ShareThis helps publishers figure out their social weaknesses

If you’re a publisher looking to reach as many consumers as possible, web sharing platform ShareThis may have just the answer. The company, which has made a name for itself by making it easy for readers to share online content to practically any social network,  is launching two new tools today: the Social Quality Index (SQI) Analytics Dashboard and SQI Lookup.

Released last year, SQI gave publishers the ability to measure social activity across the Internet. The company’s new tools will let advertisers and publishers figure out where their social weaknesses are, as well as what content is effective and how to gain more user interaction.

Utilizing 27 content categories, including travel, clothing, finance, fitness and others, the SQI Analytics Dashboard shows publishers a monthly social score of their content categories matched up against 1.4 million other sites with more than 15 billion monthly users. Although the patent is still pending, their proprietary algorithm derives raw social traffic scores by evaluating page views, user engagement, inbound clickback traffic and outbound shares.

The tools will allow publishers to better scope out the competition. Publishers can use SQI Lookup to search scores of other publishers within the ShareThis Publisher Network. Any company will be able to see how their social categories compare to others, which should help them make better business decisions.

“Before SQI, online publishers had no standardized way to measure or leverage the value of social activity taking place on their sites,” said Kurt Abrahamson, CEO of ShareThis, in a statement today. “As publishers look for new ways to monetize, SQI gives them the benchmark they need to optimize their content, better engage their readers, attract new advertisers and take advantage of untapped revenue opportunities.”

Photo via nan palmero/Flickr