The Taxonomy of Infographic Angles of Attack
The cut and dry PR infographic I call this the PR infographic because it’s the one most often flogged by PR agencies. They base their ideas from trends in the media, gather their data from third-party sources and present a story that puts their client or its products in a good light. It doesn’t sell a product hard, which lends them greater credibility. But they are usually startlingly unoriginal in terms of the basic story. They tell you what you already knew – if in a colorful way. Examples: The Facebook infographic (a dime a dozen: if you’re a digital agency and you haven’t made one of these, you’re nobody. NOBODY!) The CIO infographic (relatively random concatenation of more or less interesting factoids with graphic sauce) The product-centric infographic A classic string in the marketing agency bow, these kinds of infographics provide a visual take on a product’s key benefits. Basically, these are often glorified diagrams, presenting the world in a way that reflects well on the product and company behind it. These can provide great context for a company and its product, and tell its story in a way 10,000 times more compelling than a deck. But great viral material they are not. Examples: The own-data infographic Done well, this is an angle of attack to love. It’s the apex of content marketing greatness, but demanding as hell. You start by taking a deep dive into your company’s own data, draw out some interesting and original trends revealed by the data and present them in a compelling way. It doesn’t have to sell your company; it sells your (access to) insight. And it’s viral like the sniffles in a nursery. Examples: Shutterstock Global Design Trends (Shares both sexy figures for Shutterstock and some interesting facts) Experimental data visualization This requires some brio. You start with an assumption, and then build an experiment or survey that will create data, which you then illustrate. These can be a lot of fun, but require some boldness (basically, you have to be pretty confident of the kinds of results you’ll see, or risk wasting time and effort). Examples: Hotels.com’s survey of romantic getaways (couldn’t lose in the run up to Valentine’s Day, no matter how banal the data) The worldview infographic These kinds of infographics aren’t necessarily data-driven, but can include research (original or no). You basically present information or ideas in a visual way to support a way of seeing the world. If they are directly hinged to your business, then your fans will like it. If they are less hinged on your business, they’re probably more likely to get distributed outside of your circle of fans. Examples: Flowtown’s 2010 Social Networking Map (a humorous – if inaccurate – social geography lesson) Rackspace “What Type of Site Do You Want to Host?” (and which kind of storage should you choose…) Do you have any other kinds of infographics to add to this taxonomy? [Extra bonus infographic: “The Anatomy of an Agency” – No relation to Velocity whatsoever]Enjoyed this article?
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Doug Kessler February 22nd, 2012
Great taxonomy — how about this one for Salesforce Social Success:
http://www.salesforce.com/uk/socialsuccess/social-media/six-principles-of-social-powered-enterprise.jsp
A no-data infographic — but a good one!
[Disclaimer: A velocity project]