Turn Information into Stories with Data Visualization
What is data visualization?
Why is it important for my business?
How can I use data visualization to market my business?
Gathering data is like a game of connect-the-dots. It involves taking small pieces of information and putting them together to create one big picture.
Once you’ve gathered data, you can use data visualization to identify trends and communicate complex ideas more quickly. In short, it’s a way of using data to tell a visual story.
But what happens when you need to tell a story that involves a lot of complex data? Sometimes traditional graphs and charts can be overwhelming and start looking like abstract paintings — this is where data visualization comes in.
Let’s look at an example: Sophie of “Sophie’s Spooky Strolls” wants to plan a new ghost-spotting tour. She starts by interviewing people and recording the location and type of every ghost spotted last year. How should she use this information to help outline the tour?
Data visualization seems pretty snazzy, but what’s so helpful about presenting the same information you already have in a different way?
It’s helpful because design, imagery, and storytelling make data accessible and easy to understand. (Fun fact: Our brains are trained to process images 60,000 times faster than they do text.)
Instead of relying solely on experts and analysts to explain information to you and your team, data visualization gets everyone engaged and allows them to ask questions, raise concerns, and offer their insights.
This not only empowers your team, but also lets you dig deeper into common insights. The more your team understands the data, the more confident they’ll be executing their part.
Data visualization is a great tool to help communicate information internally, but you can also use it to market your business by turning the data into shareable content.
The average attention span of a customer is 8 seconds (eyes here, please), so introducing new information can be challenging. Data visualization lets a customer stay engaged for longer by using interesting imagery and unique interactions.
By packaging new information in innovative ways and featuring it on blogs and social media, you can encourage more people to engage with your company. They might even share your post with friends if they find it interesting.
Let’s see how Lucidworks, a real life search solutions company, did outreach and created credibility among the developer community using data visualization.
Lucidworks partnered with data visualization agency Column Five to create an interactive U.S. map that would help software developers find a job.
One visualization showed the number and density of developers per state, while the other showed average salaries by region.
Using these maps, a developer could easily see where there were the best potential job opportunities.
Their goal was to create a lasting up-to-date map, so they asked users to contribute to the map. Soon enough, the crowdsourced map was shared throughout the developer community.
The map’s success helped Lucidworks build awareness of their brand as a leader in the software development community, attract talent for their own company, and bring in new customers.
The beautiful thing about data visualization is that it’s unique to the story you want to tell. That’s what also makes it challenging. So how do you actually create one?
First, figure out what you want to communicate. If you are gathering data to find out “why my business rocks so much,” you should rethink it. Data visualization isn’t about generalities, it’s about highlighting relationships to find trends.
The best way to use data is to treat the information like a detective examining clues: Where did the data come from? Were the variables used correctly? What were the results? What bigger trends might be affecting the results?
Know your audience. Just because your coworkers are jazzed about aluminum trends in the Asian market doesn’t mean your customers are. Tailor your data visualizations to match the interests of your target audience.
Think about the conversations you’re looking to spark, and how they can affect your brand’s positioning.
REMEMBER
The truth is in the data. If it’s not there, don’t adjust it just to fit your narrative.
Make sure the design and language match and are relatable to your audience, and that both are true to the data.
Good visualizations allow viewers to click on data points to do a deeper investigation and formulate their own questions.
If you don’t have the budget to hire an agency to create your own data visualizations, you can use a tool like Piktochart, which has online infographic templates.
DO THIS NOW
Now that you’ve seen what goes into creating good data visualizations, let’s find out if you’re ready to make a visualization of your own.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS
Data visualization explains complex ideas in an engaging way through imagery and storytelling.
Making information tangible means more people can engage with it and share their insights.
Shareable data visualizations can help market and gather interest in your business.