In a look back on 2010 from our ResearchImpact web perspective we see some good news but also recognize we have some room to grow.
Looking back on 2010 we see we had reason to celebrate. By the numbers, 2010 was a good year for ResearchImpact’s web presence. This is the third recent post that talks about numbers- on November 26, 2010, we presented a summary of our cumulative knowledge mobilization activity; and on December 23, 2010, we presented some 2010 numbers in our Merry Mobilizing card to all of our readers. Looking back on 2010 from our web perspective we see some good news but also some room to grow.
Blogging: Mobilize This! received 15,872 views in 2009 and 35,848 in 2010 representing a 126% increase in views. March to September was almost double the views of the rest of the year! Thanks to all of you who are reading this right now. Feel free to leave a comment using the comment feature below. This will let us know how we can better respond to your KMb needs.
ResearchImpact website: We remain constant in getting about 1 million hits per 8 months over the last 16 months. We had a 24% increase in web hits over 2009 and a 53% increase in number of visitors (total month over month visitors in 2010 was 70,468). At 55% our bounce rate isn’t great and people spend about 3 minutes on the site when they land. It appears that our home page, RSS feed, ResearchSnapshots and KMb bookmarks are the most frequented pages.
ResearchImpact O3 community: Our O3 online collaboration platform wasn’t around much in 2009 for a comparison. Looking at the last 6 months of 2010 vs. the first 6 months we see a 159% increase in visits (total visits in last half of 2010 were 2,539) with a bounce rate of only 30% (thanks for sticking around). O3 is new to Ontario and it is new to us (thank you ORION for featuring us in your video and newsletter). As we expand our collaborations we aim to continue to use O3 to support knowledge mobilization and co-creation of new knowledge between researchers and their research partners.
And finally, Twitter: We took a look at our twitter activity on March 30, 2010. At that time we had 345 followers and were following 99. As of January 4, 2011 we have 744 followers and are following 189. Both numbers roughly doubled but we had slightly greater growth in followers. According to Klout, a service that measures twitter presence and influence along three variables (true reach, amplification and network = Klout score), ResearchImpact had a Klout score of 52 out of a possible 100 on January 3, 2011. While we don’t know what that means (Oprah is about 80 for comparison), we are described as a « specialist »:
« You may not be a celebrity, but within your area of expertise your opinion is second to none. Your content is likely focused around a specific topic or industry with a focused, highly-engaged audience. »
Specialist? We’ll happily be known as a specialist.
Thanks to all who retweeted (50 unique retweeters retweeting 100 unique tweets for a total of 250 retweets) and for all who follow us. Props and a big shout out to our top twitter followers below – @KMbeing standing out amongst them.
So, for 2011? Stay the course. Join us for a new feature, a tweet chat on Wednesday January 26, 2011 (« Tweet a Mobilizer »). Work on the bounce rate for www.researchimpact.ca and also welcome more of our KMb colleagues from the ResearchImpact-RéseauImpactRecherche universities as they post material on the website, this blog and develop their own twitter presence. The first four years of ResearchImpact’s web presence has mostly been about York and York Region. 2011 will see our web presence become truly pan-Canadian.