2017. The very year of rise in visual content. It has been predicted long back that 2017 and the years beyond will see a meteoric rise in visual contents through the digital realm. And why not. Today, when people are too busy to miss their lunch and dinner, conveying any message to them, is like scaling the Everest!
Visuals on the other hand, carry out this daunting job perfectly. And this is the reason why Infographics, Social Media Graphics, and Memes spread like wildfire. Because image is exactly the need of the hour. Nothing can beat the power of strong visual content and data visualizations. And thus Infographics are so much in demand. But creating a charming and viral Infographic is a challenge, owing to the number of these graphics are produced each day.
Now what are ‘Viral Infographics’? And Infographic becomes viral only when it is both engaging, as well as informative, and which has been liked and shared umpteen times. This goes an Infographic the stature of going “Viral”. But where do you start?
Best way to create infographics
What’s the first step to create best infographics that will be stupendously shared, re-tweeted, liked and commented on? Well, we have the secret to it. We have the answer to the question as to how to a viral Infographic could be crafted. What are the correct design and content formation practices to achieve this? Keep on reading, and you will also get to know the answer on how to create amazing infographics.
1. Research About Your Target Audience
First thing first, do a thorough research about your target audience. Understand the demographics with small details, like age group, common interests, likings and dislikings, social status, what are their daily challenges, how can your involvement help them overcome their challenges and problems, etc. Getting all these facts correct is very crucial before you put on your thinking cap on and start forming the content, as you would get a solid base to focus on.
2. Be Original
To let your creation have a better chance in the competition, strive to be utmost original in both content and design perspectives. Because these days people are great fan of original content and design. Internet has so many fake and copied contents, that anything original stands out immediately. You might take some inspiration or a design idea from somewhere or someone, but transform the concept into something original. Banal contents are hated by most of the netizens today.
Use your own research to form the content, and your creative imagination to craft the design.
3. Create a Wire-frame of Your Infographic
A wire-frame or a blue print is essential for an Infographic in many ways. Because while you create a wire frame you get an idea of the positioning of the graphics and texts. Also you can easily get an idea of the structure and length of the Infographic. Plan smartly with an wire-frame and don’t rush while designing.
4. Tell A Story
Telling a story is the best way to communicate and convince. Create a story around the content you come up with, and structure the design in a way that it tells a story to your audience. An amazing design with an interesting story, appeals many.
Share some of your personal experiences while working on a project, or how you met a tight deadline, or may be how you dealt with a grumpy client (of course, keep the name of the customer anonymous ;)), in the form of an Infographic, and you can attract more traffic, backlinks and ROI. Moreover, this will do wonders for your brand too.
5. Get Your Facts Right
Be doubly sure about the facts that you put in your design. This increases your brand’s credibility. The world of Internet is full of hoaxes, false facts, and several other fake stuffs. So when you collect secondary data from online, ensure you get them from a reliable and authentic source, and also check more than one sources. Ensure that your data doesn’t date back 3-4 years, because people won’t really care about such stale facts.
People look up to Infographics in search of latest and true facts. So any false fact or substantially old data will at once repel your audience, besides marring your brand name and online reputation.
6. Only Target Relevant/Popular Topics
Relevance is the key to make your infographic a viral one. These days if a topic or a data is not relevant, your creation will stay back forever in the race no matter how excellent the design is. Find a topic that gives them the updates about what’s going on in the surroundings.
Always remember, the more relevant and trendy your Infographic is, the more viral it becomes. Of you not give anything trendy or popular to your audience, why would they care for any design you create.
7. Include More Visuals & Less Text
Infographics must never be texty. Infographics are actually meant for less text and more visual. If there are lot of texts in the design, that totally diminishes the purpose it is created for. Because if your audience wanted plain and long texts, they wouldn’t have bothered to check your Infographic in the first place, right? So impress them with minimal text and a lot of relevant visuals.
So just include important texts in bullet forms, compile big sentences into shorter and crisper ones. That way your Infographic will go a long way and attain a “viral” stature.
8. Choose a Suitable Font Type, Font Size and Color
Choice of apt fonts and size of the fonts are highly crucial while you create an Infographic. Because the type of font you put in the design, gives you a hold on the design and lets you put through your message loud and clear. Fuzzy and cluttered fonts makes a design drab and hurting to the eyes. Go for clean and elegant font. You may use more than two fonts in your design, but that’s the limit. Do not use five-six different fonts, since that is a distraction for your audience.
Font size is another important criteria to be considered. If the font size is huge, it will automatically make your design gigantic, because you need space to fit your big fonts, right? So never go for big fonts sizes. Pick some moderate size fonts from your arsenal, and see how your Infographic becomes a hit.
Also, keep a close check on proper typography. Because typography matters indeed. The kind of style you apply to your fonts that you choose for your design, determines the aesthetic quotient of the same. So don’t just negate this aspect.
And finally, the color of the over all design. Now color is a big thing that you must choose meticulously. Of course you have to abide by the nature of your content, but endure that gaudy and loud colors are avoided. Bright and loud color hurt the eyes, and are quite a repellent! Read your content over and over again, fathom the nature of the same, and choose a color that stays true to the nature of your content, but also doesn’t create any jeopardy as far your design is concerned.
9. Pack a Punch With the Headline
Headline is such an element of any content, that can either make or break it. Headline is the first thing that comes to the notice of the viewers, and a catchy headline can give you enough limelight. Whereas a drab and bland one can ruin your effort.
And that’s the reason you would need a killer headline with a punch for your content. This will make it stand out and give the popularity it deserves. Analyze your headline, whether it has the relevant keywords or not, because to rank higher in SEO, you have to put keywords in your headlines, that the search engines spiders can catch.
You may take help of CoSchedule, that will enable you to create powerful headlines, adorned by SEO optimized keywords.
10. Show Data in the Form of Graphs & Charts
You would often find people getting bored during the presentations of statistical data and reports. What do you think turns them off? The boredom and monotony of plain data reports. What do this suggest? That statistical data and survey reports must always be represented more visually and less textually.
Colorful, bright, and well-designed charts and graphs in your Infographic will no doubt help you audience understand your Infographic better. And apart from that, it is way easier to represent a statistical report through charts and graphs, since you can well explain the technical details through graphs.
11. Take Care of SEO
Keeping up with the SEO is the next big thing to be considered if you want to make your Infographic go viral. Because the more you will optimize the design for SEO, the more will it be visible on search. Just as I mentioned your headline must be comprised of apt keywords, same is needed for all the components of your Infographic. Right from the topic, and the content itself, all should be optimized enough to rank well on search engines.
12. Add Your Company’s Logo
The single-most significant criteria, add your logo somewhere in the design. Because your logo is your identification. And if your design actually goes viral you must give your audience some clue as to who you are, and the design has been created by you. Without a logo it is impossible to identify and trace the original creator of any design.
Adding your brand logo will give you good returns as the more people see your logo, the more would want to check your website too. Just play smart with the positioning of the logo. You must place it in the design in such a way that it won’t get too much on the face, neither gets lost amidst the texts and the graphics. Be subtle, but don’t get lost.
Putting your logo in your Infographic plays another important role in preventing your design not to get
“digitally stolen” by some other person. Imagine one fin day you get to see, the Infographic you have created, that’s being used by or is published in a blog or in any other website. This kid of situation only happens when there’s no logo provided that helps people trace the actual creator of the design.
So always ensure your logo is added in the design. If your design gets loved by all and sundry, just by tracing your logo they can reach out to you, as well share your Infographic more and more, thus making it “viral.’
13. Include a Section For Sources
While creating content for an Infographic, more or less all of us collect data from the Internet. And while doing so we gather information, stats and facts from many websites and sources where the topic on which the Infographic is based on, is explained in detail. So it is your duty to mention all of those sources so that people who are interested to read about the topic in detail, can do so.
Mentioning the sources does another help. It keeps your integrity intact. When people sees you have been honest to mention the original sources where from you have taken the data, it will enhance your impression and credibility in front of them. A good way to make your creation go viral.
14. Provide a Call-To-Action Button
You simply cannot imagine what can a compelling call-to-action do, or what effect it can have on the viewer. Just as a person comes to the end of your design, if there lies a great call-action-action button, asking the viewer to take an action, be sure you would get a call from him/her. Or he/she will check out your website at least once.
Be very choosy while designing a CTA, because this is going to be highly essential for your business. Correct use of font and color, proper text, and an intelligent placement of the CTA button can make your Infographic go viral very easily. Also make sure that your CTA button redirects your target audience to a relevant landing page.
15. Add Social Sharing Buttons
Nothing happens without social media, and nothing happens outside social media these days. Social media has its reach in all the aspects of our lives, both personally, and professionally. Whatever you create or design, you must show it off to people through social networks. And if anything gets popularity and hype in mighty social channels, like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and the like, there’s simply no looking back.
So make the best out of social media and don’t forget to add social media buttons at the end of your design, so that the viewers can share the same with their friends and families if they like it. The more shares your design gets, the more likes, and more likes means more popularity and finally, being viral. You may put the buttons at the bottom, just where your logo and the CTA buttons are. And don’t put numerous social sharing buttons. Choose the leading ones and give those accordingly.
Final Words
You see, there is no hard and fast rule to get your best viral infographics. But these tried and tested methods have proven their mettle several times. Try to maintain these essential tips while you research, curate, and design your Infographic, and be one step ahead of getting your design viral. As an extra tip, do try to submit your Infographic in notable submission sites, namely, Visual.Ly, Slideshare, Infographics Archive, NerdGraph, etc. These are mostly free submission sites that are Infographics-oriented, and which can give you valuable backlinks.
And finally, if you ever need any professionally designed, and creatively crafted Infographic for your business, we are just an email away. You may contact us at contact@infographicdesignteam.com, and tell us all about your content marketing and digital marketing needs. We are all ears.
Do you think we missed any tip to mention? Do you have any other suggestions to share? If yes, then do drop a comment in the comments section below. Also let us know if any of our tips helped you to make your Infographic viral.
Godspeed!
