Meltwater BV

09/29/2021 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/28/2021 17:56

6 Metrics Journalists Need To Know For Data Storytelling

Journalists are always on the lookout for a good story. They are the modern-day storytellers, seeking factual information and relaying them to the public. The public counts on them to deliver the news on various aspects of our lives and the events that affect our decisions. The public consumes this information as part of our ongoing need for knowledge to facilitate our action moving forward.

Journalism is a profession that has been around since the advent of civilisations. Recounting stories like Homer, journalists have the ability to weave facts and firsthand experiences as well as balancing a narrative that informs the audience to make wise decisions. In the era of fake news and an audience that demands participatory experience, there is a greater impetus in storytelling to provide integrity with facts and data.

Table of Contents

The Art of Data Storytelling in a Social Media World

Every story needs facts. Facts need to be the crux of storytelling to maintain integrity and build trust with an audience. With the right facts, a journalist connects with their audience more saliently and readers will be more likely to turn to them for more information in the future.

To quote Greek philosopher Aristotle, a compelling narrative is one that is able to persuade the reader. This appeal will boost the credibility of the publisher as well as attract more readership. According to the philosopher (which is still relevant till this day) storytelling consists of three motivations - ethos, pathos and logos.

Journalists have honed their craft and message mostly on these three aspects. With ethos being the moral objectivity of their story while pathos is the emotional bond that the journalist builds in their storytelling. But for the purpose of this blog, we are going to focus on the third aspect of Aristotle's philosophy which is the factual background and statistical analysis or simply logos.

With social media being almost intrinsic in our daily lives, there is an infinite amount of stories and storytelling material available for journalists to tap into. From finding creative news beats to breaking news stories, there is always something for a journalist to write about and discover new angles. And this is where the appeal of logos comes in.

Journalists need statistical analysis and metrics that reflect the sentiments of the public on social media. Surveys and interviews are exceptional forms of qualitative data but the nature of newsjacking and breaking news cannot afford the time to carry out these forms of data analysis.

This is why journalists require the real-time power of social media data and analytics. Gathering information, getting a sense of public opinion and tracking the progress of a story are integral in journalism in this new world of viral videos, shock content and shorter attention spans.

6 Social Media Metrics For Journalists to Tell Stories

News organisations know the power of social media these days and understand the growing complexities of public opinion in the online space. Every organisation now has an online presence with corresponding social media presence - be it on Facebook, Twitter or TikTok. Editors and journalists are publishing their stories faster than ever before. At the same time, journalists are also multitasking to get on the latest event breaking at another location.

So how do journalists stay on top of their beats? What can they do to gain that extra edge in their storytelling to the audience? Journalists can optimise their strategies in storytelling by boosting it with social media metrics! These are the six metrics journalists can use to accentuate their stories with the logos appeal in storytelling.

Engagement Rate

Journalists are naturally inquisitive people. They always seek to understand their audience and how they are interacting with their stories. Before the advent of social media, news teams did not have a direct way of studying how their content is performing. However, audiences these days require a participatory experience with online content. Through social media, this is possible and news teams can gauge through its engagement rate.

Instead of just focusing on the vanity statistics such as likes and shares, journalists can learn more from the engagement rate of their stories. Journalists can find interesting topics while analysing social media posts with the highest engagement rates. Engagement rate highlights the interactivity between the journalist's stories and their audience while at the same time, provides the news teams with valuable opinions from the audience they are engaging with.

By using a social media analytics tool, journalists can quickly get a broad overview of public sentiment on a particular topic and identify the factors affecting public opinion. Through deep dives into the data in social media, stories can be richer with dynamic insights drawn from social media.

Keyword Clouds for Beats

News beats are integral for editorial teams. Journalists are assigned to different news beats to cover a topic of interest or expertise. Within an assigned beat, there are several topics to cover and journalists would love to have extra help in finding key news stories or angles to write about. Keyword clouds are extremely handy in finding what the audience are discussing and designing a story to address it.

Take for example a journalist who is assigned to cover news stories about transportation. There is a wide scope of topics to be covered! From private hire vehicles to road taxation hikes to a public transport mishap, a journalist can react faster to emerging trends and emergencies. With a keyword cloud, the most discussed topics as well as buzzwords found in social media may give an extra boost to journalists in addressing topics which are closely related to what the audience is thinking about.

Keyword clouds can also identify the top entities that are associated with a specific topic or event. To follow on the topic above, if there was a specific event such as a public transport mishap, the social media data can uncover the various entities which are mentioned the most. In this case, the officials who have made an announcement or the most vocal critic commenting on the catastrophe.

Influencers

It is undeniable that social influencers are taking over the consciousness of the communities that we live in. The younger generations of Zs and Millennials are living in the hyperconscious state of social media and influencers play an imperative role in deciding what is particularly interesting to talk about.

In this social media landscape, journalists are increasingly becoming influencers themselves too. Using platforms like Twitter, they can reach a wider audience and raise awareness on an issue as much as other influencers online. For every topic out there, there are particular influencers who populate that space and their opinions are highly sought after by their followers. For example, a sports writer will definitely benefit from gathering insights from sports personalities on social media. These high-profile influencers receive massive engagement rates with their followers and writers can get a new angle from this highly-opinionated pool of commenters.

Knowing what makes these influencers tick and the topics that their audiences are listening to may help journalists refine their stories while at the same time, locate the subject matter experts in the field they are covering. Finding these influencers and analysing their content can raise awareness on the various issues at hand. Meanwhile, they can also analyse their own profiles to see the key demographics of their audience based on the social media data.

Demographics

Audience demographics are vital to news outlets. With print publications suffering from a decline of readership and more investments being pumped into developing their online presence, news outlets need to quickly grasp the demographics of their readership to fully understand their audience.

Based on the social media data of their content, news teams can learn which demographics are tuning in and interacting with their articles. More and more readers are switching to social media to receive their news alerts as well as scouring for more information on a certain topic than ever before.

For example, a quick search on our platform revealed that almost 77% of the gaming audience in the Philippines were male. This insight is based on the social media data of the gaming industry in the country. However, a scan of the influencer landscape showed that a predominantly female lineup led the social media conversations. Using a combination of these insights, journalists can reach out to specific audiences to gather information and write a more compelling narrative for their stories.

Furthermore, a study on the Australian media landscape also showed that Australians are consuming news primarily online or through watching television while print has been declining in the past five years. With such high readership online, gaining access to audience demographics such as socioeconomic status, online habits, and personality profiles, is another tool in the journalist's arsenal in developing stories which are more relevant to their focus groups.

A breaking story is always a boon for journalists. With the help of Twitter and the analytics within the social media platform, journalists can report almost instantaneously on an event. Using the various metrics above such as volume trends, engagement rate and keyword clouds, journalists can extrapolate a range of information which reflect the conversational beat of their audience online.

For example, when there was an earthquake in the state of Victoria, Australia, many turned to social media to express their concern. Tweets of wreckage in the Melbourne metropolitan area suddenly became the hot topic of the day even before news outlets could start reporting them. In this instance, like many other events in our lives, social media has become part of what a news report entails. Undoubtedly, part of a journalist's scope should include following a news lead by getting on social media and finding out what is trending.

Social Echo

The Social Echo metric highlights the impact of news content on social channels based on the total number of interactions such as shares, reactions, and comments. Social Echo also highlights to news outlets the type of content that is most shared on social media. News teams can more tangibly identify the content with the best audience engagement via social channels. On an operational level, news editors can also use this helpful indicator to focus on stories and trends which have intrinsic value based on the rate of engagement with the audience and readers.

For example, in the week between 20-26 September, Singapore's main broadsheet The Straits Times published an article about Panasonic's retrenchment of its workers. This article was the news outlet's most shared story with more than 10,300 interactions across social channels. This article resonated with Singapore readers as it highlighted the plight of the workers as well as the jobs market. Using this insight, the editorial team can further analyse the way their audience consume their content as well as hone their strategies moving forward.

The Context of Social Media in Journalism

Social media is part of news now. Every other article nowadays will reference social media as a source of news while usually highlighting the vanity metrics of likes and shares. To gain a deeper contextual understanding of what people are talking about in relation to the news beats, journalists need to quickly analyse and evaluate the currency of these trending topics.

With social media data easily available on various platforms, editorial teams can gain interesting insights into the minds of the audience they are writing to. Being contextually synchronised with the audience will deliver better articles which are attuned to the reader. With social analytics, influencer reporting and audience demographics, journalists and editors can make better informed decisions in finding the niche beats which garner more readership numbers.

In a sphere of untethered public opinions, journalists need tools which can help pull in all these insights from various channels on social media. With the threat of fake news and misinformation, news outlets need the veracity of their information as well as the integrity of fact-checking procedures. In the realm of political reportage, journalists have near impossible deadlines to meet when a scandal breaks on social media.

With these social media metrics (and many more others), journalists can add that extra layer of logos in their stories and breaking news. If you ever wondered how you can make your article more impactful with data journalism and insights, do fill the form below and Meltwater can help you gain that extra edge in delivering audience-centric articles.