Site Usage Trends: The Communication Initiative

Hi folks. I sent the folloing note to the Partners today. Wanted to also share with you for review, question and comment - Warren

We just had one of the best weeks for usage of The Communication Initiative platform - 26,494 individual user sessions over the past 7 days. (A user session is when someone accesses the platform. If they come back to the platform 30 minutes after they leave it then that is two sessions … and so on).

Some other relevant data for your review, question and comment follows. As you will be aware these numbers are also in the context of the past 12 months focus on a dramatic redesign of The Communication Initiative platform as recommended by the Partners at their London meeting, So the focus has been a lot on the technology. We are just beginning to use that technology related to network engagement.

1. Core usage: Over the past 12 months, 1,299 active individual users (so specific individual people not sessions) accessed The Communication Initiative platform every day. 18,546 additional people accessed The CI platform at least once a week, every week, over the past year. By way of providing a context for these numbers, the SBCC Conference, through the actions of JHU, The CI and others, attracted 800 people to attend.  

2. Overall Growth: When comparing overall platform usage between the periods Sept 2015 - August 2016; and, Sept 2014 - August 2015, usage is up by 2.21%. Obviously this is good. We are not in the  largest field of work in the world and The CI platform usage levels were already very high, but still we can grow. When we break out those figures below there are even more encouraging signs - with one exception, which I will address.

3. But before that three other overview stats that provide significant insight, beginning with the network itself.

4. Network growth: Over the past 12 months, 1,253 people have joined The CI network. Of course this is from an already very high base number of people previously registered.

5. Mobile Growth: One part of the redesign has been to make The Communication Initiative more mobile friendly. This is working it seems. Overall access of The Communication Initiative platform from mobile devices is up 7% when comparing the past twelve months to the previous 12 month period - to 26% from 19%.

6. Relevant people?: I am sure that one worry everyone has, and that we share, is that a large number of irrelevant people are accessing.

7. Google as access point: One way to test that is to look at the search service (eg Google) access stats compared to overall usage. Though a high number of very relevant people will access the site from Google, the irrelevant ones are almost certainly going to come through that source. For the past 12 months, 48.54% of all traffic came through Google. This is a low % compared to most site patterns. That means that over 50% of users came to the site through the e-magasines, links embedded in other sites, directly by having a The CI URL bookmarked, by typing in the URL or through a link shared by a colleague or friend. So, we can be very sure that the bulk of the usage is very relevant to our field of work. But we would also like to boost the Google stats for relevant people.

8. Work week: A further way to test is when usage takes place. Over the past week (7 days) 80% of usage was Monday to Friday (though time zones mean that the % of work-week use will be even higher).

9. I promised some insights into why these figures are even better than presented above,  with one notable exception.

10. Countries: we are seeing significant year-on-year % increases in a large number of countries. For example, for the past 12 months compared to the 12 months preceding, Kenya is up 26%, South Africa up 11%, Nigeria 24%, Uganda 12%, Ethiopia 19% (perhaps boosted by all of the usage by participants at the SBCC Conference), Tanzania 13%, Ghana 15%, Thailand 28%, Nepal 12%, Jamaica 21%, Cambodia 12% and Sri Lanka 8%.

11. Development “Capitals": There is a similar trend in key Development Capitals. London is up 13% 12 months-on-12 months, New Delhi 8%, Washington DC 21%, Nairobi 73%, Addis Ababa 42% (again perhaps boosted by participant usage during the SBCC summit), Geneva 10%, Paris 26% and The Hague is up 21%.

12. Regions: This trend is also matched across regions: Eastern Africa (up 20% 12 months-on-12months); Northern Africa (up 69%); Central Asia (up 30%); Southrn Africa (up 11%); Northern Europe (up10%); and North America (up 8%) are just some examples of the many global regions with positive usage trends.

13. Downside to fix: Of course this begs the question that if overall usage is up 2.2% but we are seeing these very significant, positive increases in regions, countries and cities, then where are the negative trends? Sadly, the downside here reflects our inability to secure the levels of funding required for the Latin America process in Spanish. Here are some relevant stats year-on-year for the past 24 months: South America is down 12%; Central America is down 13%; and, Southern Europe is down 11%, dragged into that territory by Spain (down 20%) when all of the other 10 countries of that Google region (except Bosnia-Herzegovenia) are in very positive territory.

14. Action required: We are continually struggling to raise even a % of the funds required to help realize the potential of The Communication Initiative. More on that theme soon. But for now just a special request re Latin America. For all of the reasons we all know Latin America is vital to overall Development progress. This is particularly the case given its leading role in communication and media (for) development. If you have any opportunities or ideas to help with the Latin America focus of our work please do let me know.

Most happy to answer any questions or respond to any ideas – Warren