‘Infographics’ are very effective in communicating complex or technical messages to your audience.
Did you know that 85% of people skim a blog post before reading it? You need powerful, clear visual aids to draw in the people skimming into your text.
Additionally, by including data in these visual aids, you show off your credibility – and make your visitor want to learn more.
Basically, infographics help you to ‘cut to the chase’ and don’t demand your audience to read a ton of information.
That way, they see your data and information quickly – and clearly understand your key message.
We’ve outlined some key things for you to consider when using infographics to engage your audience.
What is an infographic?
An infographic is a single image or a collection images that gives an easy-to-understand overview of a subject.
It could be a diagram, schema, flow chart or a graphical representation of data, usually with little text. The idea is that you can get an understanding of a complex situation or topic within an instant.
‘A picture says a thousand words’ they say – but sometime reading a thousand words can leave your reader more confused and overwhelmed with too much to digest.
Representing complex ideas or physical systems as a picture or ‘graphic’ allows the reader to process the information more effectively and quickly.
A great infographic includes:
- A strong headline
- Captions will help
- Schema or diagram or flow-chart (it can even be a cartoon strip!)
- Arrows help to show flow & the viewer’s eye to interpret
- ‘Thought bubbles’ or captions in judicial places add insight
- Charts or tables can accompany if data need representing simply
- Minimal explanatory text
The objective of the infographic is to help your reader understand something complex quickly.
Make sure you strip your message down to a minimum, to ensure you don’t put everything but the kitchen sink into your diagram.
Keep hold of your objective – making the complex simple, allowing your audience to be impressed and educated in equal measure.
By using your infographic correctly, you increase the chance of your visitor taking notice of what you have to say.
Thought bubbles are a great way of adding insight to your infographic
Why should I use an infographic?
Did you know that using infographics increases your website traffic by 12%?
For you to fully receive the benefits of an infographic, you firstly need to understand why you should use it.
Some of the many benefits include:
- Making complex material easy to understand – processes, data or structures are particularly suitable
- For data, it makes raw numbers into accessible ‘parcels’ of information & interprets this into conclusions
- Reinforces your conclusions or demonstrates the meaning of your text
- Breaks up your text – making it easier to read
- Grabs the attention of people skimming your text
- Increases traffic to your website, if it is named & tagged correctly
Infographics relevant to your content grab the attention of your readers – often, these visitors will spend more time looking at your infographic than reading the text on the page. That’s why it’s so important that you get your infographic right.
By presenting data in a visual form, you engage your reader with important stats without boring or confusing them!
The less your readers have to think, the more likely they are to completely read & digest your article.
Additionally, they will be more likely to share the content (great for broadcasting your credibility & increasing your SEO).
In addition, your reader will also be more persuaded they will be towards your viewpoint.
- to get your message across quickly
- is likely to be shared and
- will increase your social media & website presence
… that way, your reader takes more notice of what you have to say.
Where can I use an infographic?
Most platforms allow you to add infographics to your writing. By doing this, you make your writing more engaging, and further illustrate your point.
- Blogs
- Webpages
- Newsletters
- E-marketing
- Social media posts
- Marketing collateral, especially technical specifications and brochures
- Press releases
- Online articles
… to ensure that your visitor can’t look away!
What makes an interesting infographic?
Infographics provide an extra dimension to your text.
Your infographic needs to be:
- Directly relevant to the topic
- Comfortable on the eyes (colouring, correct sized text, font style)
- Easy to understand
- Minimal easy-to-read explanatory text
- Makes reading the accompanying article easier to understand
Use: diagrams, schema, process charts, graphs, line drawings and flowcharts.
You want to grab your visitors’ attention – and using interesting colours and images is crucial to doing this.
Use colour to accent the infographic, show flow (where needed) and to make it more interesting – make it fresh.
Make sure you give them a fun, informative infographic which they want to look at.