Have you noticed an increase in visual content in blog posts, articles, and social media?

And in that visual content, have you noticed the use of creative, custom diagrams and illustrations that tie DIRECTLY to the written content? Those visuals are actually called infographics and they can make a real difference in your marketing strategy.

What is an infographic exactly and why should you use them?

Basically, an infographic is an image or graphic that is used to visually explain complex directions, statistics, and other important information that would normally be difficult to understand. Infographics have a way of drawing people in and helping them understand and retain important information.

Make Your Content Stand Out

The web is overly saturated with content and producing text-only content isn’t the best strategy anymore. You need to stand out! An infographic can add a visual pop to your content while providing your reader with valuable information at the same time.

Increase Reader Engagement

Research shows that people are sharing infographics three times more than any other form of content! That is a big improvement to user engagement. So if you haven’t already, it’s definitely time to jump on the infographic bandwagon and improve your marketing results.

Shocking Infographic Stats

• Infographics can increase web traffic by 12%
• 40% of people respond better to imagery than to written content alone
• 65% of people retain information better if it’s accompanied by relevant imagery
• 80% of marketers use visual assets in social media marketing
• People following directions with text AND imagery do 323% better than people who follow directions using text only
• 32% of marketers say visual images are the most important form of content for their communication strategies
• Infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than a text-only article
• People remember 80% of what they see and do, compared to just 20% of what they read
• People share infographics 3 times more than any other type of content

* An infographic about infographics: The above is a great example of how to take key information from an article and create an infographic around it.

Are there rules for when and how I should use an infographic?

Don’t worry, infographics aren’t a regulated industry or anything. But there are some general rules and recommendations for when to use them and what they should look like in order to maximize their effectiveness.

Making Data Presentable

If your content includes points of data like statistics, percentages, charts, or processes then chances are an infographic would be a big help. Not only will a nice looking infographic help draw attention to your content but it will also make it easier to understand and retain.

Just Remember to Keep it Simple

When creating infographics, the best practice is to keep it simple. Don’t add so much content that your image looks messy and unreadable. Keep it colorful and creative without being cluttered. Keep the text content within your infographic short and concise in bite-size pieces and your imagery consistent and clean.

Resources:

https://www.progressivecontent.com/blog/five-statistics-about-infographics/

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-content-marketing-strategy