Infographics: Optimizing, Promoting & Measurement

By on June 5, 2012

If an infographic lands on the internet, but no one is around to see it, does it really exist? Think about it. Why go to all the trouble of making one if you’re not going to properly optimize, promote, and pitch it?

In this blog post, we will share some best practices for optimizing infographics, provide tips on pitching them to reporters and bloggers, as well as explain how to measure the success of your infographic (as we said yesterday, it’s all about ROI).

For more information on what makes a good infographic, check out yesterday’s blog post, “10 Do’s and Don’ts of Making Infographics.”

Optimizing your Infographic

Before you begin pitching and promoting an infographic, it’s important to make sure it is optimized appropriately.

Keywords found during your infographic research (words that were frequently seen during your research of other, related infographics or topics— Google’s free keyword tool is great for this) can be used to optimize your infographic and the page it is hosted on. The infographic file name should include relevant keywords, which can also be applied in several other areas for the best optimization of your infographic. The title tag, URL, and meta description of the page the infographic lives on should also be optimized for search.

Make sure your landing page also includes an embed code so that it can be easily embedded by others onto their sites and blogs. Allowing others to embed your infographic can help increase inbound links, driving traffic to your site.

Online Pitching
As with many pitches, the subject line is crucial and will determine whether or not the pitch email is opened and read. Use an interesting fact or tidbit from your infographic to draw the reader in.

“When I get the email, I like to see the subject line be the infographic’s most jarring fact,” says Zoe Fox. “I want to know why it says that.”

Make sure to keep these other pitching tips in mind:

  • Pitching outreach for infographics should be as targeted as possible. Take extra time to identify which publications run infographics (The major players include Fast Company, USA Today, and Mashable).
  • Be sure to personalize pitch emails to each reporter or blogger. Invest time in identifying the right reporter, and explain to them why the infographic would be of interest to them and their readers. If they have covered something similar in the past, be sure to mention it.
  • When pitching infographics, sharing the URL where your infographic lives on your site will help bloggers and reporters to visualize the end product. Unless pitching the infographic as an exclusive, infographics should be sent via links and not PDF attachment.

Zoe cautions us to make sure that pitch emails are not overly branded. “Don’t make it a sales pitch,” says Zoe. “If your infographic is really great, you will drive traffic to your site.”

Promotion
There are many ways to promote your infographic, including sending out a press release optimized for search engines, enabling social sharing, bookmarking, and online pitching.  The best approach would be to use a combination of these promotional tactics to ensure that you’re successful in reaching your target audience and gaining visibility.

When it comes to promotion, the golden rule is that the infographic should live on one of your web properties. If you don’t post your own infographic, then websites and blogs that you pitch will be less inclined to share it with their readers (think about it: If you’re not proud enough to post it, why should they?) If you don’t want to post it on your company’s main website, another idea is to feature it on a company blog.

SEO Optimized Press Releases

Draft a press release that is optimized for search engines to tell the story behind the data featured in your infographic as well as to generate inbound links. By optimizing a press release, you will improve keyword rankings, visibility, and traffic to your site.

Social Sharing

Allow social media sharing of your infographic. Include social media buttons using a sharing platform like AddThis or ShareThis at the end of the infographic, so that readers can share it with their networks on their favorite social media platforms with a click of the mouse.

At Mashable, the success of an infographic is measured in part by the amount of sharing that occurs. When recalling one of their most successful infographics, Zoe of Mashable noted the quality through the statement that it “shared really well.”

Promoting with Social Media

Social media is one of the best ways to spread links to your infographics. By crafting several unique tweets which share different data points on Twitter, you can target different audiences. Be sure to keep a record of the hashtags you use.  Later, you can use a free tool like Topsy to measure the conversation on Twitter around that hashtag.

Pinterest is another effective platform to promote your infographic. When pinning the infographic from your site to your board, be sure that the infographic file name and content are SEO-optimized. Consider also posting your infographic to social sharing sites – Flickr, Tumblr, and Scribd – to help increase awareness.

Bookmarking

Promote your infographic by posting it to bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. By posting to these sites, you not only draw greater awareness to your infographic, but you increase your relevance as a social media resource.

Infographic Directories

An easy way to promote your infographic is to submit it to directory websites such as cool infographics, just infographics, or daily infographics (We have included a longer list at the end of the post).

 

Measurement
Measurement is the key to proving your success, and with an infographic this means showing that your efforts have led to increased website traffic, and depending on the goal, an increase in a desired action by the viewer (like encouraging people to sign up for a certain program or buy a certain product).

Measuring inbound links will show you how much traffic is being driven to your site. Additionally, measuring social sharing and social conversations will provide you with insight on your infographic’s success.

When creating an infographic, be sure to keep these best practices for optimizing and promoting in mind. While you may create a visually appealing and valuable infographic, its success ultimately depends on how well it is shared and engaged with by others.

List of infographic aggregators and directories:

 

About Rachel Racoosin

As a member of Ketchum’s Online Strategy team, Rachel Racoosin works to develop and implement social media and search strategies for clients. Follow her on Twitter @RachelRacoosin.

All posts by Rachel Racoosin