While Chartbeat’s dashboards and app help your team stay informed on real-time reader engagement, it may not give you a full visualization of the fruits of their labor. That’s where the Big Board, a data visualization (optimized for screens of all sizes), comes into play. The customizable display can provide a broader snapshot of your audience to a segmented view of the channels that matter to you most.
While working remotely has its difficulties, recreating the Big Board and its benefits should not be one of them. As a matter of fact, add the Big Board to your list of remote work hacks — all you need is a desktop, iPad, or even television screen — just as long as you can login with your Chartbeat account.
If you’re not familiar with the Big Board, check out our short video below and learn more about how it can help your remote team quickly identify and answer critical questions about your site’s performance.
*If you’re ready to have your own Big Board screen up and running right now, login to your account and start customizing.
What critical questions can the Big Board help me quickly answer?
Organizations tell us that they use the Big Board to give their teams answers to important day-to-day questions, such as:
1. “What is the most engaging content on our site right now?”
2. “What traffic sources are driving the most visitors to our site?”
3. “Why are that many people really reading about this particular topic?”
Sure, you can customize your Big Board data visualization for the audience that’s most important to you, but the real-time data you’ll communicate stays the same. For instance, you can show any combination of metrics such as:
1. Engaged Time
3. Authors
4. Sections
6. Visitor types
How do I use Big Board data to inform optimizations?
Here’s a few instances where the Big Board can result in quick, timely adjustments:
1. You look up to see a piece is getting a fair amount of clicks, but has low Engaged Time. That could signal a need for in-page optimizations. Confirm your suspicions by launching your Heads Up Display just to be sure.
2. You see an older article trending on your Big Board. Why are readers suddenly interested in this story? Dive into the traffic sources on your Real-time Dashboard, and consider re-promoting the story on your channels.
3. Filter your Big Board on Loyal Visitors. You see that an article is receiving higher-than-normal levels of engagement from your loyal readers and subscribers. That could signal an opportunity to review and consider whether that content is right for your paywall optimization model.
What can my Big Board look like?
Many of our partners have Big Board screens front and center for their entire site and set up more customized Big Boards around the newsroom for each specialized team. These days, your remote workplace gives you some freedom in how you’d like your data within reach.
Below, some ways to customize your Big Board settings and preferences.
How do I customize my own Big Board?
Ready to customize and display your own work-from-anywhere Big Board? Here’s how to get started. Also, if you’d like to get your Big Board up and running on a SmartTV display, you may need this helpful tip.
Once you’ve gotten it to your specifications, show off your personal Big Board to us on Twitter @Chartbeat with the #BigBoard hashtag.
Want to take Chartbeat data from your work setup to the road? Download our mobile app for iOS and Android.