Tag Archives: infographics

Content We Love: LendingTree’s Outstanding Infographic

Posted on November 30, 2012 by | Leave a comment

“Content We Love” is a weekly feature written by a team of our content specialists.  We’re showcasing some of the great content distributed through our channels, and our content specialists are up for the task: they spend a lot of time with the press releases and other content our customers create, proof reading and formatting it, suggesting targeted distribution strategy and offering SEO advice.  In Content We Love, we’re going to shine the spotlight on the press releases and other messages that stood out to us, and we’ll tell you why. We hope you find the releases enjoyable and the insights gained from discussing them enlightening.

Without a doubt, we live in a visual world. All around is a panoply of color and information coming at you a mile a minute. Standing out is difficult.

A very audible, “oooooh!” was heard when I read LendingTree’s release ranking all 50 states by an average monthly mortgage payment.  The release is chocked full of great information… but then again… most releases are.

So what made this one stand out?An outstanding infographic!

Infographics– Information by way of a graphic are a fantastic way to present information in a lively way. It makes your story jump off the page, transforming text to something more tangible.

  • There is a reason we like the picture books. There is a reason we adore movies. It is dynamic and exciting— no reason for a release not to be the same!

LendingTree’s release itself is a perfect example of working in a visual world with the text broken up with bullets, bolding, hyperlinks, a great table, and images. By adding the images and making it easy to read, the chances of connecting with your audience skyrocket! (Plus weren’t you just a little curious to see the infographic?)

* Know another great perk of an infographic and images on a release? Not only does it boost your visibility, but thanks to sites like Pinterest, your content can grow wings and fly! Are you pinning and using social media? Loop it together for a unified message you’re sending.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lendingtree-ranks-the-50-united-states-according-to-average-monthly-mortgage-payment-180992531.html

Author Emily Nelson is a Customer Content Specialist for PR Newswire. Follow her adventures on www.bellesandawhistle.wordpress.com or on twitter www.twitter.com/emilyannnelson

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Facebook Ups the Ante on Images: Is Your PR Program Ready?

Posted on April 12, 2012 by | 2 Comments

Options abound for creating visuals to enhance your communications. Without visuals, content can't be pinned on Pinterest and doesn't get as much attention on Facebook, or in search engines.

Earlier this week, Facebook spent a Billion (yes, billion with a capital B) dollars on Instagram, a company with no revenue and thirteen employees that has created a fun and functional photo-sharing app loved by millions of users.  Images are big news in social media and technology. Pinterest continues its rapid ascent, as people and brands collect, organize and share images and video via Pinboards (text-only content can’t be pinned.)  And Apple is fueling the fire with the visually dazzling retina display featured with the new iPad.

But despite all this attention to visual content, most PR pitches and the majority of news releases are sent out unadorned, their authors relying upon the written word to convey meaning, capture attention and spark action. Visuals are often left out of the message strategy, despite the fact (yes, fact, not theory or assumption) that visual content draws more views and interaction online.

Search engines and social networks know their users gravitate to visual content, and they reward it accordingly: messages with visuals get more “Edge Weight” from Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm, and get more exposure in search engines.  Press releases that include multimedia get more reads and more social shares than their plain-text cousins.  At this point, we have to consider using visuals to be an imperative for PR.  But what do you do when you don’t have access to fresh images for your campaign or pitch?  You don’t necessarily need a glossy, professionally-shot image.  There are other clever ways you can develop imagery for your content, if you’re willing to think creatively – and a little informally too.

Here are some easy ways to create visuals to make your message stand out.

  • Turn text into a picture.  Pinterest and Facebook are loaded with quotes turned into simple graphics with color and eye-catching fonts.   The web site http://www.someecards.com/ offers fun and easy ways to create visuals with your own text.
  • If your campaign includes a list or data, turn it into a simple infographic.  People love to share information, and simple graphics help content travel far and wide.
  • Add simple captions or phrases to photos that evoke or relate to key messages.  (Note: be sure you have rights to the image before publishing it!)
  • Use a stock image from Getty to enhance your press release when you use PR Newswire to distribute your news.  Images are free when you select a premium photo distribution circuit, or can be purchased to accompany your news when you use another newsline option.

So the next time you’re drafting a message and don’t have an image at hand, get creative and put something together yourself.  You audience (and your boss!) will thank you.

Related reading: Make Your Next PR Pitch POP With Art

 Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s vice president of social media, and is the author of the free ebook Unlocking Social Media for PR.

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Infographics in Press Releases: Tips & Examples

Posted on February 21, 2012 by | 6 Comments

The issue of food waste disposal, made visually appealing by Emerson.

Let’s face it- we’re a visual society.  Since our earliest years, images have been capturing our attention; entertaining and exciting us.  They have been at the heart of storytelling, one of our first methods of expression, and a fundamental tool for education.  Through illustrative graphics, we learned how to read & write, add & multiply.  And so, the rapidly mounting use and influence of infographics by professional communicators, during an era when a minute -or even just seconds – of our audiences’ attention is highly coveted, should come as no surprise.

Late last year, PR Newswire analyzed press release data and found that the inclusion of multimedia significantly improves press release results. An infographic, which is more detailed than a photo and conveys information more quickly than a video, successfully extends the core message of a press release, bringing text to life by highlighting the important components.   Due in part to social media, information is so abundant it can make your head spin, so an infographic, as a diversion from plain text, gets right to the point, simplifies complex information and creates another opportunity to impact the reader in an instant.  All this considered, it is no wonder that multimedia news releases get more play.

As with any piece content, however, an infographic must be relevant, interesting and meaningful; it should not rely solely on eye-catching artwork.   Nor should the content be overwhelming; they can pack a big punch and carry a significant amount of information, but if successfully done, are displayed in a way that flows sensibly and is easily digestible.  An effective infographic both elicits an instant reaction, but also makes us think and want to learn more.

What I like most about an infographic isn’t its ability to concisely tell a story or the fuel it becomes to drive a message forward – (though both notable features), but the opportunity for free creative reign.  As soon as I’m tasked with writing a press release – and as a PR pro, you can imagine is quite often – I begin outlining the draft in my head – going through a checklist of elements that make it up:  concise, informative headline – witty, if appropriate; strong lead sentence and paragraph to catch my readers’ attention, while also providing significant insight to what will be covered; shareable quote from appropriate source, and so on.

The press release fits into a fairly standard format.  Infographics, on the other hand, allow us to detour from our usual template and color outside the lines.  This doesn’t mean we have to be “artists” or “designers,” but just requires us to revisit our early days and think a bit more visually.

And while infographics have a place in almost any message, they are especially great making data sets more appealing and instantly understandable, such as:

  • Packaging survey results that may otherwise be cumbersome in lengthy text format; 
  • Summarizing statistical data that can otherwise lose the fleeting interest of a reader;
  • Offering comparison research that will have a more a dramatic effect with visuals;
  • Messages targeted to multilingual audiences (images are a universal language, right?)

Examples:

Infographics can be used to illustrate a variety of subjects, and in addition to data, are also useful for expressing lifecycles, processes and flow charts.  Here are some recent examples we’ve spotted:

So, let’s get back to basics of dynamic storytelling and start communicating visually.

Related reading:

Tips for Creating & Using Infographics

Weaving Visual Cues into PR

Author Meryl Serouya is a marketing & communications associate for PR Newswire.   A version of this story titled “Infographics as Press Releases” ran earlier this month in Ragan’s PR Daily.

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Tips for Creating & Using Infographics

Posted on April 25, 2011 by | 11 Comments

The Social Media Funnel, by Mark Smiciklas of Intersection Consulting

Some of the most popular images on the web and in media today aren’t photos.  They’re infographics – the colorful charts, graphs and graphics that encapsulate data and tell a story at a glance.  An infographic graces the front page of every issue of USAToday, in the “Snapshot” section.   Edelman’s David Armano makes copious (and effective) use of infographics on his blog, Logic+Emotion. The more I looked around the more infographics I saw, and I started to wonder about their creation and use, and I called Mark Smiciklas of Vancouver-based Intersection Consulting to learn more.

I don’t know Mark, and hadn’t spoken to him, but I’ve been admiring Intersections infographics, which are posted on Flickr, for some time now.  Some are funny, some are elegant, some are poignant and all are smart.

Anti-Social Media, by Mark Smiciklas of Intersection Consulting

Right off the bat, Mark noted that he’s not a designer by trade. “I use Microsoft Publisher – which a “real designer” probably wouldn’t use,” he told me. “But it’s an accessible tool, inexpensive and easy to use.  It’s all you need to create simple infographics.  It will take you to a certain level.”

Mark’s goals for the infographics he creates are simple — he wants convey ideas in a quick, simple manner, and he wants to encourage his readers to share the images.  The images he’s created for the Intersection Marketing Blog are also posted to Flickr and other social networks, and have developed fantastic awareness for Mark’s business.   He encourages others to share and re-post his messages, and only asks for simple attribution of his work.  His strategy has paid off, creating a lot of referring links (and link juice) to his web site — an outcome, he notes, that was part of the strategy.

Best practices for creating infographics:

I asked Mark about the characteristics of he infographics that have worked best for Intersection, and the recurring theme was simplicity.

“You can’t tell the whole story,” Mark emphasized as we discussed how much information to put into an infographic. “Whether it’s text, video or graphics, people have limited capacity for time and attention when it comes to online consumption of media.”

Infographics can fall prey to the same problems long text articles do, Mark pointed out.  We use bullets, bold text, subheads and call-outs to make long stretches of text palatable. However, for an infographic to work, it needs to be simple.  If you find yourself trying to express multiple ideas within one image, Mark suggests you split the ideas up, and create graphics to accommodate other ideas.  And making the infographic easy to digest is crucial to its success.  Mark offered several key tips to keep in mind when creating an image:

  • Make it simple
  • Employ a lot of white space
  •  Any text needs to be easy to read – use clean fonts that are large enough so people don’t have to enlarge the graphic to read the text.
  • The idea should be accessible ‘at a glance.’
  • Make it as easy for the reader as possible to consume the idea.

Getting started: learn to think visually

Even if you’re not a visual thinker, Mark believes we can train ourselves to think visually, with some practice.  His suggestions for developing your capacity for communicating with images include:

  •  Think in terms of bite-size pieces of info, with just a quote or a sentence.
  • Think in terms of numbers as well.  People love lists.  5 reasons why, seven things to avoid – that sort of thing works visually too.
  • Keep a running notebook of ideas.  Jot down ideas, try to sketch out the concepts even if you can’t draw (which Mark says he can’t.)   Decide what message you want to share with visuals.
  • Publish. It doesn’t need to be art worthy of a gallery.  Sometimes we get paralyzed about the need to be perfect – with any type of content.  Just publish.  Use a second set of eyes if you can. But publish.
  • If you’re stuck, there are inexpensive options to pursue.  Interns or students would love to have infographics in their portfolio.  It can lead to credibility for the artist.

Mark also suggested a presentation on thinking visually authored by the aforementioned David Armano. It is instructive and offers a framework for developing visuals:

Why infographics work so well:

People consume information differently online, and they learn differently, Mark pointed out as we talked about why infographics work so well on the web and in social networks.  Helping readers learn and retain messages are reasons enough, he noted, to give readers options.  Mark recommends re-purposing the infographics you develop in a variety of ways – use them with press releases, share them on social networks, use images as blog posts,and embed them in your web site.  The visibility created in social networks and search engines by the use of images make the benefits of using visuals in an organizations’ communications undeniable.

Author Sarah Skerik is PR Newswire’s VP of social media.

Learn more about visual PR, and using multimedia to illustrate and enliven your messages.

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