University Business - September 2010 - (Page 30)

INTERNET TECHNOLOGY The State of Online Analytics in Higher Ed Survey confirms need for web and social media analytics revolution By Karine Joly N A PREVIOUS COLUMN PUB lished in the June issue of University Business, I shared a few anecdotal examples of how universities and colleges had started to use online analytics to inform their marketing and communications decisions. Unfortunately, there was no available data on analytics usage across institutions at that time. I decided to survey practitioners, thus testing my hypothesis that a change of attitudes in higher education toward web and social media analytics was required. Completed by 399 professionals working mainly in the marketing, communication, and web offices of their institutions, this online survey about the state of web and social media analytics aimed to shed some light on the use of online analytics in higher education. is survey was filled out on a voluntary basis from May 11 to May 24, 2010. It was publicized online through e-mail, electronic mailing lists, e-newsletters, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and other professional networking websites. As a consequence, it doesn’t rely on a scientifically determined dataset and has a strong bias toward online users. However, it’s fair to assume, due to the size of the sample and the nature of the questions, that its results reflect the general state of online analytics in higher education. WEB TRAFFIC DATA/ GOOGLE ANALYTICS? CHECK! Access to web traffic data isn’t a problem anymore: 95 percent of survey respondents indicated it is tracked at their institution. e free and powerful Google 30 | September 2010 I User interactions only retain the attention of the minority of those surveyed. Analytics application has been implemented to do the job in 92 percent of cases. Open source statistic packages that can interpret web server logs are also being used by 18 percent, while 11 percent rely on their commercial counterparts. In the sphere of social media, 36 percent of survey respondents count on Facebook Insights and 24 percent on YouTube Insights, while 19 percent track clickthroughs using a web address shortening service (e.g., bit.ly). FULL OR PART TIME? WEB ANALYSTS REPORTED “MISSING” While a minority of higher ed professionals is lucky enough to focus their efforts on online analytics, a large majority of the survey respondents—72 percent of those tracking web data—spend less than two hours per week working on it. Only 2 percent report spending more than 20 hours per week on online analytics. In response to another question, half confirmed that nobody at their institution spends more than 20 percent of their time working on monitoring, reporting, and analyzing web traffic data. is lack of human resources is unfortunately consistent with the situation in the public and nonprofit sector. According to “Tapping the Potential of Web Analytics for Public Sector and Non-Profit Sites,” a report published in May 2009 by the Public Sector Special Interest Group of the Web Analytics Association, 70 percent of these organizations do not have a dedicated web analyst. More than 60 percent report spending only a few hours per week on analytics. TRACKING BASIC SITE METRICS…AND FACEBOOK FANS Half of the higher ed professionals I surveyed monitor at least 14 different e-metrics for their institutions. More than 70 percent track five basic website metrics: visits (88 percent), page views (85 percent), unique visitors (83 percent), referring websites (75 percent), and average length of visits (70 percent). e bounce rate, often called “the king of metrics,” which tracks visitors who left after viewing just a single page, is watched by 54 percent at the site level and 51 percent at the page level. Social media measurement isn’t as widely Karine Joly is the web editor behind www .collegewebeditor.com, a higher ed web marketing, public relations, and technologies blog. She is also the founder of the professional development online community at www.higheredexperts.com. universitybusiness.com http://www.bit.ly http://www.collegewebeditor.com http://www.collegewebeditor.com http://www.higheredexperts.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - September 2010

University Business - September 2010
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Behind the News
Viewpoint
Financial Aid
Sense of Place
Internet Technology
Approaching Admissions Today
Three to Degree
Have College Brands Delivered on Their Promise?
Honoring Efficiency
EduComm 2010 Roundup
View from the Summit
Independent Outlook
What's New
End Note

University Business - September 2010

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