Unless you are a superhuman, your dog has a longer attention span than you. The average person has an attention span of only 8-seconds. This means you have less than 8-seconds to capture a person’s attention and keep them interested.
With an abundance of information and a limited amount of time, you need to think creatively to engage your reader. Infographics visually entice your audience and allow you to clearly communicate your message. Effective infographics are concise, memorable, and easily shared. In fact, infographics are typically shared three times more often than the traditional blog post or article.
To get your message in front of more eyes, follow these tips for create an engaging infographic:
1. Think about your content differently
Infographics aren’t just for highly technical or data-driven information. Think about your content differently to determine how to best take advantage of this visual medium. The possibilities are endless. You can turn the standard checklist into a piece of highly valuable marketing collateral, or you can help increase the download rate for your technical white paper by creating an infographic teaser or summary of crucial data points.
2. Break out the scalpel and dissect your content
The goal of an infographic is to engage, but not overwhelm your reader. To ensure that you are only including essential information, carefully examine the content as a whole and then break it into the necessary bits of information. This allows you to retain your message and ensure brevity. While infographics can be any length, I recommend keeping your infographic to two pages or less. Pretty pictures will help keep people’s attention longer, but every second still matters.
3. Write a descriptive headline
Before creating anything else, I draft a short, concise headline. I find that having a headline helps guide the infographic content and helps me stay on track. If you’re struggling to keep the infographic short, review each chunk of content and ask yourself if the content supports the headline.
4. Limit text and increase visuals
To take full advantage of this visual medium, carefully choose graphics that support the content. You’ll want to avoid a cluttered appearance by limiting the amount of text and leaving plenty of empty space so each concept is clearly defined. Organize the content so that each piece guides the reader and builds a story chunk-by-chunk.
5. Create a memorable story that supports your brand
Use your company colors and include your company logo with your infographic. Sites like Canva and Piktochart have free templates that you can use and modify. The templates are a great jumping off point to help you create an original infographic that fits your content.
If you need help creating your infographic or advise on structuring your content, I’m here to help.