Learn ways infographics improve your content. Including an infographic with your content is going to improve it by 110%, guarantee, and here’s
why. For our brains images easier to process than text. We remember facts that are given to us in simple to understand terms, and even more so when there’s a graphic involved.
Why We Need Infographics
Infographics are the perfect way to spice up your content, break up wordy blogs, and create a sharable buzz among consumers. Here are just 3 ways infographics improve your content:
Looks Matter
One of the attractive things about infographics is, well, they’re attractive. When done correctly, an infographic can be extremely eye-catching for the viewers.
Bright colors, bolded stats, and easily broken up sections make the information nice to look at. Compare that to reading all the information in a lengthy blog paragraph, how much do you think you’ll really remember from that? Probably not much. And let’s be honest, we all know you skimmed it anyway.
But with an infographic, people enjoy looking at it and can’t take their eyes off of it. The creativity of an infographic is what really makes it shine. People remember the facts better because it has a picture or graphic to go along with it.
A good example of this might include stats about people’s favorite pie. Rather than doing a simple pie chart, you might cleverly design an actual pie to showcase the data within the chart. Simple graphics like that will help the information stick better in the consumer’s mind.
Content Is Easy To Digest
Infographics are great to narrow down a ton of information all into one, nice looking piece of artwork. They’re also beneficial to those that are visual learners. All too often, people are swamped with stats, information, news, you name it, making it difficult to digest everything. But when the information is presented in a way that’s pleasant to the eye, it’s much easier to take in.
Not to mention, people will actually want to look at it longer than 2 seconds. It takes much less time and the information presented by the infographic is actually committed to memory a lot easier, therefore, making it more shareable which leads us to our next point.
It’s Sharable
A well-made infographic could spread like wildfire. The reason? Infographics have one of the key factors needed to make something go viral: the ‘wow’ factor. Often, people are in awe when they read the information in an infographic and they want to share those facts with their friends. Because the graphic is simple to understand, people will remember those facts even better, making them even more shareable.
Infographics provide people with that perfect opportunity to say ‘did you know?’ to their group of friends. It allows them to sound smart and impress their friends with their knowledge. Then, their friends will take that piece of information that you shared from the infographic and spread it to their friends, and so on and so on.
Infographics can be easily shared on social media too. If it’s eye-catching enough it will really stop someone in their scrolling, make them pause for a moment to absorb the infographic information, and likely click the share button if the information is interesting and relevant enough.
What Makes a Good Infographic?
Now that we know why infographics are so important for your content, let’s talk about how to make a really good one. More ways infographics improve your content:
Do Your Research
The first step to creating an infographic is to gather the facts and stats you want to include in your graphic. This is likely going to be the bulk work of your project, so be sure to spend some time on it.
As you are doing your research, keep track of the sources you’re pulling information from. You’ll need to include the citations for the sources in your infographic (typically at the bottom) to:
- Give credit to where you got the info
- Look more credible
For infographics, you can grab your information from pretty much anywhere, as long as it’s a trustworthy source. A few great places to find info for different topics that are credible sources include:
- Harvard Business Review
- Wall Street Journal
- New York Times
- Your local library
- CNN
- Academic Review Journals
Pick a Theme
Now it’s time to get really creative. Once you’ve gathered all the info you need, we get into the artsy part of creating an infographic. At this stage, you can pick a color scheme that you enjoy, or, if you’re creating one for a client, colors that match their branding.
This is where you also pick out a font that matches the theme you’re going for. If you’re working on an infographic for a client, you can use tools like Font Ninja to match the font of their branding for your creation.
Think about the kind of graphics you want to use as well. Do you want to go with a pictograph, timeline, comparison, report, anatomical, process, location, or something completely new that’s never been done before? It’s up to you, just stay consistent with the entire look throughout the whole piece.
Keep It Simple, Keep It Organized
The worst thing you can do when creating an infographic is making it look too crowded or disorganized. The beauty of an infographic is the visual appeal it provides, and if you don’t have that, it’s not going to add any value to your content.
Every so often while you’re working on your graphic, step away for a moment and come back to it later with a fresh set of eyes. Sometimes when we work on projects for so long we forget the end goal and get caught up in each little section, not seeing the whole picture.
Better yet, get a second pair of eyes. Ask a friend, coworker, stranger, you name it to take a look at your graphic and give you feedback.
It’s okay if you’re working on your graphic and decide to completely trash everything you did. Think of it as writing a paper. You have multiple drafts that you go through. You’ll delete things, add stuff, and eventually have it just the way you want it. Tools and more ways infographics improve your content:
Tools To Use
There are 2 main tools you can use to create a stunning infographic:
Canva is a free creating tool, but you can pay a fee to get access to the different premium products it offers. Canva is pretty user friendly and easy to learn, but it can be a bit touchy and frustrating to work with sometimes.
With Canva, you’re limited to what they provide you. There aren’t as many tools or options to create certain designs, but if you’re in a crunch, it does the trick.
Photoshop, on the other hand, has a lot to offer. Just a heads up, Adobe Photoshop is a service you have to pay for (typically a monthly fee) but you can check it out with a free trial to see if it’s something you want to pursue.
Adobe Photoshop has a steep learning curve, but luckily, we live in the 21st century and there are plenty of tools for you to master the skill. Not only does Photoshop offer tutorial videos on the product, but there are also a ton of different YouTube videos to check out as well.
Let’s Get Started
So what are you waiting for? Let’s make an incredible infographic with all the bells and whistles that’s bound to go viral.
Here’s an example to get you started:
You are now ready to make your own infographic!
By: Rebecca Poulsen
Check out our other blogs here.