Don`t Know How To Cite An Infographic Here We Go!

Don`t Know How To Cite An Infographic Here We Go! Proper Infographic Citing It is not a secret that visual information has a bigger influence on the audience and it is easier to remember. In addition, it makes the content of your text more colorful and vivid, and grabs attention even of the most demanding audience. That is why infographic occupies solid positions among various types of in-text materials. For the past years, illustrations with statistics and numbers have become an important part of texts. To grab the interest of the audience and to stimulate information mastering, writers and authors tend to transform words and numbers into colorful images. This approach was a real bomb in the world of content. It started occupying more and more web traffic, improving SEO and giving marketers a chance to deliver information in a more usable and comprehensive way. With time its popularity has decreased, and only a few years ago infographics became an important marketing instrument. Nowadays there are hundreds of various templates and designs, which can deliver quality and digestible content to different groups of users. As you see, an infographic is an essential part of any content, and it is necessary to understand what sort of information it is, how to create a quality infographic and how to cite it properly. To help you deal with such a complex task, we have gathered the most important information on a topic and spiced it up with the most powerful tips. Infographics: Definition and Importance Basically, an infographic is a combination of information and graphics. It was first mentioned in 2009 by McCandless, as he included data visualization to his book. However, in some cases, combining these two elements become a real headache. The first and the most important question you need to ask yourself is whether the data benefits from such visualization? Does infographic make your information easier to master? It shouldn’t be a pointless picture that is only occupying space. Moreover, Google is not able to analyze images and to use that text in promoting your works. To put it simply, infographic won’t contribute to the search ranking, although you may spend days on creating a stylish and useful image. If you still want to include infographic to your text in the form of a jpg file, you need to provide suitable information in the image. However, keep in mind that search engines will most likely not be able to read the data you include. Things to Know When Creating an Infographic Even if you are crazy with the idea of working on the infographic, you need to understand that the first thing to keep in mind is visibility on social media. To achieve it, you will need to know certain rules and instruments, which will allow your infographic to become a front content. With a proper approach, your infographic has great chances of gaining popularity, earning links, enhancing recognition and improving ranking in search engines. That is why before simply using a common template you need to explore the market, understand your audience and see what infographic tools exist. Get Familiar With the Audience Your infographic should render information that will interlink with the way your audience things. The best way to lead your text or product to success is to stir feelings of the audience. Such an approach is especially important if your niche is dry and filled with information. You need to explore what the audience thinks and feels, so that in future you will come up with something unique and engaging. To build a proper marketing image of yourself you need to know who the potential buyers are. For example, if your company creates software for security and encrypting, your buyers will probably be enterprises and brands that want to protect their data. That is why including information about safety, possible online crimes and the latest statistics will be a good idea. Tell the audience how your product, content or idea benefits them by combining both: statistics and information about your own company. Stick to an Engaging Topic Now, when you know who your audience is and what its main interests are, it is much easier to come up with an interesting topic. You can use Google Search or BuzzSumo to find topics that will make your infographics valuable. In addition, you can read articles on general topics and simply surf the internet, looking for non-standard ideas. Then you can gather them, creating your own templates for infographic. However, you should always choose an idea that is relevant to your issue and has enough space to include statistics or any other valuable information. Be Selective While you are still on a stage of building a concept, it is necessary to conduct thorough research on the topic before starting your work on an infographic. Make sure you use only authentic data that supports your idea. Such information must be relevant, modern and unique. Ideally, it shouldn’t be easily accessible. That is why you need to dig deeper, reading official reports, presentations, and multiple PDF files. Organize Your Data Readability is what predetermines the success of your infographic, so on the next stage, you need to organize and carefully filter all the information you have found. There is no need to include to your infographic all of the data you have found because it will make your images heavy and difficult to read. Remember that the majority of readers simply scroll the content without spending too much time on reading the whole template. Now, when you have chosen the things you want to add to your infographic, it is the right time to learn what the elements of a winning infographic are. Features of a Strong Infographic There are several features that may greatly influence the result: whether your infographic will reach its goals or not. Remember, an infographic is very time-consuming and requires lots of your efforts and energy. Below we have gathered the most important traits that a winning infographic should possess. Density of Data When you have filtered gathered information and kept only relevant data, it is the right time to think about how to present that data in an attractive way. Don’t forget to highlight the juiciest details, so that the readers will notice important elements at once. The density of data is crucial if you want your infographic to be successful. That is why choosing reliable, and up-to-date sources should take the first place when you work on your infographic. If your readers have doubts on the quality of provided information, you can always provide links and proofs from original sources. Keep It Simple Many people just want to stuff as much information as possible, thinking that it will make their infographic more attractive. However, if you simply add data to the image, it will become heavy to read, and you risk losing your audience. Your goal is to organize it and to make it appealing to the reader. Be Creative If you want to stand out from other content creators, it is important to generate something valuable and unique. If you are not sure whether you are skilled enough, you can hire a designer, who will help to work on the project. This will help to come up with a creative and personalized infographic, and you will additionally get a piece of advice on professional marketing. Only Relevant Information For most of the content creators, it is quite difficult to keep the balance of relevant and clear content. It is great that you have conducted profound research and collected a huge variety of information on the topic. However, you don’t need to include everything to your infographic. Unfortunately, this is one of the most common mistakes marketers make. While remaining precise, you need to include only the most important and relevant data. On the other hand, including little information won’t seem appealing. So you should find the right balance and stick to it! Do not Promote Yourself Many content creators make self-promotional graphics. However, it may have a negative impact on the audience and will lead your whole content to failure. Statistics show that such an approach is not effective at all and is not able to attract the attention of the audience. That is why it is much better to include information that talks about your company or website, and not about you as its creator. Always stick to the rule: your infographics must be focused on the industry, not on yourself. Market Your Brand Based on the previous point, you need to stick to the formal format of the infographic, including your company’s logo and name to the image. Do not include your personal details or name, because such information won’t have any value. If you are willing to sell your products or services, brand marketing is the key. You should also pay attention to the font, color scheme and style of the infographic to make it relevant to the brand and its format. Infographic Should Be Goal-Oriented This is probably the most important feature of your future infographic. Remember: not depending on the style or font, the content you provide must be goal-oriented. In addition, it should focus on one topic, not distracting attention on other issues. Moreover, your goal must be to explain what you offer in a clear and understandable manner. To achieve this, you should create an outline or a plan in order to organize the content properly. For example, you can focus on explaining how your brand is going to solve a certain problem. You can target the relevant audience by including data and statistics that show the importance of the discussed problem. In such a way your infographic will provide readers with a clear understanding of the goals you are planning to achieve and how you can be useful in solving a particular issue. Infographic Sourcing The sources you use for getting information are more than important. The more reliable they are, the more credible the infographics become. It helps to evaluate the quality of your content, so using non-reliable sources will make your infographics looks poor and uninteresting. Luckily, it is no longer difficult to find proper sources. Due to a variety of online sources, you can get access to official documents, websites of international organizations and even books of reputable scientists and researchers. In addition, there are hundreds of official research institutes, which regularly post information on their latest studies. You just need to know the right places to look for credible and trustworthy information for your infographic. A Right Source Always Tells a Story Infographic is a way to tell readers a certain story, so if this story is not present in the chosen sources, you won’t be able to create engaging infographics. Below the infographic, you can duplicate information in the form of a story so that it will explain the data you have included in the picture. Always Use Trustworthy Sources As you know, not all of the information online can be trusted. That is why you need to do your best to fill infographics only will reliable data. Always look for information on official websites - for example, various governmental agencies and bureaus. Even if you use a source from a regular website or forum, but it contains surveys and statistics from academic sources with proper citing, you can use it. If you don’t have time or energy to process only official data, here are a few questions that will help you to distinguish a reliable source: Does this website have any relation to a reliable organization? Who is the author of the article? Does the article contain up-to-date statistics? Does it include a bibliography? What’s the goal of the web site? Cite Your Sources Citing sources is not a common thing for infographics, so very often readers question themselves whether the information they see is reliable. If you want your infographic to be trustworthy, don’t be lazy and provide the audience with links to the websites you have taken information from. It is one of the simplest but yet effective ways to support the information you provide. Limited Number of Sources Used Even if you have used tens of various sources in the process of collecting data, it is better to stick to a few of them. This will help you to remain focused on more comprehensive and clear content. More than three sources may puzzle the reader, and they will find it difficult to track the reliability of the information. Conclusion It is obvious that infographic is a great way of grabbing and holding the attention of the reader. However, the provided information must be both interesting and stimulating. Hopefully, the tips above will help you to manage your infographic and to create powerful content.