ComMetrics Resonance Score

The ComMetrics Resonance Score (you are here) is a comment-analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to the type of resonanceyour blog posts generate to obtain the score ranging from 0 (worst) through 1 (best). In this context, resonance describes the level of being able to evoke an echo, response, reaction or freedback from the readers of one’s blog.

The ComMetrics Resonance Score  is part of what makes up the ComMetrics Footprint (see also ComMetrics Headline Score,  ComMetrics Mnemonic Score, ComMetrics Ripple Score, ComMetrics InfLink Score and the ComMetrics TriageHazard Score).  

The numbers we get below are then added with the following weights: Sum[(A x .25) +  ( B x .25) + (C x .50)]/3 = ComMetrics Resonance  Score which we can then use to rank your blog compared to others.

A – Conversation Score

Avinash Kaushik wrote Blog Metrics: Six Recommendations For Measuring Your Success where he suggested as one of the six measures the following:

Comment Ratio = Number of Comments from visitors / # of Posts during period (e.g., 4 months)

Here visitor comments exclude the author’s replies. The above can be refined putting visitor comments in relationship to author replies. Reason being that commenters want replies and a conversation does not happen if nobody seems to be listening and replying or at least acknowleding your thoughts. Hence, we use:

 Conversation Ratio = SUM [(Number of Author Replies / Number of Comments from Visitors) for each blog post (i.e. during 4 month period)]/ # of Posts during period

Here we hope to get a ratio of upwards to one.  In practice this means that the author tries to reply to each comment left by a visitor. Of course this is not always needed nor feasible. Generally, 1 is the top score here (i.e. author replies to each commenter’s entry).

Example: 12 replies by author and 13 visitor comments x 100  = Conversation Ratio 0.923

B – Engagement  Score

This measures how people tend to reply and comment about blog posts during the period assessed (4 months).

Comment Engagement Score  = SUM [Number of words in all comments / # of words blogged]

All else considered held constant, many comments should result in a higher score since those add up to many words. One would hope that the score is 1 or higher. Of course, longer blog posts tend to have fewer comments simply because it takes more effort including time to add a substantive comment to a blog post of high quality.

Example:  5950 words  in comments (visitors and author’s) divided by  6600 words blogged by author (all posts included from this period)  = Comment Engagement Score = 0.915

C –  Depth  Score

Here the focus is on depth. If an idea resonates with me I will put in some effort to write a comment.  For instance, disagreeing with a blog post also requires one to fine-tune one’s argument and spend 15 to 30 minutes to formulate a well crafted reply. In short, writing a thoughtful and useful abstract of 100 words is tougher than just saying: “thanks I agree, great post.”

Sometimes there might be hundreds of comments from readers for a blog post. Unfortunately, they mean nothing as most of them are one or two words with a link back to the commentator’s blog.

The above type of comments mean little if anything in terms of influence. They are a simple reflection of a blog’s amount of traffic. However, if we look at the comments on some blogs, the can be mini essays. Accordingly, this mini-essays though fewer in number, are worth far more.

Depth Score  = SUM [# of words in average comment / # of words in average blog post]

Example:  227 words in the average blog comment / 1207 words in an average blog post gives us a  Depth Score of 0.188 - Having a one would probably indicate that the blog posts are very short. More likely it is to get a ratio of between .10 to .25

How do we calculate the final score

In short, the numbers we get above are then used in the following way: Sum[(A x .25) +  ( B x .25) + (C x .50)]/3 = Resonance  Score that ranges from 0 to above 1. This score can then be used to rank your blog compared to the others (1 through 100 for the best).

The z-scores for the above indicators are added up to get an overall z-score.  This information is calculated into an overall score. Click here to find out how we process the raw data.

The actual ComMetrics Resonance number is used in the ComMetrics algorithm to help determine the ComMetrics Footprint of the blog, website or other social media effort being benchmarked.

At this point, the overall scores are compared and rescaled using 100 as the top score.