I don’t know about you, but for many years, to a seasoned old comms pro like me, data was the domain of the techies. IT stuff. It was numbers. It was spreadsheets. It was dull! Us comms folk, we’re creative you know. We work with words, and images and stories.

by Georgia Turner

Oh, er, hang on. The definition of data is actually “facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis”. Put another way, “things known or assumed as facts, making the basis of reasoning or calculation.”

acts. Reasoning. Reference. Statistics. That sounds promising. And useful. We deal in facts. We make persuasive cases based on a mixture of emotion and sound reason. We source evidence for reference to give credibility to our work. And we know the media always, without fail, love a good stat. Now I’m interested.

And then I met Alex Waddington. He’s a fab comms consultant with a background in the public sector and higher education who now specialises in helping comms colleagues find and utilise data to add value to their campaigns. To better understand their audiences. To map trends and identify historic behaviours. To spot patterns that relate to other patterns so they can better create content that will land in the desired way. To challenge and test received wisdom, reveal exciting new insights and generate ideas.

And he’s very, very good at it.

So good, in fact, that at Comms Unplugged last year (an off-grid conference for comms professionals held in Dorset), he managed to run a brilliant ‘dive in to data’ workshop that was entirely paper-based. Everyone who attended was hooked.

That’s why Darren Caveney and I have teamed up with Alex, through his company Whetstone Communications, to run a series of bite-sized workshops to help demystify data for public sector comms professionals. We (Alex!) will bring to life how to source different types of data, understand it and benefit from it in our everyday roles – whether that’s reviewing our social media engagement patterns, pulling out some killer figures to back up a media story, or understanding our audiences for campaign creative.

Data is knowledge, and information, and insight. It’s an essential tool in every comms professional’s toolkit. It informs key steps of campaign planning in models such as OASIS. But we know from industry research that many of us struggle to really embrace data - what to access and where, and then how to interpret and filter it.

We need to acknowledge that data skills are already being demanded by employers, and for future communicators data literacy will be a core competency. So ignoring data and the opportunities it presents is not an option.

Why not join our free workshops to boost your knowledge and confidence, and help join the shift from data-aagghh to data-aaaah! I’ll see you there!

Beyond the retweets. Trends and tips for translating data into tactics is a brand new, free online workshop – it takes place on 17 April 2023, 12noon – 1pm

It will be hosted by Whetstone Communications, comms2point0, and Georgia Turner Communications

In this session we will:

Examine the broader trends around Twitter and social media.
Hear from a digital manager working in local gov comms about their current challenges.
Look at how we can use social media data to test our theories on 'what is working'.

Key benefits:

Macro and micro-level perspectives on social media trends.
Practical advice on how to access and interpret the data about your own social media performance.

SIGN UP NOW HERE

Georgia Turner is a communications consultant. You can say hello on Twitter at @GeorgiaTurner

*Sign up for the comms2point0 eMag*

The comms2point0 eMag features exclusive new content, free give-aways, special offers, first dibs on new events and much, much more.

Sound good? Join over 3.2k other comms people who have subscribed. You can sign up to it right here

image credit