We’ve talked about good storytelling in past articles but what is data storytelling? Well, it’s just what it sounds like. It’s the usage of contextualized data collected by a business to craft a story that will be presented to your audience. They typically use infographics, visualizations, interactive maps, and articles. Just like any style of storytelling, data storytelling relies on engaging and informative narratives that can take very complex information and put it into laymen’s terms for the public. This is one of the benefits of data storytelling along with the ability to help brands understand their data and make good decisions going forward. Here are a few other reasons why data storytelling could be right for your business.
1. It’s scalable: Because of the no-code data platforms that exist now, there will be no need for developers. Platforms offer subscriptions that allow you to publish unlimited stories to scale.
2. Great performance: These tend to perform very well. CTR, social media metrics. You name it and the insights will be positive.
3. Good for branding: High-quality content is always good for a brand. Since data storytelling uses graphics that catch the user’s eye, it can keep engagement high. It will also clout your brand to be an expert in that particular field.
These are all good reasons to use data storytelling but how do go about creating one? If you’re like us, you still might be a little confused as to how this works so, here are some steps to take to create a good narrative with your data.
1. Determine what data matters: It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the insane amount of data that is available. Determine what you want to know and go from there. What topics about your business do you want to see insights on?
2. Find the story: Now that you have determined what data matters, it’s time to find that story. Here is where you determine what the numbers are telling you. Look for correlations between things that may be interesting and this is your starting point.
3. Analyze data: Now it’s time to find the meaning. Once you have found those correlations, dig into those relationships.
4. Know your audience: Who is going to be looking at this story? It’s important to know your audience but if you’re a brand that’s been successful, chances are you already do.
5. Visualizations: A lot of people are visual learners and this is a great way to help your audience understand the information that is being presented to them. Choose which visualizations your brand will use that best represents your data.
6. Provide context & structure: The audience needs to understand why they are being shown this data. Show the data in terms of why it matters for the brand with any info that the audience may not be aware of. As we talked about before, you must create a story with good structure, even with data. The story must flow naturally with a beginning, middle, and end. Make sure your points are clear and concise.
Think about the stories that your brand may want to share with its audience. How can your business data help you do this? Make sure that your topic is relevant to your brand and don’t skimp on those visuals. If you need some inspiration, here is a link to a great example of data storytelling on Brexit. With the insurgence of all the digital data we have at our fingertips today, not leveraging it would be a travesty.
