Do Infographics Still Work?

How do you make your content interactive?

Embrace a conversational tone?

That certainly helps.

But what if we say there’s a much better way and you’ve heard of it?

What if we recommend creating infographics?

If you’re thinking that they’re a dime a dozen … that people have lost their craze … that they’re today considered as a mediocre marketing weapon … then we’re sorry, you have it wrong.

That’s because infographics still work.

They can be easily digested. They’re more sharable. They help skyrocket traffic. They encourage more engagement. They’re more likely to go viral than plain text. And they’re probably the most successful link bait ever.

Don’t believe us? Here’re some stats:

• 65% of humans are visual learners. (Social Science Research Network)
• 40% of users respond better to visual information. (Zabisco)
• Publishers leveraging infographics increase traffic 12% faster. (AnsonAlex)
• An infographic can reach up to 15 million people. (LinkedIn)
• Facebook saw 65% increase in visual content engagement in a month after launching timeline for brands. (Simply Measured)

And here’s a great case study:

If you’ve background in online marketing, you must have heard of that Facebook vs. Google Display Network infographic by WordStream.

Released three days before Facebook launched its IPO, the infographic went viral in just a few hours after it was published. And it was covered by thousands of leading news publications like Forbes, Mashable and the Washington Post.

Ok, but what makes an infographic cut it?

• Invest a lot of time to make its headline clickable.
• Highlighting numbers is good. But make sure to not overdo it.
• Your fonts should always increase the aesthetic appeal of your infographic. We recommend using large fonts.
• Make it as interactive as possible. For instance, use graphs to show some study.
• Neither make it too short, nor too long.
• Use only the highest quality data and make sure to do citations properly so that your infographic looks credible.
• Make it SEO friendly. One way to go about this is to provide a plain-text summary (which search engines can read) along with it. Another way is to create it using HTML, CSS and images.
• Use simple English and avoid industry jargons so everybody can understand it.
• Tell a story to hook in your target audience.
• Create an embed code to make it more sharable.
• Make sure to embed social sharing buttons, especially Pinterest, which is famous for infographic promotion.
• Promote it like crazy. Submit it to infographic directories like Visual.ly, SubmitInfographics.com and Easel.ly. Push it on social media (not just on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, but also on Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Flickr and Tumblr). Reach out to relevant sites and even news publications.

It all boils down to how much visually appealing it is and how much value it provides to your target audience. If it’s really good, rest assured, it won’t end up being a dud.

Have an infographic-related story to share with us? Any questions? See you in the comments.