Infographics Can Help You Spread Ideas and Attract Attention
An image is an act of communication. Images play an important role in the presentation of ideas. Worth more than a thousand words, they encapsulate meaning by both simplifying and embodying conceptual theories.They make information more appealing, more persuasive. In the realm of art or activism, images reflect the underlying current of collective feeling by vocalizing both public consensus and private desires.
On the internet, you can see the same popular pictures in websites of every language. Russian, Chinese, French or English. Images transcend linguistic and cultural barriers faced by text. There is no need for machine or human translation. No need for mediation.
Like videos, images can spread very quickly online with little artificial push. Are they inherently more ‘viral‘ than textual content? It is difficult to say with certainty if it indeed has a higher potential for popularity. But images have undeniable value in spreading ideas. Especially when they are elegantly integrated with the use of text to present information.
Unique, original images can attract an audience. They are not only high quality content for an interested readership but they can be useful promotional tools for anyone interested in gaining more attention. A particular form of image is relevant to this purpose: the infographic.
Visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics are used where complex information needs to be explained quickly and clearly, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education. They are also used extensively as tools by computer scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians to ease the process of developing and communicating conceptual information.
You’ve seen infographics everywhere. In books, magazines, newspapers, instruction manuals, maps, public signs and business reports. Visually, they come in many forms as well: charts, graphs, emblems, cartoons, diagrams and illustrations. Any image is suitable as long as it effectively works to convey data in a way that fulfills a specific or general purpose.
These graphics seek to inform. They can be a supplement to existing textual content or a hermeutically sealed construct, a stand-alone presentation which covers a subject in full. A complete statement and explanation that everyone can cite as a reference.
Infographics are a form of concentrated nutrition for data consumers. They are multi-vitamins, fulfilling basic info requirements in a simple hassle-free way. Like a pill, knowledge is condensed into essential components, enough to satiate your basic informational needs. They give you a general overview, one you can convert into talking points and social currency.
The amount of information they convey and the style used will vary depending on its purpose. Who is the intended audience of this piece? What specific frame or idea angle do you want to emphasize? How much abstraction and simplification is necessary for data to make sense?
Here are some examples from Princeton University’s International Network Archives. These infographics each give you a brief overview on a topic. See this page for full images and more.
The finished infographic is often beautiful to behold. Swirling gradients of color form into tangible shapes, contextually arranged to demonstrate quantifiable meaning. It’s easy to take it all in at one glance. Your eye darts around the numbers and skirts between the illustrations. You interact with it. You are thoroughly absorbed in its display of coherence.
And after looking, you’ll often think of sharing it. Maybe save the image, attach it to an email and fire it to a friend. Maybe you’ll include it in your latest blog post or tweet it. Or you’ll log into your favorite forum, drop the link and see what everyone else thinks.
There are many ways to propagate these images once they are produced. Apart from the usual social media channels, you can provide link codes by hosting the images and providing the html which points back to your site. Or you can package it into PDF formats along with other similar infographics to make a mini-report.
Unlike textual content, these images often do not include much text: you can consider pre-emptively translating them into other major languages so they can be shared more widely among different audiences.
They can also be produced on a regular basis as feature content. As a pictorial representation of information, infographics are often considered to be unique even if the data shared as already been elaborated elsewhere in text articles. Therein lies its appeal to a readership that might be jaded by the repetition of ideas in the content of other media sources/websites.
Good Magazine is an excellent example of a site that recently started creating infographics (known as ‘Good Sheets’) as regular online content. The print editions of these images were also given out free of charge at Starbucks. The combination of online and offline distribution is something that is suited to the nature of one-page documents like infographics.
Next time when you’re planning on sharing specific ideas or data, consider using infographics. They are a terrific way of making information accessible and a useful primer that will pique the interest of your intended audience. When created and marketed effectively, they can be part of a powerful viral strategy to magnetize attention to your website or business.
P.S I intend to write more on the topic of information design specifically as it relates to marketing. This is something I’m recently interested in and hopefully you’ll find it entertaining and useful.
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Infographics are one area where traditional media outperforms blogs. Newspapers have been using these to illustrate complex ideas and mind-numbing rows figures really well for years.
I hope you do write more about design as relates to marketing, I need to learn how to put together a powerful infographic now.
This is a brilliant idea! I can’t believe I never thought of this for my own blog. I’m not great at graphics though, but I will certainly keep this in mind for the future.
-Andrew
This is a REALLY cool idea! Already, I’m thinking of several different ways to use this. Remember, just because it doesn’t fit with the traditional model of blogging doesn’t mean it can’t be integrated somehow. Thanks!
wow. this is really a cool idea. Pictures and images and really worth a thousand word. Added with today’s improvement accessibility in visual effects design, it is a nice addition to any conventional blog. I will also try venturing in this fresh waters this coming days. Thanks for the tip.
Splendid idea. This is a great way to feed the egos of knowledge hounds–they can skim and walk away with some nuggets for the next cocktail party in minimal time. I say this from experience.
If you’re interested in learning how to do this yourself, Nathan from Flowing Data recently put together an excellent tutorial about the tools and concepts he’s using to do his work — which is excellent and well worth checking out:
http://flowingdata.com/2008/10/20/40-essential-tools-and-resources-to-visualize-data/
Awesome idea! It could create a lot of buzz for websites if its packed into a one page ebook featuring one of those infographics. I agree that these infographics can easily grab attention of the user. I never thought about stuff like this. Great.
It does not have to be that advanced. This graphic is very simple and effective:
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/the-seo-success-pyramid/971/
Great idea! A picture is really worth a thousand words – appreciate your sharing such valuable information.
Thanks Maki for a great post. I’m a data guy @ work and I love looking @ ways to visualize data to make it easier to read. I’ve also found some good info in the comments. Now I’m off to find some data for my niche – I’m looking forward to more
They really add an extra visual dimension to some pieces.
In fact, some are so good that they have been submitted to Digg and made the homepage all by themselves.
The really good ones instantly impact the reader and embed the idea into their minds. Visual art tends to stay in the long term memory longer.
The artistic ones can invigorate a common blog piece or article.
I like the article.
Are there simple tools (I’m a non techie) that I can use to create this?
I’m looking for tools that are easy to learn, easy to use and easy to do
thank you
Mireille
Infographics is another way of saying graphics that support the text, but do not replace it. You have heard that worn out cliche, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. That is not true when it comes to advanced marketing. The master marketer has a purpose for each word he uses. Word choice is the key to the psychological trigger bank. Hit the right psychological trigger with a perfect message to market match, and it really is like opening up a bank vault.
Infographics purpose, and really the purpose of all graphics, is to support the sales pitch but not replace it. Many new marketers will want to add graphics all over their website and in doing so that say well, a graphic header is there and so I don’t need to put text there. Never do that. Use graphics as a support role only to support the message within your sales copy. Here is what the great marketer David Ogilvy has to say about art:
“Once upon a time I was riding on the top of a First Avenue bus, when I heard a mythical housewife say to another, “Molly, my dear, I would have bought that new brand of toilet soap if only they hadn’t set the body copy in ten point Garamond.” Don’t you believe it. What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.
Most of the art schools which train unsuspecting students for careers in advertising still subscribe to the mystique of the Bauhaus. They hold that the success of an advertisement depends on such things as “balance,” “movement,” and “design” but can they prove it? My research suggests that these aesthetic intangibles do not increase sales, and I cannot conceal my hostility to the old school of art directors who take such preachments seriously.
“Making the logo twice the size” is often a good thing to do, because most advertisements are deficient in brand identification. “Showing the clients’ faces” is also a better stratagem than it may sound, because the public is more interested in personalities than in corporations. Some clients can be projected as human symbols of their own products.
H.L. Mencken once said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. That is not true. I have come to believe that it pays to make all your layouts project a feeling of good taste, provided that you do it unobtrusively. An ugly layout suggests an ugly product. There are very few products which do not benefit from being given a first class ticket through life.”
I can already imagine how to use this in an online world to give away as a premium to incentivize for people to subscribe or follow me in Twitter. This obviously seems more valuable than a report especially for people who prefer visual learning.
I’m looking forward to learn from you about infographics in the future, Maki.
Great example there! I always want to create a professional looking infographics like this.
@Lance,
“What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.” I agree with that, particularly on the Internet.
The only caveat I have is that there are instances where your message just has more impact in graphical form. I found that to be the case for my new product, where I used a comic to communicate the selling proposition rather than simple text. It was a new idea, and the text simply wasn’t getting through.
Of course, it could have been just poor copy on my part. Regardless, the comic did the trick; people understood the selling proposition while previously they had not.
Wow what a great post !
Thank you so much for the useful article, nice images too.
have a nice day.
Great article! I do a lot of custom cartoons for clients, I’m seeing this sort of thing growing by leaps and bounds. (OK, mostly just leaps in this economy.)
Anyhow, can’t wait for the next installment.
Thanks Maki! I’m looking forward to your future posts on this topic. Like Mireille, I’d love to know about simple (non-techie) tools for creating infographics… even simple ones. I plan to use them for educational purposes, not sales pitches.
I’m a fan of infographics, mental models, and conceptual frameworks. I like how the right infographic can frame the hot spots, consolidate key info, and connect the dots, all in a single glance.
If you haven’t seen it already, you might like Edward R. Tufte’s book Visual Explanations. It’s one of the most in-depth works on showing complex data visually.
You also might like the templates at Extreme Presentation. They’re proven patterns for framing information. You can browse the visuals at http://extremepresentation.typepad.com/blog/2006/10/36_slides_that_.html.
And it’s possible to optimize for the search engines machines also ..The gold work on climate change http://www.eitb.com/infography-multimedia/climate-change.html has been the only one awarded by the jury in the category of “Use of Graphics and Multimedia”. This is a job that combines infographics, videos, audio, original documents, interactive virtual tours and even a calculator to measure the environmental impact of our habits.
This is brilliant and a really cool idea, but a hard one for me to pull off.
Regards: rizzy
http://twitter.com/rizzy81
Great post on Infographics – loved this sentence “Images transcend linguistic and cultural barriers faced by text”. For someone whose work is visualization – this post is both informative and very encouraging. My job – which I love is to explain technologies (Social Media/Web2.0) in a visual manner at http://www.VizEdu.com where VizEdu stands for Visual Education. .
We spend a lot of time -in a iterative manner – creating infographics – which completely and intuitively explain a subject matter. It takes a lot of time and concentration to finalize one picture and animation. Visuals reduce complexity – the human mind is hardwired for pictures. Think about it – when you think about a word in your mind – a picture automatically is displayed on your internal mind screen. Before words – human beings communicated using pictures.
Companies are beginning to realize this – UPS explained all their products and services in a Whiteboard interactive Flash animation- http://whiteboard.ups.com/ .
I always recognized the value of images for keeping attention, but you’ve put a whole other spin on it for me.
Thanks!
Awesome article!!! I was always amazed by good infographics and this is a brillant resource for me to find out more.
Hope I’ll be able to create such amazing work sometime.
I have been using images in my blog posts and have gotten some great responses really ties the whole post together and when I use funny ones readers really seem to like them. An you said visualization is a powerful tool, as humans are very visual. Also, I think adding screenshots in how-to posts is very useful to readers.
I think any type of graphic is great to attract attention. People like to view images associated with any sort of text.
Great article. Pictures is old, infographics is a new concept to me that I will explore more on. The only downside I could see is that they appear to be very noisy and cluttered, may distract some. I do like how utilizing graphics to display boring stats and info can be a great way to help gain attention and spread the word.
Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com
twitter.com/craigkessler
Great information and insight into the power of graphics. Especially for blogging and social media.
Infographics as a blog subject. I love it.
All too often we are trying to figure out a way to easily explain and bring ideas, numbers and comparisons together and this is the perfect marriage. It’s not about clutter, its about showing information in the ways that people learn. I think that this is something that the web and bloggers in specific need to get better at to convey ideas and information.
Shane
twitter.com/keenerguy
I hope you do write more about design as relates to marketing, I need to learn how to put together a powerful infographic now.
This is a great idea, I’d be interested in learning how you can keep some sort of connection or link back to your own website if images are just being shared and distributed.. I guess you can put the links back in the actual infographic. Thanks for the advice.
Great post Maki.This is really a fantastic concept.Looking forward to your coming posts on this subject.Can you tell us a bit about the software or product ( tool ) to create these infographics?
It is no longer the “text” only in the blogging scene.Lots of visual techniques are being used for optimum result.Visual has also more attention capturing capacity where as we simply skim over text in the web.
I really like wood Good is doing. I think they’re accessible videos are going to be a big distributer of information once their site starts getting more traffic. The creativity involved in telling narratives is a fascinating design issue of this decade.
Looks like you may be a fan of Ed Tufte. If not, become one.
Maki, love the blog but you’re dead wrong on this.
You say infographics are useful in representing complex information and spreading ideas. But then you show us pictures of an elephant, a camel and an airplane in a circle around a guy on a bike. What!??! What kind of a conversation would that inform? As for the others:
- The Reform School infographic is schizophrenic and basically not consumable.
- The McDonald’s infographic has an interesting bubble map in the top right, but other than that looks like propaganda.
- The economy graph is the only one that seems to use most of its energy to actually convey information.
What you seem to be suggesting is a USA-Today style dumbing-down of charts with cute pictures and tricks. What we need, given the proliferation of data today, is a way to understand that data better. Search for the New York Times interactive graphics on home prices or the election and you’ll see real data, presented for the sake of comprehension, not flash.
Here’s a gallery>/a> of other data visualizations by Tableau Software. Tableau was formed out of a Stanford research project to help people understand and make decisions from data. But hey, even if you don’t use Tableau, at least use good graph design principles.
Ellie
Great post Maki!
In 1960 Professor Albert Mehrabian did a study on the effectiveness of our spoken communication model and discovered that words represented only 7% of the message’s meaning.
Presentations with lots of text fail because it makes your audience think things like these: “Hey! There’s so much text in that slide. That 8pt font isn’t helping me either…”.
When you make your audience think they stop listening to you! And this completely breaks the communication channel.
Keep up the good work!
Wow, those infographics are beautiful. I’m now wondering how I can use them to draw traffic to my blog. Like the site.
Hi Maki
Great Post. Need to know tools regards this infographics. Mostly open source
@mireille –
You should check out Tableau Software. They have a really easy to use data visualization tool. It makes beautiful graphics and they’re easy to share.
i loved your thoughts on infographics. I agree that they are very informative and should be used more often. I also think its great that infographics can be used cross-culturally. hope you post more!
http://scienceandstilettos.blogspot.com/
Another brilliant article. Hey Maki, when will you start posting like daily as you did before? I just can’t get enough of your ideas man.
Big firms such as the ones above will always need such presentations ..
great post maki
For anyone who’s interested in accurately conveying information in graphics like this I highly recommend Edward Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information, Visual Explanations and Beautiful Evidence.
Good graphics.What kind of software are you using to produce those? I´m looking for something similar for my blog.
Great information and you certainly planted a seed for a lot of people. Also, thanks to those people in the posts above who put links to tools and tutorials as I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to do this other than drawing, scanning, then uploading the file….and that would NOT have been pretty;)
Hi Maki,
First time commenting on your site…..
Thanks for the wonderful tip.
Will try to utilize that.
Cheers and all the best.
Ever since seeing the rise of David Bowker’s ‘one week of the guardian’ infographics blog it’s been clear to me how powerful infographics can be.
I agree that this is an underutilized tool for sure, but it takes some solid thought and good insight to make kick butt infographics.
If you can do it right, it’s worth it.
You’re absolutely right. I like how David Armano does that.
Those are some impressive graphics but I think they’re a little beyond the average blogger’s ability.
very informative, and plenty of food for thought/play… thanks.
this is image collection is the same that i made up through a google image research to my college LOL
Info-graphcs! Brilliant! I could apply this to my next college project
thank you! Great examples too!
Ohh, pretty
Shame I couldn’t design anything like that for beans.
The Wall Street Journal published some books on personal finance that made great use of infographics.
How many blogs or websites do you have,maki?
I think if you have some experience for you to write article,you must have some other kinds of blogs..
ehm. i guess its needed. I also put some photo or graphic when i posting at my blog.
Another great post. Your blog is one of the best for blogging advice. Always have useful posts. Thanks.
We keep talking about how content is king and this is a refreshing angle to show that infographics is equally important. We can even say it is the queen.
A picture speaks a thousand words and they have the potential to be more viral than chunks of text.
I am no genius in design but I will try to work with a few freelancers to make my blog more attractive.
Graphics can help us to understand the whole point easier. Thanks Maki
Great article, particularly for a word-bound person like me. I need reminders that the majority of folks think in pictures even tho’ I don’t, usually. Thanks
Anne Wayman, now blogging at http://www.aboutfreelancewriting.com
I definitely agree with you on this one although it is easier said than done for most bloggers (like me). For now, I try to use mind map, spreadsheets, and pictures to illustrate a point in one of my blogs.
Normally I saw it at newspaper only..
I’ve heard that assembling a bunch of those pictures into a slide show (on the same topic of course) and making a movie-maker slide show to promote a product on sites like megavideo and youtube is a great affiliate trick that works for some people.
Infographics are the best way to get your information out there, unfortunately, they are amongst the most difficult to get right. And are time consuming to make… worth the effort tho.
Images are great for all the visual learners. The definitely help in marketing!
After reading this post I can see how important having an image in front of your post would be. Thank, I am off to create my images for my blog.
Great content and keep it coming,
Mike
Interesting and helpful post, keep em coming, thanks =-)
I think Infographics are a great idea. They interest the readers, make the site more sticky, look better, and are a good way to give a lot of information without a lot of words.
If used right I can see this being very very viral. When I think about it, infographics has been around for decades. Now savvy internet markets and bloggers will need to find a way to merge it with online media. That will be powerful.
I didn’t used any graphics in my blog.but now I will give it a try to see whether it is good or not
These graphics are so interactive. Graphics help most business owners. Some people feel if the graphics on a website are sick. This business cannot be a scam. But graphics do help a businesses pockets.
nice idea, graphics always help.
on the other hand, well structured text only websites are great too, i hate waiting for megabytes of images to download.
Brilliant idea man, i never really thought of it.
it’s an eye opener.
Infographics are definatly a fantastic way to convey an idea. I guess the only downside would be in taking the time to create the ‘right’ images to best capture the idea’s your trying to get across.
Pictures are definatly more viral than text also, the added bonus of having a specific infographic you have created is that if its used on other sites hopefully it would help promote your orginal content.
Attractive images are often just as important as a strong headline. I find myself looking at a post twice if the image attached is luring. It also provides visitors to your blog or web page with some instant gratification. Even if there aren’t any immediate stories that meet their interest…there is something there that made clicking on your site worthwhile. –Gennaro
Hey you’re site has helped me out! I am rather new to blogging, but have been reading your archives on AdSense and such. It helped!
http://webmarketingfaq.blogspot.com/ is now actually getting readers!
It is true that they make a lot of difference. I have personal experience of one of my blogs how it attracted the traffic after I put the graphics and information charts.
True! People are more visual than text-inclined. The eyes see graphics even before the text. An infographic is a good way to attract.
Ancient mechanical drawings can be traced back to ancient Egypt and were known as infographics. These either told a story or illustrated a process and were mostly carved in rock or drawn on papyrus. The more famous historical mechanical drawings came from the preindustrial era and were illustrations made by men like Leonardo Da Vinci.
Brilliant idea man, i never really thought of it.
it’s an eye opener.
Infographics are really great, but the hard part is really choosing the topic and planning the whole thing out, any tips?
You know, I *did* consider making something like that… but if I didn’t have a team of graphic designers, my infographics would probably not even be used for toilet paper! Heh. But thanks for sharing this, I’ll definitely keep this idea in mind!
Asher
Wonderful post Maki! Interesting take really, using infographics for marketing surely deserves some serious consideration. Thanks for this very useful post. =)
I believe that there are some annoying infographics, but utilized correctly, they awesome. They are a brilliant way to advertise and is one of the less annoying, more pleasing form of advertisement that is fun for the provider and the consumer.
Very nice detailed information that you put in here, well yes putting image inside of your post can attract visitor to read, I have seen a lot of successful blog that using this method and even myself are doing it
Also if you have read some of SEO book, then you’ll know that using images can bring traffic by implementing several method inside if your images
-My 2 cents
Great article, I like graphic as support and Infographics are a great way blend to take boring numbers or raw stats and original images can attract an audience it a more visually appealing experience. I don’t really remember numbers that well but I can remember a cool graphic.
Images play an important role in any design. You could get a group of people to look at the same picture and each person would interpret what they see in it a different way, as it is true what they say an image is worth more than a thousand words. Images can really make your design work and attract peoples attention to read the information on your website or in a magazine. I agree with Yellow Search Engine Optimization, people do tend to remember a cool graphic and not the content.
Try reading the books of Edward R. Tufte or looking up the works of Nigel Holmes (of Time Magazine from way back).