Invasion of the infographics: Visual makeovers inspire digital insights and innovation

September 30, 2011

They’re everywhere! Fancy graphics fused with interesting and even humorous facts — collectively known as infographics — are taking over the Web in a similar manner as viral videos, retweets and e-books have before them.

But aren’t these just visual aids? And haven’t newscasts and publications like USA Today used them for decades to help tell stories?

Yes and yes, but the social sharing aspect of infographics is what sets them apart.

“We can thank Twitter and other social sites for their rise in popularity, but also their decay in quality,” explains Joe Chernov, vice president of content marketing for Eloqua, a marketing automation company.  “Infographics awaken opportunities for publications to write about your issues and possibly include context about your organization, but they must be authoritative and creative to be effective.”

Well-designed infographics can help your audience understand your message.

“If you can make large amounts of data easier for people with short attention spans to digest, then you’re golden,” adds Sally Falkow, president of online newsroom provider PRESSfeed.  “Some infographics translated to text alone would total several pages. Nobody would read that.  Anyone who does presentations knows information is retained better when accompanied by visuals.”

PRESSfeed researches how corporations use online newsrooms.  The company learned that infographics work better than spreadsheets and long tables for sharing its findings, and noticed it garnered much more traffic after re-releasing data as infographics. Now, every time Falkow researches a new industry, she issues an infographic.

Eloqua gets up to 10 times the coverage from infographics than do new product announcements or other content types. Its Content Grid v2 infographic spawned 60 articles and blog posts, hundreds of retweets and inquiry calls from Fortune 500 prospects.

Chernov cites three reasons why infographics spread so broadly and rapidly:

1. They convince people of your subject matter expertise.
2. They generate clicks in the same way great headlines do for press releases and blog posts.
3. They offer gestures of goodwill and helpfulness.

SEO and PR potential

Infographics also improve search engine results via inbound links. Google likes it when websites link to your unique content, so infographics provide a visibility boost that keeps working for you 24/7.

But Chernov warns that first, you need an SEO strategy, including optimized webpages to host your infographics.

Chernov also advises forgetting about products or services when creating infographics. Instead, pretend that your company hired you to visualize a difficult message. This content-marketing mindset prevents blatant sales collateral or unfocused infographics and helps you produce compelling ones.  When you score a hit, consider updating it several months later with fresh data.

Today, personal brands and thought leaders are on the rise, while credentialed media representatives grow scarce. Chernov suggests doubling down on visual communications like infographics, as engaging content appeals to new information-consumption preferences.

As journalism changes, communicators need to deliver messages in ways that help editors do their jobs efficiently. One thing Falkow knows is that the company wants multimedia content to feed its websites.

“Practitioners are still learning to do digital PR,” she says, “and since infographics are finding favor, adding them to your arsenal can only increase your coverage.”

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