COMMENTS
What a post, great summary of 2011! Thanks!
My sincere hope for 2012 is that we see fewer Infographics. Cluttered, ugly, overly long and backed up by dubious data (Mashable is a primary source!?) if they bother to reference a data source at all. Most of them fail to tell a story. How useful are these really as content from a prospect/customer point of view? I'd love to see a post (please not an infographic :) on that!
Sorry ... I go with everything that April Dunford has said ... and perhaps a great deal more. Maybe it's because I'm an old guy, used to reading joined-up words forming sentences, and readily understanding them. This leaping around from one primitive graphic to the next, with wildly-trumpeted statistics and hardly a clearly-expressed explanation or justification for any of the statements or claims, doesn't leave me cold; it totally turns me off.
I think this is a great rundown of the changes and trends happening in the marketing landscape. Thank you!
Love this article! As a "visual" person, I really appreciate seeing the information presented in such an easy to grasp experience. Keep the great posts coming!
Like John and April, I like real words and sentences to get information, BUT I enjoy some infographics. The Science of Social Timing (#4), above, is easily understood and helpful. And while some IGs are not terribly useful, they can be fun, as well. Fun is good. Dubious data sources aside, ones that look like they were created in a blender are unhelpful to the extreme.
This is great. I just posted the number one infographic to my blog yesterday as a <a href = "http://digitalfireflymarketing.com/great-infographic-internet-marketing" title= "Great infographic on Internet Marketing">great infographic on Internet marketing. I am sure we will see more good and bad infogrpahics in 2012 along with something new as well that will culminate in a top thing of 2012 only to be wished away in 2013.
I think Lindsay hit it on the head. Infographics are not designed to replace rigorous reports and comprehensive studies, they're designed to present an overview of interesting information in a quick and easily-digestible format. Think of them like cake - it shouldn't replace dinner, but it's very enjoyable at the appropriate time. You aren't calling for less cake in 2012, are you?
On a more serious note, infographics are proven to be particularly sharable. I'm sure each of the marketers behind these infographics consider getting coverage, social shares and links from hubspot.com to be a home run. Even if you don't like them from a consumer perspective, we should all be paying very close attention to the success of these marketers.
I suppose. At the same time there are a lot of assumptions in that statement I could challenge. Do people share infographics as much as they did a year ago (there is fatigue I would argue)? Eyeballs, shares and links are all great if those are the measures you are tracking - there are others including conversions, registrations, etc. And I wouldn't assume that infographics are all successful - rarely are we shown the results that these graphics drive.
Just because everyone else is serving cake doesn't mean customers all still want cake and maybe folks would enjoy a little pie for a change. :)
Just a thought.
April
Thanks for sharing this information. It was very helpful to know. Thanks hibpsot.
I disagree with April and John, I love infographics. I extract valuable information that I can recycle in many powerpoints to my clients.
April,
Fair point on serving pie to mix things up.
You also make an excellent point about there being other measures - sales, registrations, etc.
My primary background is SEO, which requires a lot of soft goals en route to hard conversions. Links and social shares can be leveraged to get top rankings for target keywords, which are what lead to sales and targeted leads.
Infographics might not directly lead to sales, but the links and shares they attract are like the flour in apple pie - it isn't very tasty on it's own, but it is a necessary ingredient (if organic SEO is one of your strategies).
- Jason
I like infographics as they tend to lead me onto something else.
I would never consider them to be the source of information that I would base any real life decisions on. They are informative and fun, nothing wrong with that in my opinion.
Paul
A smart marketer would know when and how to use their infographics. Knowing your audience plays a big role in that. Higher class execs aren't interested in froufrou graphics and design, they want cold hard words that sum up what they need to know. If your strategy was to penetrate a company from the bottom up, I would start with those froufrou graphics to get the attention of interns, or the Creative Directors, etc. Going down (or up!) the line to decision makers, you slowly take out the loud colours and let the product you're selling show itself.
2012, hopefully, will bring a balance between infographics, loud in your face marketing, and real words, real language and real value.
I'm agreeing with April here. Mashable favors what they call "properly visualized" infographics that look pretty but fail to give any real takeaway value for the reader.
I much prefer infographics that give me actionable advice that fits onto one page. Here are two examples:
http://socialmediaonlineclasses.com/facebook-strategies/infographic-64-techniques-for-innovative-facebook-marketing-campaigns/
http://blog.tweetsmarter.com/twitter-business/exclusive-infographic-64-ways-to-improve-your-twitter-marketing/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Disclaimer: these infographics are mine, but I'm not posting them here as a commercial. Rather, they each offer 64 actionable strategies you can do immediately. They're the same format, so easy to scan and get what you need quickly. They both fit on one page so easy to print and keep in a visible place when you need them.
Enjoy! And thanks Hubspot for posting these and the opportunity to chat about what we like and don't like in an infographic.
Jason you make some especially good points and I like the cake comment.
It does depend on who you are trying to reach with the infographic.
Some people(more than you think)feel like they are learning fast from an infographic.
They do need to have better supporting of the facts I agree with April on that.
This is a too colorful mélange of infographics, not easy to follow on screen. Some are fun and interesting to look, like social timing, mobile marketing or 100M pros on linkedin.
There are some inconsistencies such as 68% of LinkedIn users are older than 35, but 76% have no kids. And why is that relevant info?
But it is interesting to see this selection, had fun reading it.
Fantastic overview. I really do enjoy 'pick up and play' styled infographics for a brief look at X subject.
I think for short, sharp information this does the job very well.