DIY Guide to Infographic Production

vc oltier DIY Infographic PRODUCTION Creative With 200 million people on the FTC's do not call list, sharp declines in email usage and 78% of Internet users engaging in product research online, no wonder 2/3 of marketers have increased their spend on interactive and inbound marketing tactics. What's one of the best ways to generate buzz, positive PR, links and Google rankings? İnfographics! INBOUND MARKETING UNIVERSITY: Classroom I What is an infographic? A visual representation of data. Popular infographics always find clever, compelling, timely and relevant ways to illustrate sets of data. 2 Why are infographics becoming so popular? Search Engine Rankings Informative A good infographic should express a The search engines reward websites that are linked to a lot. Increasingly, topic in a new way, come to a different conclusion or take a position additional metrics such as social on an idea. If great research and media engagements (like tweets and facebook shares) are having an editing are completed, you'll hopefully provide a paradigm shifting impact on how well a website can rank. Creating infographics is a great way to make something that is linkworthy as well as highly shareable! experience for the reader. This is the hallmark of a great graphic and usually results in it being shared. Eyecandy Marketing & Advertising Consuming information visually can make learning Infographics are typically more engaging than written media and as easier and more fun. If executed well, the graphic permanent as video. This fact should grant infographics a high spot on your list of often used marketing tactics. can help the reader with spatial-temporal reasoning. This graphic provides a newbie infographic creator with the scaffolding with which learning should occur, if his/her goal is to produce fantastic graphics. Why do inbound marketers love infographics? Versatility Highly Targetable Linkbuilding Complete Control You can create an You'll have control infographic about any topic & for any Infographic content is extremely link-worthy. Combined with their versatility, infographics can be a over content, mes- saging and aesthet- website. powerful tool for building links from valuable and authoritative sources. ics. INBOUND MARKETING UNIVERSITY : Laboratory Today's Experiment: Use the following 7 steps to create a #WINNING infographic. Step 1. Ideation: Finding an Idea That You Know Will Blow Up Hunt Through Popular Social Media Search social networking sites such as twitter and |facebook to monitor activity surrounding your topic. Scour social news aggregators such as Digg and Reddit to find out what's hot and what's not. Identify a compelling position and go in for the kill. Organize a Brainstorming Session Take the seeds from your preliminary ideation session and allow others to critique and build upon your progress. The goal is to kill ideas that suck and keep ideas that do not suck. Capitalize on Timely Events What current events have high Internet activity? Timely, global news stories often have unique angles that have not been explored by the mainstream. Monitor online commentary to see if a shared view or consensus is forming and be the one to expose it. NEWS Easily Explain a Complex topic ?e! There are tons of topics out there that the general public has a hard time understanding. Break those topics down into easy to understand principles and deliver in a creative way - you'll get an instant winner. Describe a Process for (idea) Creating a Valuable Product How-to's and other process oriented ncept graphics always have the potential to do very well. The trick is finding things that people want to learn how-to do. (Developm. Product Idea Selection: Step 2. Finding a Diamond in the Rough Assess all ideas using the following criteria: -ABC123 a Does the idea make C Does the idea explore a new angle to a topic? Is the idea editorial sense for the website(s) it will be published on? easy to understand? SPAM) Are their legitimate sources to support your idea? Half-assing your Are you interested in the idea? If you don't like it, why would somebody Can you easily narrate the idea and use illustrations to visualize the words and facts will result in a ideas metaphorically? graphic that smells like else? S**.. SPAM The idea that scores the highest should be chosen for production! Research: Step 3. Getting Interesting & Legitimate Facts How to research your idea and create the most compelling fact sets START YOUR RESEARCH IN THE FOLLOWING PLACES; THE MOST AUTHORITATIVE SOURCE USUALLY WINS! Government Educational Institutions Agencies Usually publish whitepapers Typically publish articles in academic journals that may regarding topics directly or tangentially related to your idea. support your topic. Other Popular Online Sources If you're going to use content from other websites, be sure to make sure it's authoritative within its own niche. Google defines authority by a metric called PageRank. All websites are given a PageRank value between 0 and 10. PageRank organizes its results using a logarithmic scale. New websites have a 0 and extremely relevant and popular websites are usually between 7 and 10. CURATING THE INFORMATION: EDIT OUT THE GARBAGE, HIGHLIGHT THE TREASURES Comb through your research with a filter for articles, papers, journals Define and Describe the Thesis and other media that you think will support and illuminate the topic and your graphic as a whole. From your pared down sources of data, select points that would be Generate a theme for each grouping of interesting to visualize, grouping similar points together. data points that Write the connecting provides a fit for the thesis and topic. narrative so the data points flow together from one section to the next. Organize the information using titles, subtitles and other + happy # indicators to help guide the O. designer present the information, Step 4. Conceptual Visualization: Art & Illustration Direction Create the Mood Retinal Excitement Use a palette creator and past examples to give your designer the feeling you're trying to convey. Choose matching or complimentary colors based on where the graphic will live. Offer the designer guidance on visuals that represent different sets of data. You get bonus points for metaphoric illustration. Organic Cohesiveness The title, intro, sub-titles and different sections should all feel part of the same theme. Background colors and images serve as layers of messaging that help blend the content with the graphics. Step 5. First Full Draft: Did your designer get it? Check to be sure all of your content is present within the Can you automatically graphic. understand what the graphic is about? Are the illustrations accurate? Does it persuasively educate the reader about the topic? Is it consumable? Make sure the sections flow and connect with a theme. Step 6. Revisions: Clean Up, Polish & Shine * Critique the graphic using the following separate lenses: EDITORIAL Are your Is the most compelling sources information included? included? +, CONCEPTUAL Chcek splleing Does the topic make sense from and grmamar start to finish? Are there any redundant or not needed sections? VISUAL Do the illustrations help you understand the topic, have no impact or distract you from really getting the information? Step 7. Plan the Production Process 10% Visualization & Art Direction Quality design will improve legitimacy and get the reader excited. 10% Content Research Proficient Internet Full Draft A good first draft search skills go a long way in finding hot will be about 75% sources. perfect. 30% 10% Revisions 3 - 4 revisions should get the graphic on point. Idea Selection You can't automatically win with a good idea but you can automatically fail 20% with a bad one Ideation Develop a good social intuition and keep a sharp mind about the latest news. vc UoltierCreative Find us on: B in VoltierCreative.com Voltier Creative was created by three geeks with an Internet connection who are on a clear mission to help businesses get the most out of their web presence. Born in the age of the Internet, Voltier is above the norm and will advise against spending your ad dollars in the same way you always have. Leading in Social Media Marketing & Search Engine Optimization, we are here to help your brand compete online. Cheers! Sources http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/11414/12-Mind- Blowing-Statistics-Every-Marketer-Should-Know.aspx http://voltiercreative.com/2010/11/lifecycle-of-linkbait-infographic/ ****.