What Are Infographics?

You encounter infographics on a daily basis. They present themselves in flyers, textbooks, and even emails. What’s more, they make it easier for the average person to understand data, which means that they can make it easier for you to get large amounts of information across. Do you need a refresher on infographics? This article will explain the different types of infographics and how you can include them in your digital marketing plan.

Different Types of Infographics

Infographics or information graphics are visual representations of data. You can make infographics out of just about anything you’d like visually represented. This could be things like prices, costs, weights, number of items sold, addresses, tax codes, product names, etc. Your target audience, age, and conversation rate can be represented in an infographic. For example, your Google Analytics is made up of data. You can view infographics of this data with Google Analytics or another web analytics service. Infographics are useful for explaining large amounts of data to an audience. Instead of presenting raw data, you can put it in a chart. For instance, let’s say you sell hair growth vitamins. Rather than state your product has an 80% approval rate, you can use a pie chart to show how much your audience loves your product.

How-To

A how-to infographic is a step-by-step guide. Instead of telling you how in a numbered list how to perform an action, it may use colorful graphics of arrows with brief sentences to explain each step. With this in mind, how-to infographics must be put in chronological order. Equally important, the steps and the images occupying it must make sense. You don’t want it to be too broad or too detail orientated. How-to infographics work best with teaching someone how to do something. Things like recipes, walkthroughs, and instructions will work the best with this type of infographic. Let’s revisit the hair growth vitamin example. A how-to infographic example could show a hair care routine graphic that includes taking the vitamins.

List

A list infographic is a graphic that’s information-heavy and presents information in the long-form. As the title suggests, it introduces information in a list format. Typically, you should use this when you want to highlight certain information. A list infographic allows your audience to skim large amounts of data. In other words, it makes your data easier to digest. Unlike a how-to infographic, it doesn’t have to be listed in a specific order. However, we recommend that you place the most important information towards the top. You should present your data in some type of order. This ensures that your target audience continues to read your infographic and that your infographic is neat and organized. Let’s revisit the hair growth vitamins example. A list infographic example would look like the products of your vitamins being stated as vegan, cruelty-free, and locally raised. Furthermore, this format would be a great way to list the active ingredients in the vitamins while sharing your business’s ethics.

Comparison

As the name suggests, comparison infographics are great for comparing and contrasting. Notably, a visual representation of how two or more entities are similar and different is easier to understand than it is detailed in a paragraph. When creating one, it must be concise and visually appealing. Important information should be emphasized by bolding keywords. Try to see it as selling why these two entities are alike and different as quickly as possible. Equally important, persuade your audience to keep reading your infographic. This can be done by making it as eye-catching and dynamic as possible. Using complementary colors or opposite colors will be a great way to show how two things are different. Comparatively, analogous colors or colors that are close together on the color wheel will be great to show how two things are similar.

Example

A comparison infographic would be great when writing a marketing plan. You can easily show your partners or investors why they should care about your product and not a different one. Let’s revisit the hair growth vitamins example. You can create a comparison and contrast infographic that shows why your vitamins are better than a leading brand. If your selling point is that your vitamins are vegan and cruelty-free, you can highlight these facts through color, imagery, and font case.

Visual Article

A visual article might be what you think of when you hear the term “infographics.” As the name suggests, it’s an article that is shown through images and uses short sentences. The article you are reading now is telling you information while the pictures supplement the information. A visual article is the opposite. It’s a great way to give information quickly and concisely. When creating a visual article infographic, the graphic must be visually appealing. Not only should you think of eye-catching color schemes, but you should find images that best represent the points you want to make. Think of it as writing an article with pictures and symbols instead of words. Let’s revisit the hair growth vitamins example. A visual article about the health benefits of your vitamins is more dynamic and easier to understand than a traditional article. Furthermore, the audience has to exert less work to receive the information.

Charts

With a chart or graph infographic, you can place your data straight into a diagram. However, the entire infographic shouldn’t just consist of the chart. Think back to your high school algebra classes. Typically, there was supplemental information provided with each chart or graph. Your infographic should be the same. A chart or graph infographic will work the best with creating a digital marketing plan. Specifically, charting audience tracking numbers. This infographic will make it easier for you to process the results of your web analytics. A chart infographic is beneficial in the planning process of an e-commerce business plan or when building a website. You can map the trajectory of where you want your business to go. In other words, it can help make your vision feel more real and chart your business’ current success.

Social Media Use

Equally important, you can use chart infographics, or infographics in general, for your social media pages. Photo-heavily social media platforms like Instagram make it difficult to express large amounts of data. You can use a pie chart or bar chart to share this data quickly, effectively, and clearly with your audience. To demonstrate, you can post a histogram onto your Instagram page that shows how many people walk around with damaged hair. Moreover, you can use a pie chart that shows the percentage of natural ingredients your vitamins contain.

Different Types of Graphs and Charts

• Line Graph
• Bar Graph
• Pie Chart
• Histogram
• Scatter Plot
• Area Graph
• Pictograms
• Bubble Chart
• Flow Chart

Timeline

Timeline infographics are used to chart data over a period of time. A biography of someone’s life, career, or business will most likely be displayed in a timeline infographic. A timeline infographic makes it easier for a reader to understand the timetable of an entity. Furthermore, they’re less likely to confuse a date or event with something else. There are several different types of timelines you can use: project timelines, historical timelines, employee onboarding timelines, process timelines, etc. Essentially, anything that has a history or future can be made into a timeline infographic.

Example

A timeline infographic example would be a timeline of the history of your business. You can show these to your investors, partners, or target audience, and it can be used proactively. If you want to sell your goals to an investor or state your goals for your own benefit, a timeline is a great visual representation.

Location

A location infographic is best when providing information for a specific region. With the latest COVID outbreak, you probably encountered location infographics that express the infection rates for different countries and continents. There isn’t a right or wrong way to create a location infographic as long as it’s concise, clear, and eye-catching. It can take many different forms. This type of infographic can be a map, a map with a table, a map with a chart, etc. Similar to the visual article infographic, think of images that best represent the topic you’re talking about. Let’s revisit the hair growth vitamins example. If you wanted to communicate how popular your brand was nationwide, a location infographic would be ideal. Equally important, you could contrast the active ingredients of your vitamin brand to another by stating the country of origin for each.

Infographic Examples

Now that we know what an infographic is and the different types of infographics, how do we make one? You don’t need a degree in graphic design to make a good infographic. Luckily, there are infographic examples on the internet you can reference. You can try researching the different types of infographics, taking notes of what you like about each one, then actually creating some with the data you want to represent. Remember not to make it too busy or cluttered. If your research leads you to a dead end or you don’t know how to create one yourself, there are infographic templates you can use. There are free infographic examples and paid infographic examples you can choose from.

Learn More

Do you want to know more about infographics and how they can benefit your digital marketing plan? SEO Design Chicago offers digital marketing, SEO, and graphic design services. Visit us at seodesignchicago.com and schedule a consultation with us today.

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