by Justin Beegel, CEO of Infographic World and the author of “Infographics For Dummies“
The evolution of technology and the rapidly changing landscape of social media has made life interesting and difficult for marketing and advertising executives. There is a ton of opportunity to be sure, but in the new world of 140 characters or less, the ability to communicate in succinct and compelling fashion has never been greater. Actually, it has left many executives scratching their heads as to where to put their resources.
Among the innovative vehicles created to effectively reach consumers in this new era have been infographics. According to Google, searches for infographics have increased 800 percent in the last two years as marketers look to increase brand recognition, create buzz and improve SEO. Infographics offer the unique ability to go viral and get your brand in front of millions of online visitors in a single day.
Here are five tips for creating an infographic that will go viral and global:
1. Identify the Ideas That Have Legs.
The key is to create a viral infographic campaign that has mass appeal, is timely and innovative. If there is a hot topic in the news, it helps to capitalize on it and take it to the next step or give it a new angle. You want to avoid ideas that are too niche and, if you can, walk a fine line between what is controversial and what is acceptable. That will help it go viral, as controversy sells.
2. Be Able to Mobilize Quickly.
Another important component is the ability to mobilize your team quickly. A good example of this was a few years ago I saw a map of the U.S. and it listed stereotypes that best described the people from that state. The infographic was called “How Europeans View America.” We saw this as an opportunity and quickly had our team put together a map of Europe and called it “How Americans View Europe,” in which we went country by country and made our own stereotypes. The graphic spread like wildfire, actually crashing our server for an hour from too much web traffic. We also received some very angry emails from people from various countries in Europe, but the graphic served its purpose, was all in good fun, and was a living example of viral content. A few other examples of successful and timely campaigns featured a look into the life of Steve Jobs shortly following his death, and we did one on the business of running for president around the 2012 presidential elections.
3. Make Your Tone Appropriate.
B2B marketers should consider their industry and make the tone appropriate. We have done campaigns across the spectrum from major hospitals such as Mount Sanai to entertainment properties such as ESPN. Topics have ranged from Breast Cancer Awareness Month to the Superbowl. You want to make sure the tone is appropriate for your industry and audience. For a serious topic, you may not want silly cartoon-like characters, but for the light-hearted topics you can have a little more fun.
4. Sync-up Distribution Tactics.
Once the infographic is completed, it is critical to coordinate promotional efforts with all stakeholders. The graphic should go live on all parties’ websites and across all their social media platforms to give it the widest possible launching pad for exposure. My company also has a promotional and PR division that has extensive media contacts so we also distribute the infographic widespread to relevant media in order to maximize coverage.
5. Consider Going Interactive.
Adults are grown children and enjoy playing with things. By making your infographic interactive, readers can click on various parts of the infographic to get more information. For example, we just did a great interactive infographic on crime in America, and if you click on each state you could see where it ranks in various categories such as theft, violent crimes, murder, etc. By going interactive, you are likely to get more shares and backlinks, which will drive your business.
And here’s an infographic outlining some of the secrets to creating such a viral infographic:
What a great infographic. Unfortunately it is hard to tell if something will actually ‘go viral’ but all you can do is implement these tips and give it a go.
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