CampusGuides: Social Explorer Guide: Business

Getting Started

Business / Management / Marketing / Human Resources / Entrepreneurship / Consumer Behavior

This page contains a curated list of maps, datasets, and teach and learn modules useful for business courses. This list is not exhaustive, but it provides a starting point for you to explore all that Social Explorer has to offer.

As always, if you need help please visit our help center or feel free to contact us!

Maps

Curated Maps for Business Courses

Use Social Explorer maps to visualize and analyze the characteristics of almost any location such as business patterns, employer-household dynamics, opportunity zones, and world indicators. You can see trends and make comparisons over time and place to gain insights and make decisions.

For an introduction to how to use Social Explorer Maps, start with this video tutorial. There are videos that explain how to browse available datasets, customize your map, compare variables and notice trends, export and share your projects, and even tips for how to tell stories using your data.

When you're ready, click on one of the example maps below to get started, or access the complete set of maps here. Also, don't be afraid to explore! You can always save your variables to go back to later.

U.S. Business Patterns
Visualize annual statistics on U.S. businesses with and without paid employees or payroll at detailed levels of geography and industry. Statistics are available on business establishments at the state and county levels, metropolitan area, ZIP code levels, and congressional districts.
U.S. Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics
Explore statistics on employment, job flows, and workers' residential patterns at detailed levels of geography provided by the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program. LEHD combines federal and state Census Bureau data with additional administrative data on employers and employees for the United States.
U.S. Opportunity Zones
The Opportunity Zones incentive is a new community investment tool established by Congress to encourage long-term investment in low-income communities. Explore the U.S. data with the Opportunity zones layer, and create an Opportunity Zone Report, including the most important demographics on population density, race, age, income, education, and family and households.
World Development Indicators
Collected by The World Bank, World Development Indicators allow you to visualize, explore, and compare indicators for almost every country in the world or switch to geographic region level for summarized preview. Data is available in decennial reports (1960-2013).

Datasets

Datasets

Social Explorer allows you to quickly and easily create and manage reports for one or thousands of variables and geographies. You can also download data for further processing. To get started:

This guide will show you how to create, save and share, and download a report
To access the complete list of available datasets and build your own reports, click here.
Check out the example datasets below
For more detailed information on each dataset, reference the data dictionary

U.S. Business Patterns - County and ZIP Codes Business Patterns
County Business Patterns data in addition with Social Explorer tables provide annual statistics for businesses at a detailed geography and industry level. Available information includes the number of establishments, employment, first quarter payroll, annual payroll, and average employee wages. Data available for 2014-2018.
U.S. Business Patterns - House Price Index (HPI)
The House Price Index (HPI) from 1994 up through the current year provides a broad measure of the movement of single family house prices. The HPI is a measure designed to capture changes in the value of single-family houses in the U.S. as a whole, in various regions and in smaller areas. The HPI is published by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) using data provided by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
U.S. Business Patterns - Nonemployer Statistics
Nonemployer Statistics provides annual statistics by geographic area, NAICS industry, receipts, and receipts-size class of establishments (U.S. level only). The data consist of the number of businesses with no paid employees and total receipts by industry. Precautions are taken to avoid disclosing the operations of an individual employer.
U.S. Economic Indicators - Quarterly Workforce Indicators
Provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, available from 1990 through the current year.
U.S. Economic Indicators - U.S. Unemployment Statistics
Provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, these datasets from 2019 and 2020 allow you to explore Unemployment Statistics across the United States at the state, county and MSA level, helping users to explore changes for the unemployment rate for each month.
U.S. Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics
Explore statistics on employment, job flows, and workers' residential patterns at detailed levels of geography provided by the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) program. LEHD combines federal and state Census Bureau data with additional administrative data on employers and employees for the United States.

Teach and Learn Modules

Teach & Learn Modules for Courses

Use these resources created by Social Explorer to inspire creativity, encourage hands-on learning, and equip your students with desired skills. Here are some suggested modules to get you started. To explore the entire library of activities, click here!

Aging of the Workforce
The aging of the American workforce has several implications for Human Resource Managers. This module explores the benefits and challenges of this demographic trend.
Business and Black Lives Matter
This module examines the integration of social movements and business planning.
Case Study in Using Data Analytics for Strategic Planning
Students will pick a county in any state to study its population trends, and determine how businesses can use this information to choose where to locate franchises and how to advertise in local direct marketing.
Change Management
Change management is a study of the methods and manner in which a company will go through change, and this module examines both the internal and external processes to arrive at a fuller understanding of change management.
Corporate Ethics and Mental Health
The rise in mental health issues is putting pressure on companies to address their role in assisting employees with mental health issues. From organizational culture to corporate policies, the ethics of care comes into question as companies deal with this pressure.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Does corporate social responsibility matter?
Demographics and Organizational Culture
Many different demographics can influence the culture of an organization. This module explores demographic factors and their influence on organizational culture and politics.
Geographic Segmentation of the Market
Using data to target consumers by geographic region.
Global Innovation
The world is constantly changing, new markets are opening up and opportunity is abundant. This module looks at some of those changes and how innovation can help capture those markets.
Global Stratification
This module explores global stratification with a focus on GDP per capita and other topics.
Human Resource Management and the Coronavirus Pandemic
This module takes a look at the development of the coronavirus crisis in different regions of the United States and examines how Human Resource departments can help organizations thrive during crisis management.
Individual Behavior in the Workplace
There are several aspects of employee behavior in the workplace. Five of the commonly accepted characteristics will be explored in this lesson.
Introduction to Target Marketing
What is demographic segmentation and why do marketers use it?
Power Dynamics in the Workplace
Power is the ability to influence individuals and can be used in numerous ways in the workplace. We tend to think about power in a negative context, but it can also yield positive results.
Salary Study
Geographic variables can influence salary levels. This module examines geographic demographics which can influence salary decisions.
Strategic Planning and the Product Life Cycle
How marketers use data to create product strategy for the product life cycle.
A Tale of Two Cities - Business Growth Strategy
The factors which businesses consider while choosing where to locate.
Teamwork
Teamwork can help organizations find better solutions to complex problems. Understanding the diversity of team members can help bring about creative approaches.
Using Data in the Hiring Process
This module explores how demographic data can help develop our hiring methods.
Work and Unemployment
Even before the pandemic, inequality existed in the job market. What impact does race, ethnicity and gender have on employment opportunities?

Social Explorer Guide

Getting Started

Maps

Datasets

Teach and Learn Modules

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