Learning Outcomes
Gain insight into area charts within the context of TRAC.
Learn about the valuable insights that can be obtained from area charts.
What is an Area Chart?
An area chart is a type of chart that combines elements of both line and bar charts to display the progression of one or more categories' numeric values over time. One of the key features of an area chart is the shading that appears between the lines and the baseline of the chart, which can help to highlight the degree of change or variation in the data.
Compared to a line chart, which simply shows a line connecting data points, an area chart offers a more detailed and nuanced view of the data by emphasising the magnitude of change over time. Additionally, the shaded areas in an area chart can be particularly useful for visualising the difference between two or more data-points. An example of this is "Sentiment Over Time" which combines three data-points: positive, negative and neutral sentiment.
You can find Area Charts within the following pages on TRAC:
There are a few essentials that you need to bear in mind when reading an area chart on TRAC
Area charts examine online conversations you are analysing over time. This makes them incredibly useful for identifying peaks and troughs within online discussions.
There are four different options of metrics that you can analyse using area charts: Volume, Social Impressions, Visibility and AVE.
The size of the area represents the magnitude of the category within the metric being measured.
💡 Top Tip: In the chart above, we are assessing the volume of conversation based on emotions. From examining the chart, it's clear that joyful mentions dominate the conversation being analysed, closely followed by sadness.
Within area charts such as "Content Over Time", you can see some of the content which has helping to drive that conversation. These are represented by the bubbles which are present within the chart. The colouration of the bubble is indicative of the channel that it has come from, and the size indicates the number of engagements that the post has received.
🚨 Important: Top posts within "Content Over Time" are only available when you search within a one-month interval.
If there's a particular peak within your online conversation that you want to further analyse, you can click into it and it will take you to your results feed.
💡 Top Tip: In case you are interested in delving deeper into a specific peak or spike in your online conversation, you have the option to click on it, and it will lead you to your results feed. This way, you can examine the data related to that particular peak in greater detail, such as the time frame, the content of the conversations, the users involved, and any related hashtags or keywords.
By clicking on the peak, you can access a more comprehensive and focused view of the data, which can be helpful in identifying patterns, trends, and insights that may have gone unnoticed otherwise. For instance, you may discover that the peak was triggered by a particular event or announcement, or that it was influenced by a specific user or group of users.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article! 📚
If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team via live chat. 🚀