Infographics Are All the Rage Now
They’re regularly pinned, linked, tweeted and shared. In fact, according to recently released results from IDG’s B2B Content Marketing Trends Survey, infographics are the fastest- growing content type on the web, with adoption increasing 1.5 times over last year’s levels. In addition, Eloqua recently found that infographics attract the highest job title of any type of blog post.
The survey found that about 20 percent of B2B companies surveyed use infographics for marketing purposes. More than 40 percent of respondents indicated that infographic content is effective for marketing. However, IDG also found almost one quarter of respondents using graphics said they outsource their infographic marketing efforts to professionals.
Make Sure Graphics are Related to Your Business
The graphics within your infographic should tell a story about your business, products or services in a way that is engaging and compelling.
Start with a Strategy
What story do you want your infographic to tell? What is the objective? Enhanced SEO? Brand awareness? Increased traffic?
Infographics Need Both Text and Graphics
Your infographic doesn’t have to win design awards but it does need to effectively translate your story in both words and graphics. Too often, infographics today contain one but not the other. Infographics need to be both visually appealing and tell a story with compelling information.
Make Your Infographic Easy to Share
One of the key advantages of infographics is they can be highly viral. They are a great content category to share, link to and blog about. Therefore, you need to make it really easy for users to share your infographic. Include social networking buttons (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest). Include an embed box that easily allows visitors to include your infographic in their blogs and websites. Consider niche social networking facilities such as Reddit or StumbleUpon. Include Tweetable Takeaways to generate more buzz. Also, make sure you include the creative commons license on infographics to assure bloggers they have rights to embed the content without infringing on copyright permissions.
Get the Word Out
Too many organizations invest in creating unique infographics but fail to effectively promote it. Make sure you distribute your infographics in all your social channels. Consider creating a press release explaining the story behind the infographic. Submit your infographic to popular infographic sites such as FastCompany Infographic of the Day, DailyInfograpchic, or SubmitInfographics.
Resource Appropriately
Creating effective infographics require appropriate resources. If you don’t have internal resources with the capabilities to create engaging infographics, look to outside professionals such as designers, freelancers and agencies with experience in this specific content type.
Measure Results
Like any other marketing initiative, you need to develop a measurement program in order to gauge the effectiveness of your infographic campaigns. Depending on your specific goals of your campaign, metrics to consider include number of tweets, re-tweets and Facebook likes, the number and type of inbound linking domains, the number of page views and downloads or the number of comments on blog posts.
Nancy Pekala is the AMA’s Senior Director of Online Content and Editor of B2B Marketing.
