Today is an exciting day for the team at ShareThis. We’re announcing a new methodology that will change the way web content is valued – for the better. This new standard, what we’re referring to as a Social Quality Index (or SQI for short), is the first measure of Web-wide sharing activity that focuses on the social quality of sites, helping publishers evaluate how content is performing, and establishing a benchmark for that performance. For advertisers, this means there is now a way to consider a content’s value when buying media across publisher sites.
We’re excited about this announcement because we believe that it draws the focus of social media back to where it originated – the content that people want to share, and the people who want to share it. We’re also excited to have Starcom MediaVest Group collaborating on it with us.
To learn more about the SQI, you can read about it in our press release, or on our website here. Also, we’ve anticipated that there will be a few questions for our Publisher network, and have provided some of them with answers below.
Thanks for your continued support of ShareThis!
Kristen Fergason, CMO + the ShareThis Team
Why is ShareThis creating a network-wide index?
At ShareThis, we have known for years that the act of sharing content provides powerful insights for both publishers and advertisers. We also have witnessed how content continues to be under-valued as part of the current digital media buying equation. Without a way to benchmark content’s value, over-dependence from media buyers on traffic and reach would only continue to grow stronger. We decided that this was a serious challenge for our publisher network, and one worth understanding better. So, we posed the problem to our team of renowned scientists, and they found a solution — an index of social quality, or SQI to keep it simple.
What does this mean for the ShareThis Publisher Network?
Your content has a value, and you should be rewarded for that value. Our goal for the index is to help you drive better business decisions that result in greater returns, via audience engagement and earned media from it, and also advertising spends. As part of the ShareThis Publisher Network, you are better able to gauge how sociable both your content and audience are, and therefore make better decisions that help you achieve your business goals.
How exactly is the index calculated?
The ShareThis standard derives a raw social traffic score by taking a combined measure of a site’s outbound share and inbound clickback traffic, and comparing it to total page views. The resulting figure can then be benchmarked against the broader measure of social quality spanning the more than 1 million domains that make up the ShareThis network. This new measurement brings the value of sharing into consideration, adding more dimension to media buying models that rely more heavily on traffic and audience size. The measure:
-Favors rich content and audience interaction over broad reach
-Identifies users with higher purchase intent
-Identifies audiences who are more likely to disseminate content widely
How can I take advantage of the new index?
Publishers already on the ShareThis Network don’t need to do anything at this time. In early 2012, more information about your web site’s social quality rank and how you can leverage it for your own business decisions around editorial and advertising will be available through your analytics dashboard. We will notify you as soon as it is released.
Very helpful post for me, think all,
thanks
Please let me know when this index is available.
Thanks!
Paul Golovato – Staples.com
Exciting news, indeed. Not sure if this gets us over the chasm between the concept of engagement and full understanding or measurement, but it sounds like a mighty leap!
Question on the “how is it calculated” piece: Does your SQI tool include clicks only via your “Share This” icon, or also track those on the branded FB, Tweet, Google+ buttons that are provided in most blogging platforms?
More information as soon as it becomes available. it’s about time this was done. Long overdue.
[...] to the company blog, ShareThis SQI will provide a quantifiable index of the social effectiveness of individual content [...]
Hi Tom,
Currently we calculate based on all traffic via the ShareThis widget. If the FB, Twitter, or G+ buttons are on a publishers site via our widget then all clicks and shares are tracked.
We don’t have information on native buttons that are added to sites outside our widget. Hope that helps.
Thanks!
“If the FB, Twitter, or G+ buttons are on a publishers site via our widget”……
I’m not aware of the G+ button being available via your widget…Or have I missed something?
In any case I hope that I’ll be able to include it soon…
I agree that it is great to be able to share with other. On my web site http://www.NeedEncouragement.com and http://www.BetterLifeMinistry.com I try to share encouraging things with others and something like Share This is a great way to do it! Thanks, Bill
I am impressed with where you’re going with this. Moving beyond simply traffic and reach to make the equation more qualitative makes sense to me.
Yeah thanks !
I find all the above very interesting and important. I already like the stats page and it has proven helpful to me on occasion.
The reason though I stopped using your service and moved on to a competitive one is because I needed the integration of (in my opinion) important services, specifically Google+ and Posterous.
Especially Google+ which is becoming another new cool place to share and socialize should definitely be included.
Is there a way for me to customize my main sharing tools? This is another thing I can’t seem to do with ShareThis.
If you manage to do the above, I would come back to you in a glimpse, since you offer simultaneous sharing wich is a very time saving option!
Keep up the good work!
Great article, Kristen.
It’s good to know that among the “bells & whistles” touted online as social media cure-all’s, that someone is still focusing on what truly is important… content!
James
Hi. We do offer the Google+ sharing option in the form of the Google+1 button. When engaged, there is a pop up window allowing you to share to your Google+ page.
And, as always, all of our buttons are 100% customizable. The following link will help with that: http://help.sharethis.com/customization/customization-overview
I hope this helps.
Thanks!
Hi Michael,
When the Google+1 button is engaged, a window will pop up allowing users to share content to their Google+ pages. But, at this time, it has to go through the ShareThis Google+1 button.
Thanks!