社交共享是評判新聞的好標準嗎？

????在任何網站上，社交共享的計算方式都是相同的。確定瀏覽量和獨立訪問量這些看似簡單的指標是一個頗具挑戰性的工程問題，不同的分析軟件包往往使用不同的技術。僅谷歌分析就使用了兩種不同的技術——這取決于你正在瀏覽的是哪一份報告。即使所有出版商就每篇文章帶來的流量發布了完整的數據，這些數據也會因為采用的分析工具而不盡相同。盡管社交分享存在這樣那樣的不足，但至少每家網站計算社交共享的方法是相同的。

????社交共享可以顯示其他非公開指標。盡管有些人分享一些他們從未讀過的文章以示睿智，但根據社交共享次數，我們大致可以估算出有多少人看過一篇文章。由于瀏覽量通常是不公開的，社交共享是局外人所擁有的最佳估算方式。安裝在兩百多萬家出版商網站上的分享工具Sharethis已經計算出，平均一次社交共享相當于26次點擊。

????就像任何指標一樣，社交共享也存在許多缺陷。盡管如此，鑒于上文列出的這些優點，社交共享值得我們認真關注。我交談過的大多數人都表示，社交共享只應該與其他指標一起考慮。正如其中一位朋友所言：“我傾向于關注數據、數據和更多的數據，然后將它們融合在一起，從而獲得一個真實的圖景?！蔽彝馑恼f法。然而，在文章層面上目前唯一公開提供的數據是社交共享次數。

????一些出版商和平臺正著手改變這種狀況。許多出版商現在允許記者通過Chartbeat 和Clicky等分析系統實時了解與各自文章相關的評判指標。Medium允許作者比較各自文章所獲得的“瀏覽量”、“閱讀次數”和“推薦次數”，甚至可以計算出所謂的“閱讀比”（read ratio）。 Gawker 和 Business Insider 公開顯示每篇文章的瀏覽次數，前者甚至還顯示某篇文章給相關網站吸引來了多少新訪客。這些非常出色的指標正在變得更加方便，更加細致入微，但所有這些指標都不是通用的。

????就目前而言，社交共享已經擺放在我們面前了。它無所不在，有許多優點，但也有大量不足之處。它無與倫比，無法忽視。好，現在麻煩你把本文分享給你的朋友。（財富中文網）

????本文作者格里高利?加蘭特是面向記者和新聞行業的社交網絡Muck Rack的首席執行官。他也是短文獎的共同創始人，該獎項頒發給社交媒體的最佳作者。加蘭特為多家創業公司提供過咨詢服務，并在TechStars創業加速器擔任導師。

????譯者：任文科

????Social shares are counted the same way on any website. Determining even seemingly simple metrics like pageviews and unique visitors is a challenging engineering problem, and different analytics packages use different techniques. Google Analytics alone uses two different techniques depending on which report you're viewing. Even if all publishers released the full data of how much traffic all of their articles are receiving, it'd vary based on which analytics tool they used. For all of social shares' shortcomings, at least they're calculated the same way on every website.

????Social shares are indicative of other non-public metrics. Notwithstanding the people sharing articles they've never read to look smart, we can get a rough estimate of how many people read an article based on the number of social shares. Because the number of pageviews is usually not public, social shares are the best estimate an outsider has. ShareThis, a sharing widget installed on more than two million publisher sites, has calculated that one share equals 26 clickbacks on average.

????Just like any metric, the social share count has a large share of flaws. Despite that, the social share deserve serious attention for all the potential insights listed above. Most everyone I talked to about this metric said it should only be considered along with a host of other metrics. As one put it, "I tend to fall on the side of data, data, and more data -- mashing it all together for a true picture." I agree. However, the only data publicly available on an article level is social share data.

????Some publishers and platforms are starting to change this. Many publishers are now allowing their journalists to access to analytic systems like Chartbeat and Clicky that allow them to see a variety of metrics on their stories in real time. Medium allows writers to compare how many "views", "reads," and "recommendations" their own article has, even computing a "read ratio." Gawker and Business Insider display view counts of each article publicly, and Gawker even shows how many new visitors the article attracted to the site. These are all great examples of metrics becoming more accessible and nuanced, but none of them are universal.

????For the time being the social share is here. It's everywhere. It's got many virtues. It's got no shortage of flaws. It's unrivaled and impossible to ignore. Now please share this article with your friends.

????Gregory Galant's the CEO of Muck Rack, the social network for journalists and companies in the news. He's also the cocreator of the Shorty Awards which honors the best of social media. Galant advises several startups and is a mentor in the TechStars startup accelerator. Follow him on Twitter.