Monica Selby
“When does an artist or a dancer ever perform with the curtain closed?” Alex Cruz asks.
Never!
So, why–he wants to know–are writers’ analytics and social sharing data controlled by the publications they write for? Or, if you’re a blogger, why is it so hard to keep track of things like Google Analytics?
Cruz and his team in St. Louis are solving that problem with PenPath.
PenPath is a comprehensive dashboard that tracks all the relevant data for a given piece of content, regardless of platform or medium. It works just as well for YouTube as it does for Medium.
Rather than needing passwords and code, writers can just paste the url of their article into PenPath and quickly see all their social shares, traffic, and other important data. The site tracks each article by the hour, but you can adjust the settings to see how your shares track over time. You can also see who is sharing the content and engage with them over social media.
Analytics, of course, is a big market, and everyone’s trying to figure out how to get more metrics. There’s already great tools out there like Google Analytics, Chartbeat, Muckrack, and more. PenPath is entering a crowded field, but they think they’re offering something unique that will be valuable to content creators.
And, as a former freelancer myself, I think they’re right. It’s possible to hack together all the different features PenPath offers, but it’s not easy. You have to span multiple platforms, websites, and spreadsheets. PenPath’s solution is simple, and it provides a way to watch the competition as well as yourself.
This week is a big week for the PenPath team. Yesterday they kicked off their crowdfunding campaign over at new software crowdfunding site Ramen. Only backers through Ramen will have first access to the platform, essentially creating a beta pool for the startup.
Cruz and team will also be exhibiting at the Collision Conference in Las Vegas this week, after having attended Everywhere Else Tennessee just last week. (And we thought we were busy!)
Check out PenPath over on their website, but if you want early access to the Platform, don’t forget to support them on Ramen.
