An interactive infographic is not just a pretty way of displaying data. The social share results you see for some of the infographics made by brands are just astonishing!
There is a simple reason why people like infographics and do not mind sharing them with friends. Sixty five percent of people are visual learners, which means that it is easier for them to digest information visually. Infographics have a strong emotional power, since they show you an idea - or how something works in a simple and quick way. Infographics surprise readers and somehow make them want to scroll down and read the whole thing.
How to Make Your Infographic Successful
Before you rush and start creating infographic, in hopes of building your brand awareness, I would suggest you to study and learn more about infographics. Do research on your competition. See if they had published infographics before. Analyze the successful ones. If possible compare multiple and see what they have in common.
Even though you might be successful on your first try and your infographic will go viral (because let us be honest, that is the main goal here - make your infographic go viral and harvest the fruits of your labor = new leads), there are quite a lot of factors related to the demographic of your niche. If you want to learn more about how you can effectively use interactive infographics to communicate with your target audience, I strongly suggest you to check out this interview from Mark Smiciklas, author of "The Power of Infographics."
If you want to read more about making your infographic a success, read this article from SocialMediaToday. It's a compilation of what some people, who are working in the online marketing industry, are thinking about what makes an infographic succeed.
Brands Successfully Using Infographics
Do you know a lot about cinnamon? Well, I sure did not before stumbling upon this "How to Use Cinnamon Sticks" infographic made by "About Nutrition Facts", a health and nutrition website. If you look, you would notice that all icons in this infographic are consistent in color and design. Everything is spaced out well, so it is very easy for user to read and want to scroll down. Warm colors and wood texture background add a certain feel of warmth.
I really like how many brands are starting to implement interactive infographics in their marketing plans. Look at WSOP infographic for example. They nailed it by showing real examples of poker players who won WSOP bracelets , how much money they made, compare them to celebrities and display in a simple way how many different things $10 million can buy you. The result is quite good as well - seven thousands shares on Facebook and five thousand tweets. You can just imagine the amount of viral traffic this one page interactive has brought them.
We decided to dig deeper and find some expert opinion on our own. Mr. Oren gladly accepted to answer a bunch of our questions. Here are some of the quotes from Mr. Ben Oren, Director of Web Marketing at Whiteweb.
What are the key elements that can make an infographic go viral?
There's no way to guarantee that an infographic will go viral. However, there are a few measures we can take to increase its chances of going viral. The first crucial step is defining clear goals you'd like to achieve using the infographic: what do you want out of it? Branding? Awareness? Educational value / dispelling myths? Your goal will help guide you through the conceptualization and ultimate execution. It's important to do a bit of research to find out what characterizes your target audience, what they tend to react to - and use that knowledge to come up with a concept that really speaks to them.
Finally, another key thing to keep in mind is that it's an investment, both in terms of time and in terms of money. Compromising on quality is a bad idea. This doesn't mean your infographic has to be meticulously designed, but a shoddy job or even an overly designed piece will be distracting and miss its purpose. Clean thematic design coupled with great, concise copy will help send your message clearly - further increasing the odds of getting readers to click 'share'.
Q: What other content strategies you suggest to build strong links?
If your main objective in executing content marketing is getting links, you're on the wrong path. True, content marketing can be an effective tool to obtain links, but this is just an advantage of this strategy. Branding, exposure, boosting relevant traffic and positioning are all central goals of content marketing. In many ways, content marketing is particularly beneficial in SEO - since when it's done correctly to ensure virality, the company stands to gain both quality links and positive social signals.
Time to Take Action!
There is a lot of information you might need to read through before creating your first interactive infographic. Obviously, with the rise of mobile market share, 2014 and future years will be the year of engagement and interaction. Therefore, we strongly suggest you to try creating infographic for your business and see what kind of result you will get.