Trends of the Trade: Are You Pushing Data? Some DIY Infographics Can Help You

Trends of the Trade is a monthly column written by WWPR member Cory Churches exploring, well, trends in PR.Follow her @Coricita or reach her at Cory.Churches@gmail.com. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of Washington Women in Public Relations Is your business data driven? Do you have great research findings that are complex and dense? If so, are you using infographics to help you reach your audiences? If not, there are plenty of ways you can create eye-catching infographics without being a designer. Let’s back up a minute and talk about how infographics can boost your reach. An effective infographic can grab a reader’s attention, provide important information at a glance, and give key takeaways that are reader friendly. Most people are visual learners and as such infographics are appealing and beneficial both to the reader and the provider (you). Key reasons to consider using infographics:

• Easy to use. Think about it an infograph is sometimes easier than writing a new blog post.
• Attention getters. They have the ability to capture an audience where words alone would fail.
• Increase search marketing. Infographics work great in search engines, if someone publishes your infographic and provides a link back to your website, you win.
• Viral magnets. It's easy to share infographics because they are attractive and can easily be shared on social networks. This increases the chances of them going viral.
• Brand awareness. Add your logo and your website address and you've increased your brand awareness.
• Position you as an expert. An infographic will show your knowledge of a subject and reveal your expertise in a subject.

Let’s use a real-world example to illustrate the point. The Department of Labor releases the unemployment rate for October 2013 today. Their official releases are perfunctory, data driven, and filled with all sorts of economist jargon. Imagine if they (or someone) took the same information and created a simple infographic to help readers absorb the key facts. Resources like HubSpots’s free downloadable PowerPoint templates help communicators create fun and informative infographics for audiences. Five more tools that allow you to create DIY infographics include:

1. Infogr.am – a free tool that is simple, robust and allows you to import XLS or CSV files.
2. InfoActive – includes interactivity and live data. This platform allows you to embed live data, making the graphic more interactive.
3. Piktochart – gives users access to a WYSIWYG editor that allows you to drag and drop elements to create infographics.
4. Easel.ly – creates visual themes or “vhemes” and makes it easy to select and insert a variety of objects.
5. Many Eyes V2 – go beyond pie charts and create word trees, heat maps and word clouds.

And once you get rolling on creating informative and fun infographics, maybe you will see your infographic on the Daily Infographic!