Post-Dispatch and discussed with him his expectations from the project. We wanted to make sure that our final suggestions wouldn’t overlap the precious students’ from last semester, and that Mr. Rose and the rest of his staff could get the most out of this collaboration. During this conversation, we brought up maximizing their social media presence, as we noticed that their Facebook and Twitter referrals were under one percent on a daily basis.
Because of this, we began in-depth research on the Post-Dispatch’s social media presence as opposed to newspapers of similar size throughout the country. Luckily, in the convergence sequence, we have had experience at a plethora of newsrooms and we were all familiar with KOMU-TV’s implementation of social media on U_News as well as their frequent use of Twitter and Facebook to generate discussion. This was a good starting point for us, as we knew what to look for. We talked with the MU Journalism School librarians who gave us good websites and research databases to find more information about similar-sized newspapers, including the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, the San Jose Mercury News, the Indianapolis Star, the Kansas City Star and the Baltimore Sun. We found that Post-Dispatch has a large social media presence as compared to other newspapers. With this information, we were able to come up with a list of suggestions and comparison to optimize their social media use.
We also recorded daily analytics on a Google Spreadsheet for two months, comparing numbers for weekend and weekday traffic, as well as the most visited stories and bounce rate. Because we started working on the project prior to Brad’s class, we taught ourselves how to use Omniture, as well as had a lot of time to develop ideas regarding social media. Kaveh, Lizzi and Kerry visited the Post-Dispatch with a few students from Brad’s class at the beginning of March, where we were all able to streamline goals for the next two months.
The entire semester led up to our final project with the interactive advertising class. We all were assigned to individual parts to finalize for our presentation(s), but we all worked collectively in class to come up with the highest quality for a final product. Luckily, the convergence capstone group had been researching and analyzing the analytics since the beginning of the semester. Because of this, we were able to become the experts, if you will, in class. We answered questions, implemented discussion and helped individual groups with their development while sharing our findings with them. Our entire capstone group regularly attended class which was beneficial when we used class time to discuss the project and collaborate with the rest of the class. Some of our best ideas came from class discussions.
Sooner than we thought, it was time to begin presenting. Our first presentation was for RJI Innovation week which was good practice for the actual Post-Dispatch presentation. Kaveh and Kerry presented our Facebook research findings with the audience. The entire class presentation came together very well-- even we were impressed with what the final product was. After the RJI Presentation, Kaveh added back in specific numbers and possible revenue into the presentation for the Post-Dispatch staff. The actual numbers for the project were not shared with the public.
We then presented to the Post-Dispatch. The final presentation took about an hour, and a few members from every group discussed their findings. Everyone watching the presentation was extremely impressed with our findings and what the findings could possibly lead to for the Post-Dispatch. Bob Rose then took about half an hour to ask each group questions about their findings. It was a great feeling to walk out of there with our heads held high.
Looking back at the beginning of the semester, it is quite incredible to see how much each of us has improved. We are now comfortable with Omniture and we are confident with our basic analytic skills. We believe we put forth tremendous effort to end up with a final product that we are extremely proud of. This project was extremely valuable for us as a capstone group as well as for the Post-Dispatch.
Newsroom Implementation
The following portion highlights our final product presented to the Post-Dispatch divided by individual sections.
Homepage reorganization
The STLtoday.com news site lost about 25 percent of visitors after they visit the home page. When those visitors come from local news sites, that number increases to about 70 percent. Furthermore, about 44 percent of visitors only visit one page. We wanted to increase usability to retain more visitors, as well as longer and more in-depth visits. This will lead to a higher profit, because the longer a visitor stays on the site, the more pages they visit. More page views and higher impressions lead to higher income from advertisers. We wanted to reorganize the current website to make it cleaner and easier to use to encourage viewers to browse the site. This will decrease the bounce rate, and increase the number of return visitors, the length of the average visit and profits.
current banner:
redesign:
Our redesign, although cutting advertising elements, presents a much cleaner, user-friendly banner to visitors. We also suggested not allowing advertisers to utilize flash graphics and bright colors, which distract visitors from the Post-Dispatch’s content. This would also maximize “above the fold” content. DrostDesigns found that if the content a person seeks does not immediately appear on their computer screen, they will click away.
current design:
We cleaned up the rotating “top stories” column, as well as making it more user-friendly. During our discussion with Bob Rose and the rest of staff, we discussed the positives and negatives to the rotating picture being clickable or pre-set. We thought it may be more user-friendly if it could be user-generated, but having it automatically rotate could increase traffic to the top stories.
our redesign:
Monetary Analysis:
Total visitors for 2011 = 120,534,225
Current average pages per visit = about 6
44% of visitors only visit one page
An increase of average pages per visit from 6 to 7 would result in an annual increase of revenue by $4,339,236.
Email newsletters
Email newsletters became of interest when one student in Brad Best’s class noted that he receives the newsletters from the Post-Dispatch. He then began doing more research with the email newsletters to see how, or if, we could improve them. We thought this would be important because newsletters offer a convenient and simplified version of the day’s news, and could also be a possible money-maker with advertising.
We analyzed the email newsletters and it all came down to the basics. It is important to write a simple headline that is eye-catching and interesting. However, the Post-Dispatch was writing long-winded, complicated subject headlines when sending the newsletter which could intimidate the recipient. It is also important to make sure all of the links work in the emails. On some that we observed, the links did not actually take us to articles on the website, which could turn readers off.
Similarly, the weekly movie email has a horrible color pallet- it is a red background with blue font. This could be a simple fix to make it more pleasing to the eye.
Also, the email group did some research on the ups and downs of email subscriptions and found that a majority of email subscriptions automatically block images. This being said, many advertisements were not actually showing up on email newsletters which could be a problem. The simple solution would be to make advertisement simple text, not images that would be automatically blocked from the viewer’s email.
Mobile
Currently the STLtoday.com mobile application is available for tablets and smart phones including the android interface. The positives of this app include an interested consumer base (47 percent of people say they get local news from a mobile app), and well-executed sections for local discounts.
Areas that still need work are the weather, business and restaurants sections and the overall ease of navigation could be improved. Many users have complained in app stores that the loading time is too long. Many of these changes can be made if STLtoday.com were to base their main app off their already-existing Rams app, which has gotten great reviews by users.
Based on our research on mobile app usage and St. Louis demographic information, STLtoday.com is missing out on 4,100 mobile visits per day. If these errors can be remedied, those visitors can turn into a hefty revenue boost STLtoday.com. With current mobile page views, STLtoday.com should be getting $1.7 million- $1.9 million per year in advertising revenue if the average CPM is $18 (market rates range from $15-$20).
If the mobile application were to work flawlessly, it would increase page views by 5%, which could increase revenue by $450,000 - $632,000.
If page views increase by 10% due to the mobile application working, revenue could increase by $900,000 - $1.2 million.
Local subscribers in the St. Louis area enjoy participating in conversations. This takes the idea of online social networking to a new level in its entirety. It is an easy way for subscribers to voice their opinions, get involved with the news, and to stay informed.
While researching, we compared the Post-Dispatch to the online social media presence of newspapers of similar market sizes. The Post-Dispatch had 37,865 likes, which is 7,000 more than the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (30,864). These “likes” or subscribers can also be compared to the Indianapolis Star (26,720 likes), the San Jose Mercury (26,051 likes), the Baltimore Sun (17,055 likes) and the Kansas City Star (9,256 likes). These numbers simply prove that the Post-Dispatch already has a significant social media presence.
However, we also found room for improvement. The Indianapolis Star uses cartoons to implement discussions on their Facebook page. They also post “Today’s Cover” which is a great visual element that adds a lot to their Facebook page, tying online media back to an original newspaper.
The Kansas City Star implements multimedia on their Facebook page by posting edited videos of the day’s events. This demonstrates new media and the Star’s effort to focus on new technology in the newsroom. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution incorporates national news stories into their Facebook discussions. (They are the Journal-Constitution’s article about the national news story so it is still generating traffic to their website.) This helps readers stay aware of what is going on throughout the nation.
From January 1 until April 22nd, the Post-Dispatch’s “likes” on Facebook went from 26,355 to 37,865, which is a 44 percent increase. Organic reach, or the number of people who visited or saw content increased by 20 percent. The number of people who clicked on posted links--total consumers-- increased by 24 percent. Furthermore, the daily number of clicks on posted links (Daily Page Consumption) increased by 34 percent.
On March 14, 2012, STLtoday.com moved from a subscribers-only commenting system on its website to a Facebook-driven system in order increase online readership through social media. Readers are now able to login to their Facebook profiles from STLtoday.com and post comments on stories that can be made public to their facebook friends.
Although still relatively early in the process, the Post-Dispatch has seen significant positive results. Since the change on March 14, referrals from social media sites to STLtoday.com have seen a 1.6 percent increase. Additionally, the percentage of referrals from Facebook alone has quadrupled in the last four months. From Jan. 14 - Feb. 14, Facebook was responsible for 0.4 percent of referrals to STLtoday.com. From March 14 - April 14, Facebook was responsible for 1.6 percent of referrals. This could be a con because users do not like change. Changing commenting systems could lead to less visitors to the website if they lose interest in using Facebook to comment as opposed to a made up user name.
There are three ways in which the Post-Dispatch utilized Facebook within the four month period we analyzed (January 2012-April 2012): sports photographs/posts, interactive polls, and posts regarding a current news event.
The more successful sports posts focused on the St. Louis Blues, who were entering the Stanley Cup playoffs upon the completion of our project. This proves that localized sports pique the interest of the Post-Dispatch’s Facebook community. More specifically, posts summarizing the game, with a photograph and a link to a column about the game received notably more comments, shares and likes, than those simply reposting an AP story and photo.
AP story and photo:
Post-Dispatch story and photo:
Another seemingly successful Facebook strategy that draws in commenters is posting a question regarding a recent local or statewide story. For example, a post asking readers what kind of tax hike they would support generated 80 comments and 60 likes, while a post recapping an entire article and then posting the link to it as well as a question only generated seven comments and two likes. This shows that whoever is posting for the Post-Dispatch should utilize the least amount of text and be as direct as possible. Also, posting a question without summarizing the article should result in more clicks to the website to read the story.
simple Q&A text:
minimizing Q&A text:
Lastly, the Post-Dispatch utilizes polls to generate conversation. Despite its success on Twitter, the polls regarding Weatherbird were not as popular in comparison to posts regarding entertainment or lifestyle subjects. For example, a poll asking about readers’ favorite Monkees generated more than 100 votes, while a Weatherbird poll generated 45 votes.
Weatherbird post:
Monkees:
There are many positives and negatives and positives to implementing time and effort into social media. Although users could be interacting within Facebook or Twitter with each other or Post-Dispatch admin, this doesn’t always lead to an increase in clicks or page views, or even visits to the website.
Twitter is an increasingly imperative social media tool when it comes to improving social media presence. As of now, STLtoday has approximately 17,000 followers. This being said, we came up with a few ways to improve the number of followers as well as ways to increase interaction between the Post-Dispatch and its online audience.
Most importantly, it would be a good idea to incorporate a Twitter feed onto STLtoday’s home page. This could lead to more followers as well as prompt visitors to the website to interact with STLtoday through social media.
It would also be important for STLtoday to incorporate lists in their Twitter account to make it more user-friendly for followers. For example, a follower could go to the list of reporters as categorized by STLtoday to follow their individual Twitter accounts. With more tailored lists, accessibility would improve and would be more appealing to new and current followers.
Finally, we thought it would be important for STLtoday to begin live-tweeting events and re-tweeting reporters while they’re putting together a story throughout the day, similar to KOMU-TV. This way, the Twitter site gains more followers as well as more of a personality. We averaged a week on STLtoday’s twitter page and found, on average, they tweet 14 times a day. Most of these are computer-generated when a story is published on a website. This could be compared to the Indianapolis Star. We also averaged their tweets during the same week and they tweet, on average, 47 times a day. They implement more personality into their tweets and retweet their reporters. It is important to develop a twitter personality because it brings more followers to the page and implements interaction with the audience.
Niche brands
In the past 90 days, STLtoday.com has had more than 179 million views. Its niche brands include: Feast STL with 27,014 views, High School Sports with 844,413 views, Ladue News with 39,866 views and STL Best Bridal with 200 views. It would be a good idea for STLtoday to start utilizing Pinterest. For example, the Adobe SiteCatalyst ClickMap showed that The Feed, Recipes and digital archives were the most clicked on. We recommend that this content be also made into separate Pinterest pin boards.