Marketing infographics have been a source of great attention for the Marketing Technology blog. So much so that I’ve set up Google Alerts for the term infographic and I review them throughout the day. Since infographics have become so popular, the content industry is being overwhelmed with bad infographics… so we’re pretty picky about what we share or don’t share to insure that we’re always providing value.

Infographic Basics

1. What is an infographic?
2. Why use infographics?
3. Why do infographics make great marketing tools?
4. How to research and design an infographic?
5. What makes a great infographic?

Infographics can be expensive to develop and design, often costing over $2,500 each! Don’t abandon reading this yet, though! You don’t need to design infographics to take advantage of them. Infographics are designed specifically to be shared… so finding great infographics and putting them on your site is still a great strategy. Aside from Google Alerts, there are also some great sites that collect infographics. You may even try submitting your own there… many allow you to add an account!

Find Infographics Online

• Alltop Top Infographics – aggregator of top Infographic resources.
• Column Five – an incredible infographic design company.
• Cool Infographics – a blog dedicated to sharing cool infographics.
• Daily Infographic – a site from Infographic World, a developer of infographics.
• Graphs.net – another sharing site for infographics.
• Love Infographics – a small team of internet marketers who have come together to create a resource for infographics.
• Infographic List – a blog dedicated to sharing infographics.
• Infographics Showcase – Collection of the best infographics & data visualization on the Web!
• Nowsourcing – a collection of infographics designed for clients of Nowsourcing.
• Visual.ly – a great site for finding and sharing infographics.
• Visual Loop – A non-stop stream of Links to Infographics, Maps, Charts and many other worldwide Visualization Designs that make the process of understanding our life a bit easier…or not.
• Voltier Creative – another incredible infographic design company.

And here’s an article on 100 more infographic resources online!

How to Take Advantage an Infographic

Once you’ve found the infographic you like, then what?

1. Add written content with key thoughts about the infographic, what you like about it, and why you decided to share it with your audience. Search engines can’t read the words on an infographic, but they can read the words accompanying it on your site. Write some good compelling content that will get your site found… even if it’s not your infographic!
2. Copy or Embed? Typically, infographics are posted along with code to embed the infographic and share it on your site (typically with a keyword rich link back to the source). On the Marketing Technology blog, we typically upload the original infographic to our server because we have a fast host and a great content delivery network (powered by MaxCDN. Infographics are large files… so if you can’t serve them quickly on your site, then use the code they’ve embedded!
3. Promote the Infographic! It’s not enough to simply post an infographic and hope that someone finds it. As soon as you post your infographic, promote it everywhere! LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, Google+… anywhere and everywhere you can get the word out, do it. Write compelling reviews or descriptions and utilize tags that are terms that people would look for when searching for the information.
4. If you’re sharing your own infographic, submit it to sites like Visual.ly for additional exposure. Additionally, put a press release out on it. One of our clients, HCCMIS, a travel insurance company, releases their infographics along with an international press release distribution. That can run thousands of dollars but has been successful in getting their infographics distributed internationally by sites with very high authority.

Take advantage of infographics to drive much more traffic and attention to your site or blog. It’s a strategy that works!