{"id":100632,"date":"2017-03-01T14:55:04","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T14:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=100632"},"modified":"2017-03-01T15:19:49","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T15:19:49","slug":"is-vuelio-ranking-methodology-sexist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/is-vuelio-ranking-methodology-sexist\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Vuelio Ranking methodology sexist?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 18px;\"><strong>Earlier today we published our latest\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/social-media-index\/top-10-uk-pr-blogs\/\" target=\"_blank\">PR blog ranking<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 and immediately received criticism from some high-profile industry voices about the absence of women on our\u00a0list:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Thanks for the mention but where are the women such as <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AllthingsIC\">@AllthingsIC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Hallmeister\">@Hallmeister<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PRcareersUK\">@PRcareersUK<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IliyanaStareva\">@iliyanastareva<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LaurenOldPR\">@LaurenOldPR<\/a>? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UVxDKbpcOi\">https:\/\/t.co\/UVxDKbpcOi<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Stephen Waddington (@wadds) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wadds\/status\/836895464062582786\">March 1, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Followed by this:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wadds\">@wadds<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AllthingsIC\">@AllthingsIC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PRcareersUK\">@PRcareersUK<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IliyanaStareva\">@IliyanaStareva<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LaurenOldPR\">@LaurenOldPR<\/a> Ouch! Clear gender bias. Thx for calling out. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Vuelio\">@Vuelio<\/a> usually better than this<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sarah Hall (@Hallmeister) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Hallmeister\/status\/836896457764519936\">March 1, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Vuelio\">@Vuelio<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wadds\">@wadds<\/a> you might want to have a word with the people who designed that methodology, in that case. Oh, wait&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Paul Clarke (@paul_clarke) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/paul_clarke\/status\/836903883184222208\">March 1, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>First things first: if there\u2019s gender bias in this ranking, it\u2019s algorithmic.<\/p>\n<p>You can read all about the way we calculate our in rankings <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/how-does-vuelio-decide-its-top-10-blog-ranking\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, but in essence we\u2019re crunching a whole heap of offline\/digital\/social numbers that describe the various media channels used by the influencers in our database to arrive at one overall score for each individual. We\u2019ve been developing the algorithm since we started analysing influence over ten years ago, and we\u2019re confident of its integrity; indeed, that it is an accurate representation of \u201cobjective reality\u201d is crucial to its commercial value. Simplest said, any bias is bad for business.<\/p>\n<p>So if the algorithm isn\u2019t to blame, what about that \u201cobjective reality\u201d?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.prweek.com\/article\/1398181\/prca-census-2016-demographics-diversity-concerns-gender-imbalance#LmMgGXvrXjCIVg3v.99\">The PRCA\u2019s 2016 census\u00a0<\/a>shows that the industry has remained predominantly female with a 64% majority remaining almost entirely stable since 2011 \u2013 which makes the issues faced by women in the industry all the more remarkable. We\u2019ve repeatedly drawn attention to a number of these issues, from the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/women-in-pr-speak-out-against-the-gender-pay-gap\/\">gender pay gap<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/the-missing-women-of-pr-pr-bloggers-react\/\">women being forced out of the profession<\/a>\u00a0after starting a family.<\/p>\n<p>Is it possible that the top of our ranking is symptomatic of wider gender inequalities in the PR industry? Going beyond the Top 10, there is evidence to support this \u2013 eight of the blogs ranking in positions 11-20 have female authors.<\/p>\n<p>11. <a href=\"https:\/\/womeninpr.org.uk\/news-blog\" target=\"_blank\">WOMEN IN PR NEWS &amp; BLOG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>12. <a href=\"http:\/\/prcareers.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">PRcareers<\/a><\/p>\n<p>13. <a href=\"http:\/\/natashacourtenaysmith.com\/blog\" target=\"_blank\">Natasha Courtenay-Smith<\/a><\/p>\n<p>14. <a href=\"http:\/\/michaelwhite.online\" target=\"_blank\">michaelwhite.online<\/a><\/p>\n<p>15. <a href=\"http:\/\/danslee.wordpress.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Dan Slee Blog<\/a><\/p>\n<p>16. <a href=\"https:\/\/prprointraining.wordpress.com\" target=\"_blank\">PR Professional in Training<\/a><\/p>\n<p>17. <a href=\"http:\/\/nakedprgirl.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">NAKED PR GIRL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>18. <a href=\"http:\/\/b2bprblog.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">B2B PR Blog<\/a><\/p>\n<p>19. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.acupoflee.com\" target=\"_blank\">A Cup of Lee<\/a><\/p>\n<p>20. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stimsonsarah.com\" target=\"_blank\">SARAH STIMSON<\/a><\/p>\n<p>While we\u2019re committed to developing our analysis in order to make it a better (and more useful) indication of \u201cinfluence\u201d, we would be very cautious about the idea of introducing data points to reflect gender or other human characteristics. By any other name, these are quotas \u2013 but maybe that\u2019s what is required?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Vuelio\">@Vuelio<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wadds\">@wadds<\/a> be great if you helped give female bloggers a push so they can grow their readership and meet your criteria<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sarah Hall (@Hallmeister) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Hallmeister\/status\/836918536371056641\">March 1, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you think? Tweet us, or leave a comment below.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier today we published our latest PR blog ranking \u2013 and immediately received criticism from some high-profile industry voices about the absence of women on our list<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":100655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7272,4038,1449],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100632"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101651,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100632\/revisions\/101651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}