5 Secrets to Go Viral With an Infographic

As social and digital media continues to evolve, visual storytelling becomes more important. As I've written before, storytelling is the most effective and memorable form of communication. Infographics are a smart way to tell a story because they break down information and make it simple for the reader. The pictures are an added bonus because they will get people's attention. Justin Beegel, CEO of Infographic World and the author of Infographics for Dummies, set to launch in May, offers 5 tips to creating an infographic that will go viral and global.

1) Identify the ideas that have legs

The key is to create a viral infographic campaign that has mass appeal, is timely and innovative. If there is a hot topic in the news it helps to capitalize on it and take it to the next step or give it a new angle. Avoid ideas that are too niche. If you can walk a fine line between what is controversial and what is acceptable, that will help it go viral as controversy sells.

2) Be Able to Mobilize Quickly

A good example of this was a few years ago when Justin saw a map of the U.S. and it listed stereotypes that best described the people from that state. The infographic was called How Europeans view America. He saw this as an opportunity and quickly had his team put together a map of Europe and called it How Americans View Europe, in which they went country by country and made our own stereotypes. The graphic spread like wildfire, actually crashing their server for an hour from too much web traffic. A few other examples of successful and timely campaigns featured a look into the life of Steve Jobs shortly following his death and one on the business of running for president around the 2012 Presidential elections.

3) Make Your Tone Appropriate to Your Audience

B2B marketers should consider their industry and make the tone appropriate. Justin has done campaigns across the spectrum from major hospitals such as Mount Sanai to entertainment properties such as ESPN. Topics have ranged from Breast Cancer Awareness Month to the Superbowl. You want to make sure the tone is appropriate for your industry and audience. For a serious topic you may not want silly cartoon-like characters but for the light-hearted topics you can have a lot more fun.

4) Sync Up Distribution Tactics

Once the infographic is completed, it is critical to coordinate promotional efforts with all stakeholders. The graphic should go live on all parties’ websites and across all their social media platforms to give it the widest possible launching pad for exposure. Consider tapping into cross-promotional and PR opportunities so you can distribute the infographic widespread to relevant media in order to maximize coverage.

5) Consider Going Interactive

Adults are grown children and enjoy playing with things. By making your infographic interactive, readers can click on various parts of the infographic to get more information. For example, Justin did a great interactive infographic on crime in America and if you click on each state you could see where it ranks in various categories such as theft, violent crimes, murder, etc. By going interactive, you are likely to get more shares and back links which will drive your business.

As you can see, infographics make things more interesting- and if done well, more viral! People interpret images a lot faster than they interpret words, so it is important to grab their attention!

Now it's YOUR turn. What are YOUR reactions to this infographic on infographics? Did you like to see the information in this layout? Did the photos pull you in? Please share your thoughts in the comments sections below!

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Dave Kerpen is the founder and CEO of Likeable Local. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of Likeable Media, and the New York Times-bestselling author of Likeable Social Media and Likeable Business, and the new collection, Likeable Leadership. To read more from Dave on LinkedIn, please click the FOLLOW button above or below.

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