Page 172 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

Cultural business models on the Internet172same. We settled on the mission that we would try to find out as much as we could about our readership, but avoid overgeneralisation.Audience and content data can mean the difference between an incredible or abysmal month of traffic.This mission has remained constant ever since CPN’s inception. While the methods and tools at our disposal have advanced and changed over the years, in general, we still collect and analyse data on and about CPN in three separate ways.First, we collect and crunch content data, which can tell us significant information about theways in which our articles are being read and who’s reading them. Using an inhouse Guardian analytics tool called Ophan, as well as several third party applications, we can uncover this information with great ease and speed. At abasic level, we can tell, among other things,how many people read a particular piece, how they got to that page (via social media or from another article), for how long they read it, and where online they went next (another article or an external link). For more advanced queries, we can examine, for example, minute-by-minute spikes in traffic. We can then crossreference that data with information about the device people read a particular piece on or their country of origin. That analysis can help to inform the times at which to launch our easy laidback reads versus our heavier, more thoughtful comment pieces.Another way we collect and analyse information is via membership data and surveys. Readersof CPN can become members of the network for free via a light data wall.10 Members receive discounts, exclusive offers on events, two weekly newsletters – a careers bulletin and a weekly content roundup – as well as a free eBook on entrepreneurship in the arts. In return, we kindly ask potential members for some standard personal details as well as information about their industry, company, job title, area of work and interests. All these details are used to getan understanding of who our members are and how we can better serve them from a content perspectiveThe third way CPN collects and crunchesdata is through individual feedback. This is an incredibly valuable tool for gaining information about the site that isn’t numerical. It’s also a good way of making sure members don’t feel like they’re a percentage or number; that they’re able to say something to a human behind the site.In general, we facilitate this kind of feedbackvia surveys – giving users space to type up what they like or dislike about the site and its content (ie not “agree” or “disagree” options) – and by making the contact information of the site’s editorial team freely available via the newsletters and on social media, among other channels. Importantly, we respond directly and personally to that feedback, whether it results in a change to the community or not.Editorial developmentContent and storytelling should always be at the heart of any newspaper, blog or content startup. The methods by which you deliver those stories may be innovative, advanced orThe Guardian Culture Professionals Network: a case study in professional community publishing