Infographics Have Styles… Just Like Your Audience

As content marketers we need to talk in the language of our personas. We need to understand who we’re appealing to, use their language and — on infographics as well as in videos — we also have to look like them. Just as we wouldn’t walk into a biker bar wearing a bathing suit, so we need to choose the right style and design of infographic for our audience. These are five of the most common infographic styles that we can present to audiences to tell stories and win shares:

Flow Charts

Source: SearchEngineLand

Flow charts help audiences make decisions. They might explain products, show the best choice among a set of services or explain how to reach a goal. The flow itself should be simple and clear so that audiences can find the solution quickly but the alternative endings will keep them on the page. This example from SearchEngineLand showing how Google’s Matt Cutts reacts to rumors was such a success that the website updated it two years later and offered embed codes and a PDF.

Timelines

Timelines put a product, a service or a company into context. They tell a chronological story but they do it in a format that makes what could otherwise be dull interesting and even interactive. Compare this history of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield health companies, which tells its story in an article format with the main moments highlighted with bullet points, to this timeline from Simplyhealth, a UK health company which both tells the firm’s story and puts it in a social context. Which would you prefer to read?

Source: Simplyhealth

Versus

Versus infographics allow companies to contrast their services and products with those of their competitors, highlighting their features and benefits. You can think of them as a bit like static versions of those old PC versus Mac ads that ran a decade ago.

Source: H&R Block

This infographic, for example, uses a contrast between men and women to draw viewers into reading important facts about life insurance, a topic that they might otherwise prefer to ignore.

Number Porn

Number porn is particularly effective in social and health topics that are the source of public debate. The numbers they contain educate the public and can also provide ammunition for arguments, helping to arm one side during discussions.

Source: Childrensmn.org

This infographic was created by a pediatric health system to educate the public and provide “families access to flu vaccinations.” It’s filled with visually illustrated figures, at the top of which is the eye-catching number of children who died of influenza in 2010. It was produced in the middle of a strong debate about vaccination. The health system would have expected pro-vaxxers to share this infographic on their Facebook pages.

Useful Bait

And some infographics are meant to provide not just information but a useful tool that audiences can keep and refer to often. When businesses produce them, they get to put their brand in front of their audiences repeatedly and when public health organizations use them, they get to push a message in a way that will be used and valued.

Source: Harvard.edu

This healthy eating plate could easily be placed on a fridge or in a school kitchen to remind children and parents what they should be eating.

Infographics win engagement with a look. Whether that engagement turns into action depends on the choice of infographic and whether you’ve dressed your data to match its setting.

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