Contents (tl;dr)

4. Use numbers

While photos and videos help your message stand out, numbers ground your message and make it more relatable.

Numbers make things more real

Take this post of BHP announcing the renewal of a partnership:

BHP Olympic Dam today announced the renewal of its partnership with the Royal Flying Doctor Service Central Operations (serving SA/NT).
BHP’s contribution will help the RFDS to provide its life-saving service to South Australian communities, many of which are in rural and remote areas.

That’s a nice message, but it’s only when they mention a number does the scope of their partnership become more real:

BHP Olympic Dam today announced the renewal of its partnership with the Royal Flying Doctor Service Central Operations (serving SA/NT), worth $300,000 over the next three years.
BHP’s contribution will help the RFDS to provide its life-saving service to South Australian communities, many of which are in rural and remote areas.

Use numbers whenever you can (assuming it’s relevant, of course). Your message will have more weight when you do.

Also, don’t be afraid to use exact numbers. Sometimes being specific with your numbers works better than rounding up or down.

Don’t overwhelm people with numbers, though. Pick your most relevant and most powerful couple of numbers and talk about those.

Numbers help contextualise things

Numbers also help contextualise things. Take this post from my workplace.

We’re extending our incident response motorcycle trial in Qld. Since the trial started on the Gateway and Logan motorways 6 months ago, the team have responded to more than 150 incidents #RoadSafetyWeek #GRSW

Now that’s a good message, and the 150 incidents is a nice number. But adding more numbers –importantly, adding numbers that people understand and can relate to – helps tell the story much better.

We’re extending our incident response motorcycle trial in Qld. Since the trial started on the Gateway and Logan motorways 6 months ago, the team have responded to more than 150 incidents, arriving 2 mins sooner and clearing the incident around 8 mins faster #RoadSafetyWeek #GRSW

I probably have no idea if 150 incidents in six months is low, average, or high, but I do understand what it means for help to arrive two minutes sooner and for traffic blockages to be cleared eight minutes quicker. The new numbers are more relatable, and they help add more context to the story.

Use numbers: recap

Let’s recap how you can use numbers in your stories:

Numbers make things more real: they help explain the scope and scale of your story
Numbers help contextualise things: relatable numbers make your message easier to understand
So, wherever it makes sense, try to add numbers to your story.

Next in the series

On to ‘Share emotion’…