Tell the Story Behind The Numbers for Better Media Monitoring

Numbers are a great asset to any piece of communication because they lend validity to your claims. By their nature, numbers and data are straightforward. One is always one; two is always two. One plus two is always three. Right?

Well… that depends. As with the written or spoken word, data can be interpreted differently by different people. Without context, insight, proper analysis and/or deconstruction into what they mean, numbers or data that seem significant to one group of people may be completely insignificant to another—and vice versa.

So how can you ensure your data delivers meaning to your target audience? Here are three ways to properly analyze numerical data to tell your story your way.

Data isolation for your audience’s needs

You may have heard the phrase, “Numbers make things real.” And it’s true! Data can be a great asset to any communicator, because it lends validity to your claims.

On the other hand, it can be tempting to just throw handfuls of data at audiences to see what sticks. But in fact, this can be detrimental to your storytelling goal. To be successful, your audience needs to understand the story you are telling.

First, think about the audience—do they even care about this information? When using numbers to tell a story, practice the restraint of reporting what’s most impactful to your reader or listener. To help you decide what matters most to your audience, remember the acronym WIIFM: what’s in it for me. This will be different depending on the audience. If you're trying to convince a consumer or partner to buy your product or work with your organization, you'll need to tell a different story than one you'll tell to your C-suite to prove the value of your communications plan. 

Think about how you can report outcomes instead of outputs. It’s the difference between reporting a vanity metric—say, total impressions of a media placement—versus something a bit stickier, such as total comments on media story or visits to your website after a national TV segment.

Second, remember to play back your numbers in language your intended audience understands. Let’s say you’re presenting to a boardroom of C-suite level executives. This group—being so ingrained in the organization, its bottom line and its shareholder expectations—will likely want more hard-hitting, in-depth information. When presenting data to this group, use the language of business; tie back to objectives, KPIs, ROI, P&L, and other metrics that matter most to the bottom line.

Regardless of your audience, the data needs to be something they can understand and see why it matters to them. 

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Visualize whenever possible

The sheer amount of information collected during data analysis is astronomical. Therefore, it is important that people have a way to interpret the information they are given. When it comes to copious amounts of data or complex numbers, the written word is not always the best way to go. That is where data visualization comes in.

Providing information through data maps, graphs, or charts can make all the difference between an “aha!” moment and a blank stare. All these visual elements help the brain process information faster. Perhaps even more important, visualizations can help identify trends, patterns, and outliers that can be easy to miss when looking at an endless spreadsheet of numbers. By visualizing numbers or datasets, you not only make it easier for your story to be told, but you can also make your analysis more efficient and effective.

There are services like Nexis Newsdesk, which allows users to track and analyze media information in real time through a variety of graphs, charts, word clouds, and more. These visualizations can then be downloaded and used for storytelling purposes.

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Build the story around the data

Are you a data analyst or a data storyteller? Storytellers use numbers to tell the story they want to tell. Telling a data-driven story requires one to develop a narrative filled with context, nuance and purpose. After all, which would you rather read: another article that simply recycles the same factoids over and over, or one that explains why the data is what it is. Simply presenting data is not enough; storytellers know how to make numbers compelling.

Data rarely speaks for itself. To build an effective story, you need to contextualize the data and connect it to a larger narrative. Here are some tips for using data to tell compelling stories:

1. Identify the key insights: Don't just present tables of numbers - extract the most important findings and trends. What is the data revealing? Summarize the highlights.
2. Explain the significance: Put the data into context. Why does it matter? What are the real-world implications and impact? Help the audience understand why they should care.
3. Use examples and anecdotes: Bring the data to life with specific stories and examples. How is this playing out for real people or companies? Use case studies and quotes to humanize the story.
4. Structure as a narrative: Build your story around the data as you would any other story, with a beginning, middle, and end. Introduce the topic, build up the key data findings, and end by reinforcing the main takeaways.
5. Employ data visualization: Charts, graphs, maps and other visuals allow readers to quickly grasp data insights. But choose wisely - pick visualizations that highlight your main points.
6. Link it to decisions and actions: The ultimate purpose of data storytelling is to inform decisions and drive change. Conclude by spelling out the implications - what should people or organizations do differently as a result?

Effective data storytelling requires both art and science. You need solid, accurate data analysis, combined with the skills to translate numbers into an engaging, insightful narrative. By humanizing data and linking it to real-world impacts, you can turn simple statistics into stories that motivate and inspire action.

Tell a better story with better media monitoring

The power of data is to not only useful to report findings, but also to tell a story, generate an insight, and create a flashpoint for future action. That's why you need the best media monitoring tools.