Friday, October 23, 2015

9 Awesome Reasons to Use Infographics in your Content Marketing

9 Awesome Reasons to Use Infographics in your Content Marketing



9 Awesome Reasons to Use Infographics in your Content Marketing


We live in an age of “Big Data“..which means there is more data than ever before.
9 Awesome Reasons to Use Infographics in your Content Marketing

In one day we create 1.5 billion pieces of content, 140 million tweets and 2 million videos.
Trying to make sense of the mountains and oceans of data that are now part of our knowledge world due to computers, mobiles and the web is a daily challenge.
  • Do you bookmark, file it or Evernote the link or PDF?
  • Do you punch the reference into your iPhone or iPad
  • Do you grab a pen and jot it down on your beloved Moleskine notepad?
We constantly are attempting to organise, collate and curate information that pours at at as from screens in a torrent.
Consuming that data is like drinking from a fire hose.

What are Infographics?

They are a mix of design, writing and analysis that are ideal for an age of big data. (just like you see at the top of this page)
Some other examples can be found here -”6 Fantastic Facebook Marketing Infographics“.
Infographics are a visually compelling communication medium that done well can communicate complex data in a visual format that is potentially viral.
They take deep data and present it in a visual shorthand.
“Infographics” is one efficient way of combining the best of text, images and design to represent complex data that tells a story that begs to be shared.

What Research Reveals about Infographics

Recent research from Barbara M. Miller and Brooke Barnett discovered this about “Infographics”
“On their own, text and graphics are both useful yet imperfect methods for communication. Written language allows an almost infinite number of word combinations that allow deep analysis of concepts but relies heavily on the reader’s ability to process that information. Graphics may be easier for the reader to understand but are less effective in communication of abstract and complicated concepts. … combining text and graphics allows communicators to take advantage of each medium’s strengths and diminish each medium’s weaknesses.”
Does your industry need to present data in an effective manner to communicate and engage its customers and prospects?..Then infographics could be part of the answer.

The Growth of Infographics

I noticed the power of Infographics about 6 months ago when I included it in  blog article and was surprised by the traffic response. On taking a closer look at its popularity, I decided to use Google “Insights for Search” analytics to determine the increase in the interest in the keyword “Infographics” as reflected in search volume increases since 2004.
Infographics search growth on GoogleI discovered that since just prior to the start of 2010 to the beginning of 2012, infographic search volumes have increased by over 800% in just over 2 years.

Statistics from the social network Digg reveal that since 2007, infographics on Digg have increased by 250 times!
Now that is a trend wave worth catching!

Why Include Infographics in your Content Marketing Strategy?

When it comes down to it Infographics they may be a compelling but why use them?
Why Use Infographics

Source: Web Marketing Group

1. Compelling and Attractive

There is one thing that I have discovered while blogging is that people love facts, figures and statistics. Add some compelling images and graphics and …”voila“, you have addictive content!

2. Easily Scanned and Viewed

Human beings are highly visual and because 90% of of the information that comes to the brain is visual you need to tap into that “optic nerve”

3. Viral Capabilties

Due to infographics attractiveness the capacity for them to be shared on social networks and become viral is much higher than ordinary text content.

4. Portable (Embeddable)

When designing, developing and publishing an infographic the code to put it on a WordPress blog or website is provided as an embed code. This then creates an automatic link from their site to yours.

5. Worldwide Coverage

In a world where online publishing is now visible globally at the push of a button, infographics can provide global coverage that local print media could never do.

6. Brand Awareness

Creating an infographic that is embedded with your logo and brand displayed is a powerful means of creating a greater “Brand Awareness”

7. Increases Traffic

An infographic that is linked and compelling by its nature will drive traffic to your website band blog as people “share” and “click”

8. Benefits Search Engine Optimisation

The viral nature of the infographic medium makes people link to your site and Google will index your website higher due to Google’s “Page Rank” algorithm. This increases the importance that search engines pace on your site.

9. Shows an Expert understanding of a Subject

The research required to create an infographic will display your knowledge and position you as an expert on your category or topic.
The challenge with infographics is creating them.
There are new tools and platforms emerging that make creating them easier such as Statsilk.com and Visual.ly

How about You?

Have you created or used infographics? Have they driven traffic and created more brand awareness for your business?
Look forward to hearing your stories.
More Reading




7 Marketing Trends You Should Not Ignore - Jeffbullas's Blog

7 Marketing Trends You Should Not Ignore - Jeffbullas's Blog



7 Marketing Trends You Should Not Ignore


Marketing has been democratised.
The capability to use marketing tools and technology without having to beg or pay for attention is unprecedented. It’s a time where you can now build your own crowd to market and sell to without paying the mass media gate keepers.
7 Marketing trends you should not ignore

That’s social media.
The social media networks are at your disposal and with the right tactics and software you can create brand awareness and access to influencers and decision makers in boardrooms across the world.
This freedom to take control of your own marketing comes at a cost. The cost is complexity and time. To be effective it requires using multiple networks, constant content creation and monitoring and managing.
It’s not just multiple networks and multimedia to think of, it is also about adapting to new hardware platforms where consumers receive their messaging. This is no longer restricted to just print, TV and radio but has proliferated to laptops, smart phones and tablets. They all have their own limitations and parameters to be optimal.
Within this technology and media explosion there are many marketing trends that have been emerging that we should be paying attention to.

7 Marketing Trends

Here are seven trends that all marketers need to consider in their toolbox of tactics to remain effective and current.

1. Content Marketing

The importance and role of content marketing and how it works across social media, search, multimedia and mobile is becoming a key focus for many brands. Many companies don’t understand the importance of this trend and how it underlies almost all digital marketing. Brands such as Coca Cola have recognised this and changed their strategies to meet the web realities.
Brands have been blinded by the shiny new toy of social media eg Facebook and think that Facebook marketing is all they should be doing beyond their day to day habitual marketing that they have been doing for decades.
This is just a snippet of your activity focus. You should not be forgetting Twitter, Blogs and Google+…just to mention a few to market your content.
Content is the foundation of all digital marketing and is the reason people read, view or share.
Creating “liquid content” is vital to create brand awareness and tap into crowd sourced marketing.

2. Mobile Marketing

The rapid rise of smart phones and tablets has flatfooted many marketing managers and delivering marketing messages and content that is optimized for mobile platforms is becoming a “must”. Increasingly consumers are viewing content, receiving emails and buying products from “small screens”.
Companies need to urgently redesign websites and blogs that are “responsive” (respond to all devices screen sizes for optimal viewing and usability) to ensure they are optimising for mobile devices. Some websites are recording 30-40% of all traffic from mobile devices. That should not be ignored. It will cost you money and lead to missed opportunities.

3. Integrated Digital Marketing

Companies that are savvy marketers are realizing that digital marketing should not be one offs that are islands of isolated tactics. Social media and content is impacting search results. Google created Google+ for a few reasons including capturing social signals. Ensuring that your approach is allowing you to tie them all together to achieve maximum effectiveness is becoming key.
This is optimised and integrated digital marketing.

4. Social Media at Scale Marketing

Brands are also realizing that “doing” social is complex and is like juggling many balls at once. We are seeing the rush to develop, buy up start-ups and implement Enterprise platforms that are assisting marketing professionals to market, manage and monitor multiple social networks and even other digital marketing (eg email).
The tools to manage the complexity are emerging and evolving as the rush to package the technology accelerates. The holy grail to have one tool to manage your marketing is the mission for many software companies who see this opportunity.
This is “social at scale

5. Continuous Marketing

Marketers need to realise that a strong trend is emerging called continuous marketing. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t run “campaigns”. The reality is that being found online (found in social network updates, Twitter streams and in a Google search) requires constant SEO activity and content creation, publishing and marketing.
Google hates silence.
Creating, curating and marketing content that is fed into the maws of the social media beast needs to be relentless or you will left behind and you will be lost in the web noise.
To do this well requires implementing marketing automation that leverages your time and resources.

6. Personalized Marketing

The “one size fits all” approach to marketing where mass messages on television and traditional media are becoming less effective due to media saturation. We are seeing the rise of personalized marketing on e-commerce sites, websites and emails that tailor the advertising and user interface to the relevant interests of consumers.
Visit an online store once and come back and the website knows that you are male and like Nike runners. The next email that arrives has also been personalised with products that you visited while shopping online. The web is capturing your habits as it reads the data, applies intelligence and serves up information that is relevant to “you”.
This trend is being driven by technology using “big data” to increase marketing effectiveness.

7. Visual Marketing

We first saw the creep of visual marketing into the landscape when YouTube entered mainstream consciousness a few years ago. Since then this creep has turned into a torrent of visual marketing with emergence of Pinterest, Instagram and even Slideshare.
In the last 6 months this has gone to a whole new level as Vine’s 6 second snack size video and now Instagram’s new 15 second video app has marketers scrambling for creative inspiration to apply and leverage this new trend.
Your marketing needs to ride this trend to increase engagement and cut through the online noise.

What about you?

Which trends excite you or even surprise you? Have you adapted your tactics to meet the continual marketing and technology eveolution.
Look forward to hearing your stories, feedback and insights in the comments below.

Image by Shutterstock



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Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/07/16/marketing-trends-you-should-not-ignore/#y9oiHVW3PsTHJL57.99