The 65 Benefits and Advantages of using Infographics
The 65 scientific and psychological reasons why use Infographics in this digital world.
Why use Infographics in your digital marketing?
Using Infographics gives us many benefits & advantages for our digital marketing campaigns.
The scientific and psychological factors or reasons are the proof of the growing popularity and advantages of infographics all types of digital marketing and online communication.
We list 65 reasons which are benefits & advantages of using infographics. Not just this, this well researched, detailed & comprehensive blog post carefully segregates these benefits by their use in communications, marketing and finally digital marketing.
What you read here about infographic importance (TOC)
- What are infographics
- Definition of Infographics
- Reasons for their increasing use
- Why to use Infographics and for what
- Psychological appeal behind the use of infographics
- Scientific Reasons behind their use (Proof!)
- Types of Infographics and their use
- Why to use Infographics and for what
- Reasons why Infographics are so popular
- Growing Popularity as content marketing tool and strategy (Proof!)
- How to design a good infographic - Popularity by Design
- Benefits of Infographics - Popularity by merit
- Benefits of Infographics for digital marketing and traditional marketing
- Benefits of Infographics for SEO and Social Media
- Advantages of using Infographics for digital marketing
What are Infographics
To understand what infographics are let us start with understanding what an infographic does.
What Infographic is and what is does?
An infographic presents information in graphical assisted and organized manner for ease of understanding
An infographic is a visual layout which is used to present information or content with the use of graphics to highlight and drive attention to the key facts and data.
An infographic presents graphically assisted content which could either be data, like figures, numbers or some information. It gives you graphical presentation of information or content to help understand it easily and quickly.
The objective of an infographic is to create visually assisted content which could attract more attention from its viewers and is also easy to comprehend and could be retained.
The popularity and use of Infographics is largely driven by the human psychological of interest, attention, emotions, etc.
How to define Infographics
An infographic is a visual representation of information in an organized manner and assisted by images and graphics to drive attention to the key facts and data and assist quick understanding.
Now let us understand all this step by step with examples, proofs and explanation below.
Reasons for increasing use of Infographics and their rising popularity
Why to use Infographics, and for what
Psychological appeal behind the use of infographics
Infographics directly link to the basic human psychological factors and therefore are more effective in conveying and convincing. We have basic human psychology and we react on the basis of that. Psychology studies human mind and how it affects human behavior in respect to some given context.
Infographics make effective use of images, shapes, symbols, positioning, text and fonts - and each of these influence our brains psychologically.
It is about what makes us react and how.
We see more & better (See anything ya like!)
Images speak a thousand words [Not every image, mind you, at least not a boring type]. We all have heard this, and is true too, because images make us visualize, helping us understand more easily. Images also influence and stimulate emotions. They appeal directly to our subconscious mind.
Infographics are one important technique for content marketing, linkbuilding and for social media. This is one important technique which a good professional SEO course covers and teaches.
Learning how to use infographics to get reach more people, get more traffic, more search & social visibility is an essential part of how to learn SEO, content marketing and even complete digital marketing.
Digital marketing or content marketing agencies, SEO consultants & agencies, digital marketing and SEO expert bloggers, and many other organizations use infographics in online marketing, content and search engine optimization. You can see use of infographics and descriptive images in social media marketing, social content, blogs, articles and even for websites and its content. Why these agencies make so much use of images is that they know it communicates and engages the audiences better, and also leaves a little long and deeper impact than just text, for the reasons mentioned above.
There are many benefits, advantages and reasons to use infographics. We give you 65 reasons on why to use infographics in digital marketing, SEO, communication, education.
Many of you, like me as an individual, who regularly use social media, and in particular Facebook, know that images get shared and liked more, and are also more commented upon. And then you would have also noticed that happy images or images that are action oriented or are about outdoors attract more likes, comments and shares.
Why is that? It is because these images invoke some sense of belonging or wanting, or emotions and feelings, they make you feel attached. And yes, they convey the message better; you could see someone enjoying a ride, a beautiful site, a swim or like enjoying meal at a nice restaurant and you could visualize the whole scene.
We like to make opinions and take sides (I liked that!)
In our everyday lives we create concepts, opinions and judgments about what we see, hear or know, and we are driven by these, knowingly or unknowingly.
Like the action oriented images we talked about, when you see those, it connects with your subconscious mind and you feel a sense of belonging. That belonging invokes some positive and beautiful emotions, subconsciously. Like you say, YES, I want to be there, I also want to do that, or how nice it is to be there or do that, and things like that. It makes you feel good and you make an opinion that it was good. That makes you like that image.
Our brains are designed to avoid uneasy tasks (not that one, it looks tough!)
While, finally, coming at the conclusion to have liked what the other person showed you through that image, your mind wants it to be quick and easy. NOW, imagine someone writing a detailed post about where he went and what all he did at some particular hour instead of posting that image.
Would you have felt that way, NO. Leave along feeling, you would not even have reached at that point where you could actually relate to that and decide whether to like it or not, because your mind decided, it will be very slow, boring and hard working.
That is why visual things play such an important role. They connect with you, are quick to make you understand, they stimulate & invoke feelings and emotions, and finally make you like it.
A short questions to prove that, again:
Why we get involved in video games, movies - they invoke feelings, emotions; they stimulate and engage
Validation: Text vs. Infographics comparison
How one reads a paragraph - line by line so that they understand what is being said. BUT, in an infographic you draw viewers' attention directly to the main facts or figures by highlighting these. AND, further, the reader can quickly hop from one highlighted point to another, and get an idea about what is being conveyed, which cannot be done through simple text.
Scientific Reasons behind their use (Proof!)
Here are some scientific points to prove why and how psychology plays such an important role.
Our Brains are wired to be more receptive to images and visual information
- 65% of people are visual learners
- 50% of our brain used in visuals
- 70% of all human receptors located in the eye
- 90% of information transmitted to brain is visual
- Brain processes images or visual information 60,000 times faster than text
- It retains 80% of what we see compared to 20% of what we read
- Usually people only read 28% of the words on a webpage
- Tweets with images retweeted 94% more
What are the types of Infographics and how are they used?
Reason for increasing use - Many types of infographics, used for various reasons and different types of content
There is no hard and fast rule that you can use infographics only for certain types of content, information or data. However, to make an infographic more effective and appealing, one can always do a check if your information would look more presentable, meaningful and effective, if delivered via an infographic.
In that sense it should ideally be used to present a piece of information, data and statistics, trends or certain points. You can even use it to make a short article or blog (preferably 300-400 words) look more appealing by giving it a structure and assisted with relevant and explanatory images.
We shortly list out the types of content which fits best for being presented through infographics.
- Short stories/articles
- Informational covering one particular subject
- Conclusion driven arguments
- Comparisons
- Lists of:
- How to Do's
- Do's & Don'ts
- Checklists
- Statistical data:
- Geographic data
- Data/numbers explanation (visualization)
- Topic/Subject wise data sets (including data sub-sets) - data with many sections
- Flow Charts
- Processes
- Anatomy / composition
- Structure / Hierarchy
- Timelines - historical data
- Functions & parts of something
Reasons why Infographics are so popular
Growing Popularity as content marketing tool and strategy (Proof!)
A recent survey of online marketers done by Venngage showed some interesting facts about the rising trends of infographics and other visual graphics use in their content strategies.
In 2016, 53% of marketers published visual or visually assisted content 91%-100% of the times, this was up from 40.5% in 2015.
According to 41.5% of marketers, infographics and other similar original graphics drove the most engagement.
More than 60% of the marketers said that visual content will be an absolutely necessary part of their marketing strategy in 2017.
How to design a good infographic - Popularity by Design
Inherent and designing reasons behind their popularity
There are certain rules and guidance about how you should design infographics. The suggestions and points are being followed for designing by marketers, by professional designers, by agencies and by everyone who know why infographics are used and how these should be designed. These are also the main characteristics which define and distinguish an infographic from images or graphics. In fact these guidelines are one of the reasons making an infographic popular in use and are exactly what makes it so effective and useful for marketing and communications. Here we list 6 key things to consider when designing and using infographics. Without considering these basic designing elements, it will not be as effective as it is considered to be.
Use of colors - Colors have direct effects on brains, helping in inducing certain emotions. By using colors we can highlight and also distinguish between various points, sections and the sub-topics and get more attention. Through colors one can also highlight contrasting points or arguments and also group similar points and thoughts.
Typography - It is much easier to use more than one font type in an infographic, which cannot be used in purely textual format of content presentation. This makes easier to drive focus and attention to various topics of content. For example, through different fonts you can distinguish between headings & details; main & sub topics; contrasting subjects or two different set of arguments.
Space - Empty spaces in infographics enhances its presentation and helps in spacing out the sub-topics so that look clean and are easy to understand.
Use of visuals - Use visuals like symbols, shapes, images, charts to highlight main data points. Visuals are keys to infographic design and help in better understanding, attract & retain attention, and also strengthen your points.
To the point - You can lose the focus and also viewer interest and attention if you explain too much. And so, as one of parameters of its designing, the information is presented as concisely and crisply as possible. This makes infographics that much more effective in delivering content and should not preferably be used for lengthier subjects.
Structural presentation - If you see infographics, the layouts are designed to present content in segments so that they look clean, have a flow to it, and a viewer is able to see & understand main subject and its sub-topics.
Benefits of Using Infographics - Popularity by merit
Infographics are popular as they offer so many benefits and advantages from their use
Infographics, as they present piece of information or data, could be seen as being used mainly for communication purposes and for marketing. Marketing is a way of communicating with your target audience, and so all the direct infographic benefits for communications also indirectly benefit marketing.
Benefits of Infographics for digital marketing:
Infographics can tremendously boost marketing if used properly. The best thing about it is that it makes you reach more audiences. Because it makes the information interesting to read and being attractive it is shared by more. Being an effective communication medium it conveys your message to your audience and they even remember it for little longer, invokes their interest, and establish your authority and brand value.
From this point of view using it as part of website content can surely complement website content and make it better and help in reaching out to more audience and creating more interest in them towards the website and its content. Infographics are therefore widely and specially used in blogs.
These are also used frequently in digital marketing, be it SEO, social media, or email marketing. Infographics, in near future could even be as effective as or even more effective than blogs.
- Make your content stand out
- Draw instant attention
- Create unique impression with innovative & effective design
- Make it interesting to read till the end with theme based message
- Drive home your point - Convince better & convey easily & faster
- Increase probability of delivering your complete message
- Better explain & detail finer points of your products/services
- Help viewers visualize your product/service & its utilities
- Make it easy to associate with your product/brand
- Higher product/brand retention & recall
- Establish your brand authority & value
- Increase Brand awareness
- Make content unique, attractive and more engaging
- Invoke positive emotions and drive decision making
- Increase website's reach and viewership
- Boost up email subscribers & email conversions
- Establish authority in your Industry and domain
- Add unique content on your website
- Build website importance and authority among its niche and its audience
- Complete in control strategy to stay ahead of competition
- Improves digital marketing results
- Makes content effective
- Creates interest among the readers
- Helps in building content authority
Infographic Benefits & advantages for SEO (search engine optimization):
- Boost SEO with the use of Infographics
- Increase your website rankings
- Increase organic & referral website traffic
- Get relevant and quality backlinks
- Reach higher conversion rates
- Increase time spent on website
- Reduce bounce rates
- Amplifies content
- Helps in creating more and interesting content
- Easy to create new content
- Create interesting version of existing popular content
Social Media benefits of using Infographics
- Boost social media engagement, viewership & authority
- Gets more views, more clicks
- Increase social media followers
- interesting & engaging way to market on social media
- best way to grab attention on social media as attention span is low
- Most effective way to stay ahead of competitors on social media
- Infographics make you reach more organic social users as they are shared more
- build your domain & content authority on social media
- boost social media conversions and even sales
- fast & easily digestable on social media among high competition and content overload
Benefits of Infographics for communications:
- Better presentation of information & data
- Better explanation with the help of visuals & the layout
- Instant attention to highlighting facts/data
- Keep it interesting throughout with the layout
- Keep content relevant all throughout
- Easy navigation through sub-topics
- Help quick and easy understanding with visuals
- Makes content look more authoritative and convincing
- Easy and longer content retention & recall
Benefits of Infographics for Education:
- Can be used in presentations, lectures, classes, classroom trainings
- Makes it easy to teach
- Makes it easy to understand
- Makes it interesting & fun to learn
- Makes it fast to teach
- Improves attention & concentration of students and learners
- Makes teaching interactive
Advantages of using Infographics for digital marketing
Global Reach - Due to its designing parameters a significant part of the content is explained with the help of visuals in an infographic, and so it is much easier for a person speaking a different language than yours to understand. Further, you can make your infographic for viewers of many languages with minimal changes.
Reproducible - An infographic goes much beyond than just being an infographic in giving benefits. It is a graphical presentation of data and information. So the first thing you can do is use these parts of the infographic as a separate image, because this image will be, in most cases, complete in itself. You can even create a different image from each of the parts of the infographic. Also, being rich in data & information it can be used to create a written pieces of detailed content based on the data.
Rising trend - due to their advantages use of infographics is on the rise. So, it has more acceptance among the audience and hence will get more eye views as compared to other images and textual content.
Evergreen - It is an evergreen piece of content one can have. Simple because even if the data gets little old, the visual presentation will still be appealing. Further, you can always update the same one with new data or better, create another one with new inputs and make it more attractive than the previous one.