Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

We decided to experiment with a new, super-long article format akin to "slow live blogging." When we looked at the traffic charts below, our jaws dropped. Here's what we learned about long form stories--and why quality, not velocity, is the future of online news. As web publishers we're obsessed with analytics. Any strategy that moves the needle gets our attention.

So you can imagine my surprise when a new way of writing articles blew up my assumptions about how to drive traffic. Before I go on--looking at analytics is tricky. Because we have imperfect information about our audience, it can be difficult to translate aggregate reader behavior into real insights. We may see trends or correlations in the data, but they do not necessarily imply causation, and trying to analyze traffic too closely can coax editors and writers into an unhealthy diet of red herrings. Sometimes, though, a trend is so big and consistent that it's impossible not to engage in a little educated speculation. The last month of our traffic at FastCo.Labs has presented is with one such scenario....