If you have noticed, infographics tend to go viral even if their content is not extremely important. This is because human mind is wired to visual information more than textual content. An infographic presents information in a fun, creative and easy-to-understand manner, which reams of text cannot possibly do. Thus, it is time to incorporate infographics in marketing campaigns, especially social media marketing.
Why Are Infographics Popular?
Infographics are very popular in the recent months, and companies have begun to hire designers to artfully represent statistical and ‘boring’ data. While companies may manage to create great infographics with the help of talented designers, they usually downplay the importance of marketing and promoting them over social media. Let us take a look at how infographics can be made to go viral:
Infographics are not a Fad
Before you dismiss infographics as a fad, you might want to try using them in your own social media marketing campaigns. Chances are, they will drive more traffic to your website than just sharing links and writing lengthy posts. Visual information is always processed more efficiently by human brains than textual information. Of course, a good social media marketing campaign would always be supported by high quality blog posts along with infographics.
Social Media Marketing
Every company that is worth its salt needs to have a social media marketing strategy. While employing social media marketing, companies usually get lost in the oblivion. Social media marketing employs various social networking sites to drive traffic to the landing page or blog posts, and also to create a brand presence. This social presence translates to increased sales, loyalty and brand identification. One of the ways to engage in social media marketing is to use appropriate infographics. Identifying the audience would help in not only creating an infographic in certain manner, but also help in sharing it across social platforms to niche audiences.
Utilize Social Media Buttons
The page that contains the infographic must have social buttons that are easily visible. The most important social networking sites that must be present on the page are Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. It also helps to have buttons of Pinterest, Tumblr, Delicious, StumbleUpon and other social bookmarking tools. It is because of these tools that more number of people would be able to share your infographic.
Apart from the usual social media and social bookmarking sites, infographics must also be submitted to aggregators and directories. Some of the popular ones are:
Use Nostalgia and Emotions
An infographic must tell a story. It must be told in an artful, informative manner that reduces the need for reading up on a particular company. You could have an infographic describing the market cycle of your popular products, or a nostalgic infographic that depict the story of your first web designing project. The idea is to use emotions and nostalgia, while tapping the creative aspect of information. These are the essential qualities of an infographic that would go viral and help you in your SMM initiative.
Mixing Style with Substance
An infographic no doubt has to be stylish. It has to appeal to those kinds of people who would never bother to read an entire article. It must have snippets of micro stories that need not be told in words, but instead can be experienced through graphics. With all this importance given to graphics, one must not forget the importance of the marketing campaign and factual accuracy. The idea of an infographic at the end of the day is to drive home a point, and also give information. Being informative, factual and entertaining will ensure an infographic’s success over social media sites.
Visualize Your Marketing Campaign
Infographics can also serve the purpose of communicating your success. The success of your brands, products and services may be attractively placed within an infographic and appropriate social media tools may be used to market it. This invariably drives traffic to your website or blog, and that is part of every marketing campaign.
