If you’re working in communications, the primary aim is all the time to get to the center of the story. To that finish, having supporting numbers that assist you to illustrate the purpose you’re attempting to make will all the time end in a fuller, extra vivid image.
Michael Kaye, World Head of Communications at OkCupid, is aware of that even communicators who primarily work in phrases can use knowledge strategically to create a fuller story and discover new tales inside the sea of numbers and responses. Forward of Ragan’s Way forward for Communications Convention this November, Kaye shared a few of his ideas on knowledge in storytelling.
“For me, communications is simply as a lot about technique as it’s about execution,” Kaye mentioned. “I like taking a hands-on method. That features how I take into consideration knowledge in relation to telling the OkCupid story.”
Constructing a relationship together with your knowledge staff
Kaye relayed an anecdote about when he joined OkCupid in 2019. One of many first issues he did upon becoming a member of the comms staff of the worldwide courting platform was sit down with the information and analytics staff and learn the way they work.
“After entering into the numbers with our knowledge staff, I spent months studying concerning the knowledge and the way it could possibly be analyzed and used,” mentioned Kaye. “Now, I’m the one utilizing that very same knowledge each day to assist our advertising and communications efforts. In right this moment’s world, there’s no workaround or excuse to not use the information we’re offered. We have to make time for the information.”
Rethinking what you think about knowledge in your storytelling
Michael Kaye, World Head of Communications, OkCupid
Kaye urges communicators to keep in mind that can are available in all varieties, not simply an never-ending sea of confounding numbers. OkCupid obtains a lot of its knowledge comes within the type of worded solutions. When somebody joins the platform, they reply a collection of questions that matches them with potential dates based mostly on the compatibility of the solutions. Inside these solutions, Kaye finds his tales and determines how greatest to inform them.
“We’re the one courting app on the planet that connects folks on in-app questions, so to start out, that makes the information set I’m working with distinctive,” he defined. These can vary from questions on courting and relationships but additionally span throughout cultural, political, and different top-of-mind points which can be vital to Gen Z and Millennial customers. The responses to those questions are the inspiration behind the tales I pitch and inform.” Kaye mentioned.
When he dives into these solutions, Kaye kinds by way of them by age, demographic, location, sexual orientation, and a variety of different components. On this approach, he’s capable of decide behavioral patterns, cultural shifts, and different adjustments to the courting panorama that may be informed by way of a data-based perspective.
This technique ensured that over 70% of OkCupid’s earned media protection within the U.S. included knowledge factors from in-app questions.
“Knowledge storytelling is how I handle to assist OkCupid break by way of a very crowded market,” mentioned Kaye. I think about us a real case research on how we will use knowledge successfully, regardless of the way it manifests itself,” Kaye mentioned.
Deploy knowledge to extend the worth of your comms
For communicators, knowledge can be a worthwhile asset to shaping, honing and talking about how our methods drive and spotlight measurable, constructive enterprise outcomes.
“Throughout the peak of the pandemic, I used an out of doors supply to indicate how I managed to develop our energy and share of voice by way of knowledge storytelling,” mentioned Kaye. “We then cross-referenced our vital press moments to see if there was a correlation with new downloads of the app. Sure, knowledge is what we’re utilizing to encourage our communications and content material, however we’re additionally utilizing knowledge to show how impactful our methods are on the well being of the enterprise to our senior management.”
Whereas knowledge can are available in all completely different varieties, Kaye’s incorporation of knowledge throughout all points of his communications technique is a reminder that there’s all the time a narrative inside the knowledge, whether or not exterior or inside. It’s our job as communications professionals to inform it.
Catch Michael Kaye talking about the way forward for knowledge and evaluation throughout his panel at Ragan’s Way forward for Communications Convention on 11/2 in New York Metropolis. Register right this moment!
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