5 Features of Successful Infographics

The popularity of infographics have really increased over the years, and social media is really to thank. Nearly everyone is on social media and they love to share things on sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Infographics do two things especially well. First, they allow the end user to absorb the information visually (which we do much better when compared to written data for example) and they allow people to share the information very easily thanks to social media.

Wait, what is an infographic?

Not all business owners are familiar with infographics, so let’s quickly define what they are exactly. An infographic is a visual presentation of data or a message quickly and right to the point. When done correctly, an infographic grabs the attention of an individual and is able to deliver an important message quickly.

We are all better visual learners, so an infographic is an effective way for an advertiser to get their message across in a way that will ensure the readers will understand the message.

How can infographics help your business?

Infographics are a great marketing tool. They can attract a lot of traffic to your website and they can help you earn a lot of high quality links for your SEO effort. They give your business an opportunity to present a specific message in a fun visual way that is not only going to grab the attention of your target audience, but it will also cause them to share it and introduce additional people to your brand. Here are five features of a successful infographic that will help your business deliver your message, drive website visits and create a social buzz.

1. Easy to Digest

Everyone wants to create the next viral infographic, but that doesn’t mean you need to pack it so full of information that the message is difficult to digest. Information overload can completely ruin an infographic, because if a viewer can’t instantly connect with it they are going to pass right over it.

The purpose of an infographic is to deliver a message in a simple visual format. Too much data, colors, and images can actually make your message harder to understand, so make sure that you keep the message simple to digest. You want to attract, not push away.

2. Unique Concept

Infographics should engage and cause the viewer to interact with your brand in some way. You need to be able to draw interest and attention quickly. Imagine if you took your data and just created a simple pie chart or a line graph. What would the average viewer think? They wouldn’t be too impressed and wouldn’t want to share it.

Your design needs to be unique with a twist that will draw viewers and cause them to absorb your full message. Some of the most successful infographics wouldn’t win an art award, but they were extremely creative and unique. Sometimes the smallest details will cause an infographic to go viral.

3. Extremely Creative

Creativity is always going to help your infographic gain momentum, and sometimes a little twist on a simple idea can create a huge social buzz, which then results in several other websites publishing and sharing your infographic as well. This creates even more referral traffic and link building opportunities.

If you are going to be doing an outreach campaign you will need to have a very creative infographic to grab the attention of website owners. So many businesses are creating infographics and pitching them, so you really need to stand out! Many people use the template software, and while it might save you some money you have to realize that thousands of businesses are using the same exact templates. This creates generic infographics that all look the same. Custom designed infographics are the only way to really ensure a creative design.

4. Visual Focus – Not Text

It is important to keep the text minimal, and focus on the visual elements of the infographic. The Internet is very fast paced. Consumers are constantly being shown advertisements and presented with content to read. Your infographic needs to stop them from doing what they are doing and take a minute to get sucked into your offering.

In a perfect world someone will stop and take a look at your infographic, absorb your message, and then share it on social media. You gain a new consumer that is now interested in your brand and they have now introduced your brand to their social following. In order to do this your infographic needs to grab their attention FAST and this is done with visual elements, not text.

5. Shareable

We have mentioned several times already how the goal is to attract social sharing, but that can’t be done unless there is an easy way for the individual interacting with it to do so. It is amazing how many businesses will spend several thousands of dollars on an infographic and put it on their blog with no social sharing options. There is no reason that your blog content shouldn’t be easily shareable, yet so much content online doesn’t have the option.

Make sure that you have a very simple row of social sharing icons located either above or below your content. The ideal location will really depend on the design of your website. There are several plugins and quick-add HTML code that can be implemented within seconds to instantly give you nice social sharing buttons that allow your content to be shared with a couple mouse clicks.

Infographics are a very powerful marketing tool, and smart companies will take hot topics and breaking news within their industry and create an infographic to leverage these topics and turn them into heavy website traffic and viral social sharing. The five features above will help you create an effective infographic.