You must have seen a blogger or an influencer’s profile on Instagram with millions of followers. Their popularity has reached an extent where a lot of brands have associated with them and have grown and flourished.

How do you think they attract such a large number of people to their page?

Because these influencers create exactly what their target audience wants to see. They create and collate content which is guaranteed to engage the audience.

But how do they know what the public wants to see?

Here’s where content analytics comes into the picture. True, content is the king. But, in today’s content-rich ecosystem, merely creating and publishing content will not return the desired outcomes. One must understand what the audience requires, their online behavior, and accordingly create and optimize their content.

Now let’s look at the publishing industry.

Digital publishers and self-publishing authors also create a lot of content for their readers, from educational eBooks to fiction novels. As user engagement and content reach determines the probability of eBooks sales, it is important to focus on these two aspects for better sales opportunities.

Publishers and authors have only one way to find out if their digital publications are engaging enough for the audience- through content analytics.

Related: 5 Ways to Use Learning Analytics in K-12 Education

Content analytics involves analyzing data to understand user behavior and measure the success of the digital content.

Simply put, it is used to receive actionable insights that can drive audience engagement.

Content analytics help publishers and authors to know how their digital content is performing online, whether it is achieving the desired objectives and what can be done to improve the outcomes.

The importance of content analytics can be determined by the fact that social media platforms now allow individual users to track their content performance using analytics. Right from Facebook to Instagram, users can see the post reach and impressions made, helping them plan a better content strategy to increase their audience base.

Similarly, digital publishers and authors can also leverage content analytics to understand their readers’ thought process, monitor their online behavior, identify trends and opportunities, and thereby increase the eBook sales.

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Publishers can have a comprehensive view of user behavior in real time. Unlike traditional publishing, where publishers had to wait for months to find out if their books are selling well, digital publishing is quick and more efficient.

The content analytics tool shows a real-time dashboard with useful statistics such as most popular books, unique views, active users report etc. The accurate numbers help the editorial team in analyzing the quality and effectiveness of the content, while also showing the number of users viewing the page and book.

The higher number of people viewing your eBook, the more chances of a sale. Content analytics shows a statistical report displaying the number of impressions made so far and the number of unique visitors on the website. Based on the frequency of visitors, publishers and authors can determine if their promotional strategies are working.

Less visitors would mean you need to redesign your marketing strategy to obtain more visibility and create awareness of your product, whereas more visitors and less sales would probably mean that the content is not very effective, which implies that you need to work on creating better content.

Almost every publisher and author uses social media to inform readers of their newest publication. Social platforms are now being used as a tool to promote content and drive traffic to websites. To make this possible, one must understand the behavior of their target audience on different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Content analytics gives insights on the time of day and day of the week when users are most active on the platform, enabling you to schedule promotional posts accordingly. It also classifies visitors based on their age, gender and location so that you can curate tailored content that might interest and engage them. Thus, you can boost your social media interaction, reaching out to more people, and eventually increasing your eBook sales.

The user data is also bifurcated on the basis of their geography. Analytics shows you the country where the user accessed your content from. This data helps authors and publishers to localize and customize their content based on the location of the major chunk of their audience. Writing and designing bespoke content for users will help you connect with them, which in turn can help increase your eBook sales.

For instance, publishers can get their eBooks published in multiple languages to cater to readers based in different locations. You can also customize the content according to the age of the readers. If you are developing an eBook for students, then you should make it more interactive and engaging to enhance their learning experience, whereas for pre-K children the eBook has to be more visually appealing, and for working professionals the design must be clutter-free and easy to read.

Not only can an digital publishing and analytics tool track user engagement with eBook as a whole, but it can also track engagement with individual elements like videos and hyperlinks embedded in the book.

You will get a report on the time spent on each video, giving you insights on whether the video is effective enough. You can also identify the links that are clicked most often. If a multimedia object doesn’t seem to engage the audience, you can then replace or modify it.

You can view the best performing content and analyze it to figure out what is it that audiences find interesting about this one. This will help you redesign your other content to match the audience’s interests.

For publishers with multiple eBooks on the eStore, this feature helps in identifying which eBook is most viewed and downloaded. And then delve further to analyze user behavior on this book by observing the time spent on content and media elements.

Some analytics tools have heat maps which shows sections of the page the user most interacts with. It creates hotspots where the area with most user interaction glows with warm colors.

This helps to identify the areas where visitors click on the page. Based on this data, you can make changes to the web page, move the content around so that it is placed right where it could attract the reader’s attention.

Authors would want to know where their site visitors come from so that they can optimize that channel to boost sales and engagement. When you know where the majority of your audience are coming from, you can improve the ads and marketing strategies to get more traffic.

Content analytics also gives you insights on whether the visitors have come from organic or paid sources, helping you focus on the right communication channel.

Based on the average amount of time spent on each content, page views received, total engagement time etc., you can plan and devise a marketing strategy that will tap into your target audience.

The real-time dashboard and instant reports of user behavior helps publishers and authors to quickly change their marketing strategies if the existing one seems ineffective. You can leverage this data to improve content distribution plan and grow your pool of readers.

Content analysis gives you actionable data to determine the audience’s response to your publication. This immediate access to eBook performance results can help publishers and authors to modify their marketing strategies quickly to influence sales.

The tool gives an idea about what is actually making readers buy your eBooks. Based on the analytic report, one can optimize their content and create a compelling digital eBook.

Related:

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How to Create an Interactive eBook (Simple Step-by-Step Guide)