社交共享是评判新闻的好标准吗？

    在任何网站上，社交共享的计算方式都是相同的。确定浏览量和独立访问量这些看似简单的指标是一个颇具挑战性的工程问题，不同的分析软件包往往使用不同的技术。仅谷歌分析就使用了两种不同的技术——这取决于你正在浏览的是哪一份报告。即使所有出版商就每篇文章带来的流量发布了完整的数据，这些数据也会因为采用的分析工具而不尽相同。尽管社交分享存在这样那样的不足，但至少每家网站计算社交共享的方法是相同的。

    社交共享可以显示其他非公开指标。尽管有些人分享一些他们从未读过的文章以示睿智，但根据社交共享次数，我们大致可以估算出有多少人看过一篇文章。由于浏览量通常是不公开的，社交共享是局外人所拥有的最佳估算方式。安装在两百多万家出版商网站上的分享工具Sharethis已经计算出，平均一次社交共享相当于26次点击。

    就像任何指标一样，社交共享也存在许多缺陷。尽管如此，鉴于上文列出的这些优点，社交共享值得我们认真关注。我交谈过的大多数人都表示，社交共享只应该与其他指标一起考虑。正如其中一位朋友所言：“我倾向于关注数据、数据和更多的数据，然后将它们融合在一起，从而获得一个真实的图景。”我同意他的说法。然而，在文章层面上目前唯一公开提供的数据是社交共享次数。

    一些出版商和平台正着手改变这种状况。许多出版商现在允许记者通过Chartbeat 和Clicky等分析系统实时了解与各自文章相关的评判指标。Medium允许作者比较各自文章所获得的“浏览量”、“阅读次数”和“推荐次数”，甚至可以计算出所谓的“阅读比”（read ratio）。 Gawker 和 Business Insider 公开显示每篇文章的浏览次数，前者甚至还显示某篇文章给相关网站吸引来了多少新访客。这些非常出色的指标正在变得更加方便，更加细致入微，但所有这些指标都不是通用的。

    就目前而言，社交共享已经摆放在我们面前了。它无所不在，有许多优点，但也有大量不足之处。它无与伦比，无法忽视。好，现在麻烦你把本文分享给你的朋友。（财富中文网）

    本文作者格里高利•加兰特是面向记者和新闻行业的社交网络Muck Rack的首席执行官。他也是短文奖的共同创始人，该奖项颁发给社交媒体的最佳作者。加兰特为多家创业公司提供过咨询服务，并在TechStars创业加速器担任导师。

    译者：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.