Case in Point: Infographics are Far From Dead!

The saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” is what infographics aim to projects exactly. In digital marketing, an infographic is an element that carries its entire meaning. It’s all about what you want to impart to your target audience. It produces engagement and earns links which improve Google rankings and enhances brand recognition.

Just a few years ago, people prophesied the death of infographic, but in 2017, it’s clear that it’s far from dying. Marketers are on the lookout for new ways to use infographics as an effective way of gaining contacts, social media engagement, exposure and website links. 

1. What Pleases the Naked Eye, Pleases Social Media

According to Marcel Just, the director for Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carneigie Mellon University sums, processing print is not something that a human brain naturally does, but printed words are human artifacts and work well for us for the last 5,000 years, although it’s an invention of human beings.

On the contrary, our biological makeup renders our brain the ability to see visuals and comprehend them. Hence, humans are hardwired to respond and process visual stimulus. It’s the reason why we love, share and talk about infographics.

Infographics is a representation of efficient way to project data and ideas that stimulate emotion. Images such as graphics and photographs are powerful tools that we use for a long time to get our point across presentations and in media.

The research conducted by the University of Minnesota reveals that presentations with visual elements are 43% more efficient and persuasive compared to unaided presentations. The extensive use of social media platforms like Facebook with at least one image per user’s post is also a sign that infographics are not going to waver anytime soon.

2. Infographics Reign Supreme in Visual Content

The survey facilitated by Venngage among marketers and their usage of visual content shows that infographics are still the top performing types of visual content for marketers in 2016. 41.5% of marketers said that original graphics like infographics yields the most output. The same study also reveals that 35.5% of these marketers predict that they are willing to spend 31% of their budget in 2017 for visual contents alone.

Marketers also express their opinions about how integral the visual contents are in their marketing strategies in 2017.

• 8% said that visual contents are important to their marketing strategy.
• 7% reveals that visual content is significant for their marketing strategies in 2017.
• 5% said it’s important.
• 3% claims that it’s somewhat important.
• Only 1.3% said that visual content is not important at all to their marketing strategy.

It also correlates with the fact that 65% of the population are visual learners by nature. Current research even shows that spoken or written information is more forgettable than visual information. In one study, users managed to retain 65% of visual content but only able to keep 10% to 20% of spoken or written content.

3. Infographics are Repurposable Across Multiple Platforms

One of the many reasons why marketers like to use infographics is because they’re very shareable. A well-designed infographic can stand on its own without the help of a blog post. You can also use to augment an article by visually displaying the information.

Another interesting fact is that you can easily slice and dice an infographic into multiple smaller social media images, to make them shareable across social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

For instance, if there’s a significant statistics in your infographics, a quirky illustration or a beautiful chart, you can cut that section and re-purpose it into an image that people will like on Instagram.

4. Infographics are Still Novel Enough to Warrant a Glance

Infographics and other mediums of visual content could be the crux of any content outreach strategy. For example, if you’re sending out emails to writers and site owners to promote content, you can add infographics to stir the interest and encourage people to take a moment to look at your content.

It's possible because infographics are easy to absorb and quick to read. Some people might not feel inclined to read an entire article that you send them, but they can at least take few seconds to look at the infographics and get the gist of the article.

5. Infographics are Now Accessible

There are many tools available nowadays that you can use to make infographic creation easy and doable, these tools are even ideal for people with less background in design.

It happens because infographics are one of the cornerstone forms of visual content for marketers and many of them are looking for ways to cut costs through creating their infographics. Plus, designing your graphics is fun!

6. How to Extend the Reach of Your Infographic in 2017?

After creating your infographics, you’ll want to make sure that many people will see them as possible. So, ask your contacts to set up and share a list of relevant niche websites and blogs who might be interested in your contents then get in touch.

Most people include a backlink to the infographic that you host on your site, but it’s best to include web address or logo at the end of your graphic, as some will not link to you. Creating visual content through infographics will allow you to provide your audience with insight about some of the great tools that you use to boost your digital marketing efforts. It also adds value to your graphics.

Apart from adding value, it also augments your outreach efforts. You have to invest significant effort and time to reach out to relevant infographic directories and companies, and most importantly to the influencers in your industry, to republish and share your infographics.

For your site, make sure to include relevant social tags or open graph tags to make your post looks great on social channels like Facebook. Research even reveals that articles that use Facebook preview image meta tag receive three times more engagement as Facebook likes and shares.

But don’t just stop there. There are other ways to share and re-purpose your infographic. Social channels limit the exposure of your visuals because they scale and crop everything to fit in with their website or app. You can get more traction through dividing your infographic into sections and sharing each one.

Takeaway

Suffice to say; infographics are still an excellent medium to provide good contents and reach a larger audience base. It’s not dead! There’s a lot to think about launching digital marketing campaigns this year.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to find a place for useful and informative infographics as well as resources to effectively promote it to obtain greater visibility for your brand. And remember, you don’t have to be a graphic designer yourself to make great visual content, there’s a lot of great tools out there to help you.

Author’s Bio:

Paul Collins is a content writer by profession whose expertise lies within technology, digital marketing trends, finance, and lifestyle. He is also a guest blogger for various seo companies in Houston- seohoustonpros. Besides writing, Paul is also a big triathlon aficionado and participates once a year. He is an active advocate for gender equality too and firmly believes that opportunities should not have boundaries.

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