Source: babaloud.com via Blaine on Pinterest
Infographics are one of the hottest trends in web design and publishing. What is an infographic, you ask? It is perhaps best described as an illustration that combines text and images to share information on a specific topic. In many cases, the images are merely simple graphics bearing plain looking text. Simplicity aside, infographics are growing and increasingly becoming a valuable tool in the social networking space.
They’re All the Rage
Infographics are very trendy right now, and that factor alone makes them incredibly powerful. And even though they are becoming more popular, they are still enough of a novelty to provide a competitive advantage to those who use them correctly.
Just think, while all your competitors try to wow audiences with video and other popular content formats, you could stand out with a well designed infographic that gives your social fans all the information they need to know.
Best of all, statistics show that good looking infographics have tremendous eye-popping appeal, another huge plus for social networking managers tasked with gaining attention.
They Drive Traffic
One of the most important duties assigned to a social networking manager is generating interest on a platform like Facebook or Twitter, and converting that interest into traffic for another site. If this is something you are responsible for, you will be happy to know that infographics offer great SEO value.
For example, simply creating your illustration, optimizing it with keywords and complementing it with relevant links can instantly improve your rankings in the search engines. The good thing about the SEO value of infographics is that the benefits work both ways by driving traffic to your website and social spots as well.
They Get the Job Done
Infographics have the uncanny ability to simplify the content creation aspect for the publisher, while also making the consumption part easier for the reader. The former is especially true when you are not the best writer. In this case, you may find that putting together an infographic is lesson time-consuming than cranking out a blog post or email campaign. The reader benefits by having access to content that is a breeze to digest. Being able to take vast amounts of data and transform it into easily comprehensible information makes infographics valuable to all parties involved.
Creating Quality Infographics
There are plenty of benefits to be had from incorporating infographics into your marketing mix, but social networking managers should know that their ability to garner great results is all in the design. For the most part, the ideal infographic has the following three qualities:
1. Easy to read – If your illustration is viewed as confusing, it definitely isn’t serving its purpose.
2. Looks attractive – Your infographic doesn’t have to be fancy, but it should be attractive enough to make a good first impression.
3. Strictly Factual – This is the most important element here. When people start questioning the reliability of your information, they will start to question your credibility as an authority figure.
Infographics have a lot to offer the busy social networking manager. Approach them with a game plan, and they can deliver fantastic results.
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Author Bio
Francis Santos is a writer for Benchmark Email, an email marketing software company.
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Thank you for introducing infographics, Francis. I always welcome anything that will add SEO value to our website and social media platforms. We will certainly utilize infographics so that we can build a stronger online presence and generate more traffic into our site.
Francis, thank you for the article! I fully agree with you! Everyone likes infographics, cause looking at a well made graphical picture you can receive a lot of useful data only in several minutes and save your priceless time:)
I love well done info graphics. The pictures are awesome and the text just adds to the awesomeness. People are more inclined to read an info graphic than a block of text.
This has really confused me in the past. but you really did a good job on discussing it.With the trend of using the internet to convey information to millions of people worldwide, it also becomes a challenge on how you can effectively communicate to the people with your contents.
Hey Francis,
Totally agreed with your points, Infographic is getting more and more popularity and it’s now become very important for promotion purposes as well.
Images have a bigger impact than texts. However, catchy messages are useful too, so it’s only natural that an infographic with both images and catchy massages brings better traffic.
I just learned how to add photos to my blogs and it has already increased my traffic ten-fold! It’s great for people to have a visual for what they’re reading and it helps to break up some of the text. Now, I guess I need to learn how to make infographics and add them too!
The trend of using the internet to convey information to millions of people worldwide, it also becomes a challenge on how you can effectively communicate to the people with your contents.
These graphics shows information in such a way that would be wiedly in text form and act as a visual shorthand for everyday concepts.
Select a site that offers a user friendly interface. Sites that make it easy for you to lay out your profile and add up all necessary information and some pictures is what you need. The navigation keys must be very easy to locate especially for a first timer.
It has already increased my traffic ten-fold It’s great for people to have a visual for what they’re reading and it helps to break up some of the text.
Infographics are really helpful because it’s very attractive and let’s your readers exert less effort in getting the information they needed. What tools do you use to create infographics? Thanks for this interesting post.
-Yohan
Agree on this statement that Infographics is all the rage, as not everybody can create one, apart from that they are one of the best and futuristic approach to attract visitors, readers. And not to add, the new social network Pinterest, adding cherry on a cake, for those who promote their knowledge via Infographics. 🙂
I really like infographics and it adds energy to our posts. We could easily illustrate our thoughts through infographics and it’s trend is increasing drastically. It’s a very effective way to convey our message to readers.