Want millions of new eyes on your products from one piece of content? Going viral is a dream for many companies, but it’s hard to pin down exactly what it takes to go from a couple of hits to tens of thousands in an hour. Visually appealing content that caters to the lightning fast attention span of today’s average Internet user is a good start, and why you should set your content writers to work on infographics.
An infographic utilizes a visual-rich chart to display statistics and other hard facts about a subject. Some recently popular infographics include The Restaurant Choice’s infographic about global dining traditions, Frontier Natural Products Co-Op’s How to Use Cinnamon Sticks, and ILoveCoffee’s Your Brain on Beer vs. Coffee. These infographics found their way across social networks, media sites, and blogs throughout the Internet, drawing in an engaged and interested audience. So how do you replicate this success?
Stay on Top of Data Sets
Statistics are the lifeblood for most infographics. Watch industry news and leading blogs to find out about leading studies, reports, and other publications giving you data to work with. Don’t forget about using the data your own company products. Surveys, polls, and buying trends are a few data sets you already have access to that would interest people. Your content writers can research interesting statistics that complement each other and relate to your company as a whole to start the infographic creation process. Not all infographics require statistics, such as the global dining infographic mentioned above, but the vast majority of viral infographics use eye-catching percentages or numbers to immediately intrigue viewers.
Create Punchy Messages
Infographic text space is at a premium, so your messages have to be short, punchy, and to the point. Add related tips or advice relating to your data sets. Ideally, you tie-in to your own products and services when they are the appropriate problem solving option for that statistic. You want your messages to be as appealing as the visuals and statistics on the infographic, so focus on concise messages.
Establish a Complete Marketing Plan
Infographics probably won’t get picked up and spread around the world if you only post them on your company blog. Create a complete marketing plan focused on getting it exposure throughout the social networking and media world. Pinterest and Tumblr are two sites focused on visual heavy content with easy sharing tools. Social networking sites help roll out the infographic to your followers. Timing your campaign so you don’t hit every network at once helps you to stagger the exposure to your audience, giving your infographic time to get its own momentum. Even if you don’t hit viral levels of traffic, infographics give good responses.
Tiffany G has geared up as a wordsmith for the past 12 years, frequenting the technical and business copywriting battleground for most of it. When she’s not slaying the beasts of boring content and replacing them with thought-provoking pieces, she can be found tinkering with computer builds and creating jewelry.
