Outcomes of the conference on the role of official statistics in an evolving communication society
- 1. 1 Outcomes of the conference on the role of official statistics in an evolving communication society Presentation at the Joint OECD/JRC Workshop on Skills for Policymakers for Evidence-Informed Policy Making 10 April 2018 Martine Zaïda, Communications Manager Statistics and Data Directorate
- 2. With two main objectives: • Determine and address the challenges for official statistics to remain relevant. • Help National Statistical Offices (NSOs) and International Organisations dealing with statistics (IOSs) develop new communication strategies. Bringing National Statistical Offices and communication experts together
- 3. 3 Session 1: Who is our audience and how are they getting their facts? • Experiment, learn and adapt your products • Go where people are • Appeal to the heart and the mind • Have others amplify your message • Make your brand known and trusted • Hire new skills • Make data cool again!
- 4. 4 Session 2: Differentiating between fact and fiction: How is “alternative evidence” created and propagated? • Partnerships are key (e.g. fact-checkers, social media platforms, journalists) • Videos are very impactful for debunking fake news • Make it easier to link the facts to your official site • Rumours and corrections reach difference audiences • Make corrections, being aware that they can backfire • Or don’t be the corrector, be the trusted source?
- 5. 5 Session 3: Building stronger social media communities and reaching out to those who matter • Integrate your social media strategy in your overall communications strategy • Different social media channels fit different audiences and purposes • Adapt content to each platform • Build a successful community by listening, adding value, engaging and sharing insights • Share experiences among NSOs and IOSs • Train (some) statisticians to act as spokespeople
- 6. 6 Session 4: Humanising data to tell stories that speak to social media users • Expose the human element within a dataset • Provide succinct quality content that people can easily grasp • Your audience should understand after a single reading • Provide a narrative • Train authors to write in plain language • Be bilingual, speak technical and non-technical languages
- 7. 7 Session 5: What social media strategies for NSOs and IOSs Building communities and delivering the right information • Listen to the social media community • Build trust within communities • Reshape the story on social media to be seen as the trusted source of data • Identify who the target audience is and determine where and how they consume information
- 8. • Need to convey complex issues in less complex ways • Social media is only one part of an overall communications strategies • There is no single approach • Change the social media culture and become more outspoken • It is useful to bringing the statistical community together with the non-statistical community Overall key takeaways
- 9. 9 Thank you! Martine Zaïda Communications Manager Statistics and Data Directorate martine.zaida@oecd.org