After my talk at #linklove on Friday I was asked (paraphrasing) “what sites I use to source data for infographics” … whether it was the roar of the grease paint or the smell of the crowd.. my answer SUCKED like a … (censored end of joke). So, for the lovely fluffy kitten person who asked that question.. I have written you this post, because I love you dearly… aaaaand it stops you making frigging awful badly researched infographics that litter-up pinterest in future and make me mash my forehead into my keyboard in frustration.

linklove 2013

OK.. so I have put a few of the sources I have used in the past below and shuffled them into categories.. feel free to add you own to make this a nice little resource for peeps… and I shall give you a sneaky twitter bum squeeze as a thank you.

Infographic Data Links

Cars & autos

This goes without saying… data on cars, motorbikes and so on. You can of course mix this with environmental stuff, celebrity and tech.

http://www.imcdb.org/

http://oica.net/category/production-statistics/

http://www.reportlinker.com/ci02294/Automotive.html

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2013/02/2013-car-brand-perception-survey/index.htm

Movies

Remember who your target audience is and stick with it, also don’t just target film buffs… mix in others like –  car fans – horror fans – pet lovers etc. Just because it is about a celebrity or a new movie does not mean 1) that is has not been done before and 2) that you will not have to promote it.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/

http://www.imdb.com/stats

http://www.the-numbers.com/

http://www.uis.unesco.org/FactSheets/Documents/FS16-2011-Literacy-EN.pdf

http://www.celeb-height-weight.psyphil.com/celebrities-height-and-weight-chart-%E2%80%93-celebrity-stats/

 

Education

These are long lasting if you do it well. Make sure your data is correct and that if you are doing something that has been done before that you are adding to it. Do not rehash the same old stuff just because it did well once, unless of course you have been promised that you can get it on a top site like huffington post or a few edu sites.

http://www.education.gov.uk/researchandstatistics

http://collegestats.org/colleges/new-york

 

Money & Jobs

This can be as controversial or just plain helpful as you want it to be. But make sure you know which you are going for, if it is controversial then some blogs will not touch it, unless they have a back bone.

http://www.payscale.com/

http://www.indeed.com/salary/Data-Analyst.html

http://www.salary.com/

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9224243/IT_Salary_Survey_2012

http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2011/women/

http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2013/productivity/

 

Fashion

Every blog and his dog will post on fashion from films and celebrities so speak to the likes of Vogue, Chicago Tribune,  Esquire, Washingtonpost and Daily Mail etc.

http://thesuitsofjamesbond.com/

http://www.britishfashioncouncil.com/news_list.aspx?RegionID=&q=figures

http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/fashion/

 

World data

This is more like a general graphic and could work for employment, travel and law clients. Loads of global data here and can work for disaster reporting also.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/41000.html

http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-featured-story-archive/snapshot-of-global-youth-challenges.html

http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime

http://esa.un.org/wpp/unpp/panel_population.htm

http://www.geohive.com/earth/world.aspx

http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/contnent.htm

http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/human-conditions.php#2

http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/sandy/

http://www.popes-and-papacy.com/statsarchive.htm

 

Sex

Because lets face it, people like to read about it.

http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/resources/FAQ.html

http://marriage.about.com/cs/sexualstatistics/a/sexstatistics.htm

http://www.guttmacher.org/index.html

 

Health

This can be approached in much the same way as education and money, good data that will be used as a resource.

 

http://www.who.int/gho/tb/epidemic/cases_deaths/en/index.html

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/en/index.html

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Statistics/StatisticalWorkAreas/Statisticalpublichealth/index.htm

http://datatopics.worldbank.org/hnp/

 

Geographical / Travel

This can be both accurate and silly as far as data is concerned. So top 50 places where you are likely to get eaten by small animals… for example.

http://www.visitengland.org/insight-statistics/

http://www.nycgo.com/articles/nyc-statistics-page

http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/stats-and-the-city/tourism

 

Sport

I am useless at sport and TBH put these in as i know guys like sport and well.. guys like sport.

http://www.nfl.com/stats/statslab

http://www.sportstats.com/

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/clubs/profile.statistics.html/man-utd

http://bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html

http://www.stats.com/pdfs/NFL_ITN_QB_Rating.pdf

Food

OK everyone love food, tell them whats good, whats bad.. what they should eat and what they should limit. The weirdest foods on the planet and the most popular this has so much scope.

http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/

http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/foodfarm/food/pocketstats/

http://kids.fao.org/glipha/

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74192/icode/

http://england.lovefoodhatewaste.com/content/naked-truth-about-how-packaging-can-help-you-waste-less-food

http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/annual-report-of-incidents.pdf

Products & Retail

This is the one to look to when you are looking to WIN XMAS and other celebrations / holidays etc. BUT do not just use data that everyone else has done (i am guilty of it also) and make it extra hard for your to stand out from the crowd.

http://www.statista.com/

https://signin.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SignIn&runame=terapeak-ebay-marketplace-research

http://www.census.gov/retail/

 

Brand stats (clients)

Talk to your clients, ask them to give you their data. Sales data, who buys what and when… where they live and what age they are etc etc. Its unique data, no one else has it and if you leave it too long the PR dept will get it and turn it into some crap chuff.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/aboutebay/thecompany/companyoverview.html

facebook brands – http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-pages/brands/

 

Tech

This should be easy as we all work in it, do not however aim your audience specifically just at tech… other areas are out there – education/tech, travel/tech and family/tech.

http://gs.statcounter.com/

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

http://www.statisticbrain.com/computer-sales-statistics/

 

All data

And here is more that I will be adding too over the coming months, this is a bit of a free for all but they are work checking out. DO NOT FORGET that you can run your own polls, run one on Facebook, use http://twtpoll.com/ and my favorite Money Saving Expert polls. Get your clients to run a poll via their emailers, make sure that you are trying to get the data that NO ONE ELSE HAS. Be the change you want NOW!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.grabstats.com/

http://www.factbrowser.com/

http://www.shmoop.com/american-revolution/statistics.html

http://www.reportlinker.com/ PAID

http://www.ranker.com/

http://www.worldometers.info/

http://www.thedataoctopus.co.uk (link removed as Requested by Google)

 

This is an ongoing list as these will change, some will shut down and I would love for you guys to add your own links to sources in comments

Cheers folks

Claire