The Magic of Data: Best Cases for Data-driven Storytelling (Part 2)
Data-driven PR stories enjoy great popularity, especially in editorial offices for economics they are in great demand. However, the strategic use of data in communication is for many companies still new territory. Only one in five companies uses a strategic approach to data-driven decision-making, reports a study by Mention and Mynewsdesk (2019). The reasons are manifold: from missing data analysis competencies or lack of time to no accessible data.
Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash
To begin with let's answer the most basic question: How do you get relevant PR content from data? First of all, all data is cold: it is not emotionally charged and usually does not tell a story. The art is to identify relevant correlations in thousands of data sets, to link these correlations meaningfully to one's own brand and to tell an exciting story that offers added value for as many people as possible.
But how do I get the necessary data and where do I even start? PR professionals can use their own and publicly available data or even a mix of both. In our last blogpost about data PR, we talked about the collection, usage and preparation of data for PR. Today we want to present two practical examples to show how data is used for targeted communication in PR.
The single-city index of the dating app Tinder
Dating is a very personal topic but also a very exciting one. Many people would like to know in which city most of the singles live – or more likely, where to collect the most likes (Stuttgart). For this reason, Tinder decided to anonymously evaluate the data of the largest cities in Germany and list them in a ranking.
In addition, the data revealed more interesting insights from which they published the average age of the users (50 percent are between 18 and 24 years), the best time of the day to tinder (Mondays at 8 pm), the most frequent day of use (Valentine's Day), the most popular songs among users (In My Feelings by Drake) and the user’s favorite series (Game of Thrones). You can find more information on stuttgarter-zeitung.de
The public transport ranking from the consumer portal Testberichte.de
A topic that is almost as emotional as dating is the ticket prices for public transport in Germany's major cities. Because the independent consumer portal did not have any data to share, the individual websites of the providers such as BVG (Berlin) and MVG (Munich) were analyzed in order to collect the publicly accessible data. The following prices were examined for one-way tickets for adults, children, dogs and bicycles (weekdays 8 o'clock) as well as the subscription prices of monthly tickets for adults and students. Shortly before the prices were elevated at the end of the year, the ranking was published online with an interactive map, first, exclusively for Spiegel Online, and then later regionally in the 16 States of the Federal Republic. More information on spiegel.de.
Use data to your advantage
The two examples show that many exciting stories can be developed from facts. Not only do they increase brand awareness, but they also have a lasting effect on findability via Google, and thus, can lead to increased traffic. It is often most effective to visually prepare the findings from the data. Because visual messages are more attention-grabbing. In order to also increase the probability of a link/backlink, it is advisable to create a specific campaign site. Last but not least, and for all those who deal with data PR professionally, you can create your own programs with so-called APIs, i.e. interfaces, which automatically draw and structure relevant data.
Author: Dominik Kratzenberg
Dominik Kratzenberg is Communications Director at PIABO. He has been consulting (inter)national brands in the fields of consumer electronics, apps, e-commerce and consumer portals for more than five years. His passion for telling exciting stories from data arose during his work for and with Germany’s largest independent consumer portal, Testberichte.de, and through numerous inspiring discussions with data analysts at conferences such as Data Natives in Berlin.
