Outcomes of the conference on the role of official statistics in an evolving communication society Presentation by Martine Zaïda, Communications Manager Statistics and Data Directorate Evidence-informed Workshop (OECD, 9-10 April 2018)

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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

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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!

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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?

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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

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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

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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

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Thank you!
Martine Zaïda
Communications Manager
Statistics and Data Directorate
martine.zaida@oecd.org