Homelessness
Who is Really Interested?
Upon creating my multimedia article on homelessness for online publication, it was important that the public’s misconceptions of the homeless were changed and that people became motivated to help. The article, Paradigm Shift: Ten Things to Learn About Social Services and the Homeless, provided a glimpse behind the scenes of legislators, businesses and nonprofits working help change the homeless situation. As the research revealed one piece of information after another, I found myself wondering just how many people would make the decision to help someone after reading the article.
To gauge actual interest in my article about the issues of homelessness, Google Analytics and website statistics provided tracking information about visitors to the article on my website. The results revealed the need for broader marketing. The numbers would have been higher had more interest groups been included in the target market. More geographic locations can be included in future articles and the social service agencies discussed could also be included.
Overview graph of page visits over time. Google Analytics 2012
According to my tracking results, from January 19 through February 19, 2012, the data revealed ninety-one views across the website. There were forty-eight visits and thirty-seven unique visitors. Of the total visitors 77.08% were new. While the overwhelming majority of visitors was from the United States, one person viewed my article from Great Britain.
When it cane to actual engagement with the article, thirty-nine people remained on the page for zero to ten seconds, six people appear to have read, or skimmed, the entire article, spending between three and thirty minutes. The average of the latter group was about ten minutes. One person left a comment offering to forward the article link to his Facebook friends, which reinforced the importance of using hyperlinks in the article.
Finally, one might wonder if it makes sense to track what browsers people are visiting from. In my opinion, it makes sense when a variety of multimedia elements are used on the site, as was done in mine. Some tend to load graphics, videos and audio faster than others. At the top of the list was Firefox used by 68.75% of my readers, followed by Google Chrome, then Safari. Knowing my visitor preferences helps me craft articles better suited to their needs.
The next time you visit a website, take a moment to click on the links, because you may just learn something new in the process. I learned that people will visit a page when the information is informative, compelling, timely and when it appeals to a variety of learning styles. The video in my article received 10 views on You Tube, which means that ten people were interested in “Ten Things to Learn About Social Services for the Homeless.“