This document discusses tracking the impact and spread of information about the Texas drought through a "ripple effect" analysis. It identifies influential reporters who covered the drought, finding that Katie Galbraith of the Texas Tribune had the largest ripple through blog links and tweets. The analysis also shows local Texas reporters generally covered the drought more than national outlets. Charts display the ripples detected through blog links and tweets to original drought articles by each reporter.

1. RIPPLE EFFECT
TEXAS DROUGHT
10/18/11

2. OVERVIEW
The Ripple Effect
Challenge: Assessing campaign success requires more than media coverage analysis. Today, it
hinges on tracking the way influentials interact with and share campaign coverage. To understand
how content travels and morphs across the digital space over time, marketers must monitor this
campaign afterlife. Failing to do so can leave your brand vulnerable to shifts in influence and missed
opportunities.
Solution: Ripple Effect methodology identifies the influentials who fuel a campaign’s total impact. It
pinpoints tweets, links and posts and exposes where that content travels long after a campaign ends.
This knowledge helps brands confirm targets, sharpen messages and optimize communications
budgets.
Benefits:
 Offers a broader view of the impact of a campaign beyond traditional reach measures
 Portrays influence over time
 Confirms that the right influencers are being targeted
 Available in German and Chinese
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3. TEXAS DROUGHT RIPPLE EFFECT OVERVIEW
Texas has been in the midst of a drought for several months. To
explore the coverage of the drought, influentials were identified in
local and national media. This ripple looked at the last six months
of drought coverage.
The 11 reporters considered produced 119
original
stories generated 3479 comments and earned an
,
average tone of 2.97.
The subsequent ripple through social media included 112
links to the original posts from blogs and other online sources
and 3217 tweets pointing to the original articles .
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4. TEXAS DROUGHT RIPPLE OBSERVATIONS
The Texas Drought Ripple
Eleven reporters from Texas and the national press were chosen based on their coverage of the
drought over the past 6 months. Only one reporter from each publication was chosen.
Biggest Ripple: Katie Galbraith of the Texas Tribune had the biggest ripple for both blog links and
Twitter posts. Galbraith is a former New York Times reporter and several of her Tribune pieces were
reposted in the Times.
Most Articles: Kiah Collier, who writes for the San Angelo Standard-Times, is located right in the
heart of the Texas drought. She’s written numerous articles on the drought and its affects. Although
her stories did not make a big ripple through the blogosphere, her Twitter ripple is on par with that of
Wade Goodwyn from NPR.
Texas versus National News: Five of the reporters write for Texas papers, while four report for
national press and two report for the wires. In general, the national press featured fewer stories on
the Texas drought than the local Texas papers did. While Galbraith is an exception (with stories
published both locally and nationally), the next biggest Twitter ripple came from the Wall Street
Journal. Carey Gillam of Reuters also had a significant Twitter ripple.
In the blog ripple, there are few standouts at either level. Steve Campbell of the Fort Worth Star-
Telegram and Hilary Hylton of Time have similar ripples, although Campbell wrote more articles.
Farzad Mashhood: Mashhood is the environmental affairs reporter for the Austin American-
Statesman. He started reporting on the drought in June 2011, so his ripples do not represent a full six
months of drought coverage. Despite the late start, he has written 13 articles on the drought, placing
him in the middle of the pack of reporters. While his blog ripple is on the smaller side, his Twitter
ripple is the biggest of the Texas reporters after Galbraith.
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5. TEXAS DROUGHT RIPPLE EFFECT – BLOG LINKS
This chart highlights the number of posts from each outlet, the average tone of the post as it
relates to the drought in Texas and the number of blog links back to the original story.
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6. TEXAS DROUGHT RIPPLE EFFECT – TWITTER ACTIVITY
This chart highlights the number of tweets sent by other individuals which linked back to the
original stories.
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7. TEXAS DROUGHT RIPPLE EFFECT – INFLUENTIALS
Based on a review of coverage, these were the reporters who wrote multiple stories about the
drought in Texas between April 10 and October 10, 2011. Only one reporter per outlet was
included.
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