A few weeks ago, my Communiqué colleague AnnMarie wrote an excellent blog post about leveraging data in storytelling. The post was inspired by the New York Times and the work its journalists are doing tracking and analyzing the data related to COVID-19, and it contains some terrific reminders for PR professionals as well.
Following up on this topic, I came across another Times article about using data in storytelling that I found to be helpful. Appearing in the Tech We’re Using section, it’s titled, “In Data Journalism, Tech Matters Less Than the People.”
I found this article to be helpful and a great companion to AnnMarie’s piece for its reminders about the importance of combining the stories of people – as individuals – with the data or its insights.
Ben Casselman, an economics reporter for the Times, explains the data might provide you with insight about trends, but talking with an individual will be of more help. He cited an example from 2018 when he was working on a story about investors purchasing single-family homes and was using data from millions and millions of real estate transactions. The data was evidence of the trend, but the story behind the trend was better illustrated by focusing on one home and talking with people, in this case, the investor who fixed it up, the family who eventually bought it, and others who unsuccessfully bid on it.
Given this insight, I think the primary lesson for marketers and communicators is as follows:
- Compile the data set and analyze it, or find someone who can help you analyze it. If you’ve got basic math skills but are not an expert in statistics or adept in statistical programming, find someone to assist you. In the past, when we’ve needed help this this type of work, we reached out to Creative Circle, a talent hiring firm, and they helped us find a freelance data scientist.
- Develop graphs and charts to help you spot the key trends. These can be done initially in Excel, and then later, if you decide you need images to accompany your story, you may want to have a graphic artist illustrate them and make them attractive and easy to digest for readers.
- Identify a specific example that you can highlight to better tell your story. And as you think about the story, don’t forget about the narrative arc. Your story should have a beginning, rising action, a climax, falling action and resolution.
If you consider the above example of investors snapping up single-family homes, it’s easy to imagine what that arc might look like:
- The beginning might be the investor coming across an ideal single family home to buy.
- His or her work to fix it up would be rising action. During this stage of the story, there might be conflict. For instance, contractors might not show up, or costs for flipping it might be more than anticipated.
- The climax would be the completion of the home and putting it up for sale.
- Falling action would be the sale of the home.
- Resolution would be the new family moving into it and the investor making (or losing) money on the deal.
The next time you’re looking to leverage data in telling your client’s story, think like the New York Times data journalists and remember, as Ben Casselman says, “At the end of the day, data isn’t the story; people are the story.”
For more on Ben Casselman and the technology he uses, check out: In Data Journalism, Tech Matters Less Than the People