How to create infographics which will be shared like crazy on social media

There is no denying that a well-executed infographic is a visual eye-candy.

When people used bar graphs and pie charts, it was beginning to look a bit boring and that was when infographics come in as a welcome respite. It is a brilliant way to educate and create awareness about your products and services in a subtle way, without actually doing it. The most intelligently crafted infographic will always be remembered for its engaging content and inspiring theme. At this day and age of information overload, creating a good infographic is a sure way to get across to your target segment.

You have a stunning infographic, but how do you share it?

When you post something in Facebook, you wait for the likes, shares and comments. Sometimes they never come, and at other times, they showed a promising start only to trickle down to very few likes and even lesser shares. So, what went wrong there? It is not easy to get attention in Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the like, because thousands of new information gets posted every second. How can you guarantee that you will get all the likes that you have been wishing for?

Here are some strategies that would help you achieve maximum shares through social media:

Concentrate on images and design of the infographic

With all due respect to content, it is very important that your infographic should have eye-catching images and design. When you create a website and post content in there, there is no guarantee that your visitor will read it word to word. Instead, if you put in attractive images and informative videos, it will surely grab their attention.

When you have lots of content to share

Infuse your infographics with plenty of content but do it in such a way that it doesn’t bore them. Nobody would share anything that bored them. So, in order to make your infographic shareable, make sure they have big, focused headlines. Incorporate lots of subheads so it would be easier for them to follow the content.

Follow the inverted pyramid structure

This is something taught in journalism classes – the inverted pyramid structure. In this style, you place the most important information at the top of the content, so it will not be missed. To make sure people enjoy reading top heavy content, incorporate tricks like italics, bold phrases and bullet points. When you follow the hierarchical structure, include a “hero” in the content to take the lead.

Emotional appeal works almost all the time

People share something only when they feel connected to it, when they get inspired and motivated. So when you create content for your infographic, make sure there is something that resonates with the emotions of the reader. When your infographic is ready for publishing just look at it from the reader’s perspective using these points:

What is it that triggers your emotions while reading the content?

Does it make you laugh?

Does it move you to tears?

Will it make a difference in your life?

Well-presented information

Information becomes useful only when it is presented well. You may have something really valuable to share, but present it beautifully, because beauty will be shared. There must be well-connected dots within the content; no point in working hard for the content only to realize that there in no flow. Designers are usually good at picking the holes in your infographic, so if there is any chain or link that you’ve missed out, they will tell you.

Infographics can highlight a trend

Usually, infographics are meant to bring out something unique. It could be an emerging trend. Use your infographic to highlight that trend and it will definitely get shared.

Wrapping up

Once you have created infographics, there are a few things you can do to make it viral:

A social media (SM) release

When you have an infographic ready for release, make sure there is one optimized for the social media. Your infographic should contain the following points:

Lead headline

Sub-headline

Overview

Body

Bullets

About your company

Multimedia links

When the infographic is ready for its social media release, ensure that the social sharing buttons are visible; you must have seen the social media plug in that enables the SM buttons to scroll along the infographic – use them. Posting the SM buttons at the end of the page will not always bring in positive results because it becomes almost invisible.

Ask for sharing in plain black and white

Encourage your readers to share the infographics, there is nothing wrong in it. Most people “think” of sharing, but do not actually put it into practicality, unless there is a push.

Seek the help of inlfuencers

People have a tendency to listen to the people they trust. So tap influencers and get your infographic moving in the right circles. But first you need to build a relationship with these influencers, and they will genuinely work for you.

Sponsored tweets would be a good idea

Alright, this takes money, but is worth the effort. If you have set aside a budget for social media campaigns then use a little out of it for sponsored tweets. You can connect with high-powered Twitter users and decide on a price that you have to pay them for selling tweets. Celebrities do this mostly, so could be a bit pricey, but worth the effort. You need not do it for all the tweets, just a few relevant ones and with the best Twitter users.

Try these tricks, and see if you don’t win them all!

Interesting links about the topic:

10 Types of Visual Social Media Posts That Get Shared Like Crazy

Types of Visual Content That Get Shared

Pictures: Flicker/ Juhan Sonin / paz.ca/

The author: Reema Oamkumar is engaged as a thought leader at Software-Developer-India.com which is a part of the YUHIRO Group. YUHIRO is a German-Indian enterprise which provides programmers to IT companies, agencies and IT departments.