A Guide to Promoting Your Infographics

You’ve probably heard we process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. It’s due to this natural part of us that makes infographics such useful and engaging marketing materials. They grab attention and have higher retention rates than concepts explained solely with text.

Marketers have used infographics regularly in their content strategies for a few reasons. They’re highly shareable, easy to read and engage with and make great pieces of evergreen content. Infographics are also affordable and can be made easily online if you don’t have a dedicated graphic designer.

As an internet marketing company, here are our top tips for incorporating infographics into your marketing plan.

First, Pick the Right Topic

When you write content, there are two types to go with – trendy and evergreen. Trendy content is meant to help you ride a particular subject wave that’s popular on your top social media platforms. This type of content can help your brand be discovered in the moment but quickly becomes irrelevant once the trend dies down.

To create infographics that are related to a particular trend, you can use content research tools like BuzzSumo and Google Trends to see what topics are trending in your industry. When you optimize the graphic, ensure your title, meta, and description all have the necessary keywords and hashtags to make it easier for people to find your infographic.

Evergreen content is related to topics that are relevant for a while. It’s useful for inbound lead generation and for recycling. The great thing about evergreen content is you can update it about once a year and send it out through different channels as an update.

The Easy Part: Make the Infographic

Once you have your topic, you can start designing the infographic. You’ll want to start out with a script your graphic designer can use to make the graphic. It should be between 350-400 words total so as not to overload the viewer.

You’ll also need to write an eye-catching headline to entice your viewers. Your title will depend on your audience – will they respond to humor, industry-authority, or something controversial?

When you write your script, also spend some time on a brief text introduction that will appear before your infographic. It should be 3-4 sentences long and lay out what’s included in the graphic.

Finally, if your company does research, use an infographic to cleanly and concisely display that data. You’ll gain more authority if you use your own stats. If you can’t afford to run your own survey or research, you can synthesize sources to make your point. Just be sure to cite your sources at the bottom of the page.

Promoting Your Infographic

One reason infographics are so popular among content marketers is they get high levels of engagement when they’re published. This means more likes, comments, and shares on social channels. Shareability is key when you’re trying to spread your content, hence the emphasis on titles. Once you’ve created and proofread your infographic, it’s time to share it with the world. If you have an active blog for your business, start by publishing the infographic in a new post on your CMS. Be sure to include the 3-4 sentence introduction.

When you share on a blog meant for generating inbound leads, you’ll also want to optimize the following information about your infographic for SEO:

Descriptive File Name

Giving your infographic a descriptive file name helps search engines understand what it is since they can’t “see” graphics. This means having a filename like key-facts-about-infographics.png instead of untitled.png.

Descriptive Alt Text

Alt text is another way for search engines to read your image. The alt text is also what’s displayed if an image can’t load or what’s read if a visually impaired person visits your website.

The key to writing alt text is to use enough keywords to help search engines understand what your infographic is about without keyword stuffing.

Have an Awesome Meta Description

When users browse the web, they’ll read two things: the page title and the meta description. While they mostly pay attention to the title, the meta description is equally important in attracting attention and getting a user to click on your link.

You’ll want to keep the description between 135 and 160 characters so web users get a teaser message without the description being truncated. You should also use your target keyword once so web crawlers can index it.

Get Social

When you publish your new infographic, you want to ensure you’ve embedded social media sharing buttons in the post. Including share buttons will encourage users to share your infographic as well as reduce friction for them to share it.

After publishing the infographic on your blog, you should also share it to your company’s social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. Each company’s most popular and engaged social media channels depends on the industry and which platforms the target audience uses most.

Don’t let creating and promoting infographics turn into a daunting task. Writing and designing them is fun, as is sharing your hard work with your audiences. Learn more about how you can attract more visitors with a free internet marketing analysis