Local journalism is created for readers: people who want to know what has happened in their area, what decisions officials are making and what residents are talking about. For istotne.pl, the most important thing is precisely that readers come to the portal for information.
The number of social media followers is one indicator of a profile’s popularity. However, it does not answer the basic question: how many people actually visit a news service?
Nearly 841,000 visits per month
According to the ranking published on the bolecistotne.pl website, our portal recorded an average of 841,003 visits per month. The data point to high traffic and a leading position in terms of the number of visits in the comparison of local portals presented. The ranking also cites data used by WhitePress: an average of more than 233,000 unique users per month on istotne.pl.
Did the post flash across the screen? That still does not mean the article was read
Around 60,000 peoplefollow istotne.pl on Facebook. We value this community—its comments, reports and participation in discussions. However, platform statistics need to be properly understood. Facebook defines views as the number of times content is shown or played. This result does not mean that the viewer read the article, clicked the link or watched the entire video.
In practice, it is simple: you scroll through Facebook, a post containing news appears on the screen, and you swipe past it. The content was displayed, but you may not even have read the headline. You did not visit the portal either. A view in Facebook statistics and a visit to the editorial website therefore mean two different things. The same applies to reels. Simply playing a video does not show whether the viewer paid attention to it or watched to the end. Assessing interest in a video also requires information about viewing time.
We focus on readers and local topics
Our priority is developing istotne.pl as a place that residents visit for local news. We want visits to be driven by published information, interventions we undertake, reports from events and topics submitted by readers.
Facebook is one way of reaching audiences. However, full articles, details of the matters described and the publication archive are available on the portal. That is why traffic on istotne.pl is our primary reference point when assessing interest in our work.
Thank you to everyone who reads, comes back, sends us information and helps us take up important local issues. istotne.pl is created for you.