How your audience is using digital media
How your audience is using digital media, learn to ask “What’s New?”, a novel way to create digital animations, and a job vacancy as an infographics designer
Key to communicating any content, is understanding your audience.
How many people you are talking to, where they live, what platforms and publications they engage with, and which social media products keep their attention. The better you can understand your audience, and how they behave, the better you’ll be able to reach them.
Which is why we’re drawing your attention to the Digital 2024 Global Overview Report, published by Simon Kemp at DataReportal in partnership with Meltwater and We Are Social.
The report outlines significant top-level insights into how audiences around the world are engaging with digital products, platforms and media, insights worth paying attention to.
According to the United Nations World Population Prospects, 8.08 billion people are now living on Earth. Of these, 5.61 billion use a mobile phone, up by 138 million (+2.5 percent) since early 2023. That’s almost 70 percent of the world’s total population.
More than 66 percent of all people on Earth use the internet, with global users totalling 5.35 billion. Internet users have grown 1.8 percent over the past year, up by 97 million new users since the start of 2023.
Active social media user identities have passed 5 billion, equivalent to 62.3 percent of the world’s population (if social media user identities represent unique individuals, which they do not). That’s an annual growth of 5.6 percent.
Moreover, in the report’s words, the “typical” social media user now spends 2 hours and 23 minutes per day using social media. The highest usage tends towards the Middle East, with people in Africa tending towards being the most infrequent users.
While the typical internet user now spends 6 hours and 40 minutes online each day.
The report is full of further insights, and we encourage you to review them, and develop your understanding of the most significant global trends in how audiences are today engaging digitally.
Learn to ask “What’s New?”
When you want to communicate the story of you or your organisation’s work, remember this advice about meet and greets:
When you greet someone, don’t ask “How are you?”
They’ll likely reply with no meaningful information. They’ll say “I’m OK”, tell a boring anecdote, or list ad hoc facts about their day.
Instead, ask “What’s new with you?”
This forces the person you’re communicating with to become self-critical. To seek out novel, meaningful information about themselves. To tell you something you don’t yet know. Which will be far more insightful and compelling to hear.
Now use this same technique when telling the story of your work.
Don’t ask yourself “How are we doing?”
Because then you’ll tell a story that summarises your position. You’ll list facts. And offer no new insights.
Ask yourself “What is new with us?”
And then tell that story to your audience.
For more, visit the Factual Storytelling School, where, for a single fee, you and your colleagues can enrol for more than 90 lessons.
A novel way to create digital animations
If you’re not aware, Lottie is a highly popular animation format, used to create customizable vector animations for use in motion graphics.
It can be a great way to incorporate complex factual animations, infographics and graphics into websites and mobile apps.
Their size and usability make Lottie files far easier to work with than GIF and SVG files. That helps developers incorporate motion graphics into their designs without increasing the time it takes web pages to load.
Lottie has now released a beta version of Lottie Creator. Usually, you’d create Lottie files using Adobe’s After Effects software or the design tool Figma.
But with Lottie Creator, you can now create Lottie animations directly via a web browser.
According to Lottie: “Lottie Creator is an easy way for experienced and beginner motion designers alike to create and ship high-quality, lightweight and powerful Lottie animations.” Read more here.
And for more information about different file types and when to use them, visit the The Factual Storytelling School, sign up and take our lesson Know your Files and Codecs.
Infographics designer job vacancy
There is an exciting opportunity to join the i newspaper in the UK.
The digital-first publication is looking to hire a talented Designer and Infographics Artist, “who is passionate about digital storytelling and converting complex data and narratives into visually appealing, interactive, and user-friendly graphic elements.”
Key responsibilities include:
Creating eye-catching digital infographics and stunning visuals to enhance the i’s coverage of news, sport and features.
Using statistics and data to bring stories to life, helping to enrich readers’ understanding of complex issues.
Contributing ideas to the production of visual journalism at i.
Collaborating with editorial colleagues to translate news stories and data into compelling graphic narratives.
Find out more here. The closing date is 29th February 2024.