HOW TO CREATE INFOGRAPHICS WITH INFOGRAM

Transcription

1 HOW TO CREATE INFOGRAPHICS WITH INFOGRAM Compliments of Women in Ecommerce -

2 According to Wikipedia: Infographics (a clipped compound of "information" and "graphics") are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly.they can improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the human visual system s ability to see patterns and trends. Why are infographics so important? Infographics are a great way to consume content in a visual and quick way. Here are some quick statistics about infographics (source: ContentDesk ) High quality infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than text articles. Publishers that feature infographics grow traffic 12% faster than publishers that don t feature infographics. The words infographic and infographics are searched an average of 547,000 times per month in Google. Here is an infographic about INFOGRAPHICS that can better illustrate why infographics can be important content for any marketer. (source: Zabisco) The next few pages includes step by step instructions about how to use INFOGRAM to create your next (or first) infographic. Creating an Infographic with Infogram.com Women in Ecommerce -

3 If you think creating impressive infographics is a task best left to graphic designers, you haven t met or used Infogram.com. This online web app allows you to shortcut the design process by using templates in popular infogram formats, to which you can add YouTube or Vimeo videos, charts with imported MS Excel data, graphics or maps. And to help you share your infographics with your intended audience, Infogram.com takes a page from Scribd and features its best new infographics daily. If you want to include a chart, the easiest way is to import your data from MS Excel, rather than try to add it in manually within Infogram.com charts and infographics are separate in Infogram.com and it can be confusing to attempt to integrate the two. Benefits this little web app is a surprisingly easy and effective way to create and share data-based infographics. And when you ve created your infographic, you can instantly share it with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ Tumbler or Pinterest. Step 1. It s Easy to Sign Up Go to the Infogram.com website and either take the tour or press the try it for free button, if you prefer to sign up with your address only. This will take you to a screen where you can choose Women in Ecommerce -

4 your username and password, insert your address or change your mind and log in with Facebook or Twitter. You will simply be asked to enable the app, just as you would any other social network app, sharing your Facebook or Twitter address. It will walk you through 3 steps to get started. 1. Confirm your identity. 2. Ask you what kind of organization you belong to. 3. What your role in the organization is. Then it will take you to the screen and ask you which type of account you wish to have. For the purposes of this example, we have chosen the FREE ACCOUNT. From there you are taken to your new dashboard Women in Ecommerce -

5 And you can customize who you share your infographics with a handy option, if you re planning to share them only with specific groups. Step 2. Pick Your Template Click on the New Infographic button to straight away start creating your infographic. You ll see a selection of templates. Click on the one you want to use and a box will pop up asking you to Name your project and decide if it will be public or private. I chose public for this example Women in Ecommerce -

6 When you select your template of choice, it opens up and all design elements become clickable and editable. Infogram.com makes it easy to edit each element beginning with the title. Design your template You can customize your template fonts, colors and text Women in Ecommerce -

7 Step 3. Add Your Data Hover your mouse over each area. Perform the action prescribed. Here you can choose to add graphics from the infogram.com graphics library (image 1 below) or upload your own (image 2 below) Women in Ecommerce -

8 You can edit all the other elements in exactly the same way by hovering your mouse and choosing the area you want to edit. Step 4. Customize your Infographic You can also close any element (such as the graph chart) to get rid of it completely, leaving you room to add a new one or just simply omit the one you ve deleted. Removing Elements hover mouse over any element and click on it to remove that element from your template Women in Ecommerce -

9 Adjusting Width and Height You can adjust the width by clicking the settings on the right size of the dashboard Adding New Elements On the left hand side of the dashboard you can click on any of the icons to add maps, charts, text, images, shaps, and excel spreadsheets as well as upload from several options including dropbox, google drive, your computer and more Women in Ecommerce -

10 Here is what it looks like to add integrations to your infogram Be Patient, it may take a moment to load. Infogram.com added our graphic automatically, underneath our last design element (the Text element). Infogram.com will resize your graphic to fit. Troubleshooting You can also redo or undo elements of the infogram using the back or forward arrows at the top of the page. And if you are planning to include any sort of chart, you may wish to create your chart data first in Excel or google sheets, so you can load it in at the right time during infographic creation. Infogram.com doesn t seem to allow you to import charts you create right within their app in fact, it treats charts as separate entities altogether. (I.e. you can create a chart or an infographic but not blend both.) But charts are wonderful graphics to embed in your blog posts! To create a stand-alone chart, you can use one of the templates in the template library by clicking the chart button to the left on the dashboard Women in Ecommerce -

11 Hover your mouse over each tab in the left-hand menu, to see how each type displays. Then select the one you want. Editing and Changing Your Infographic By the way, if you want to change the title of the infographic or any text, you can do so at any point during the creation process. Changing things is as easy as clicking the area you wish to edit. though it does help to have your infographic s height and width pre-determined and defined before you create your infographic: It s just less confusing Women in Ecommerce -

12 Step 5. Check Your Settings At this point, before you publish, you may wish to explore your settings and set your preferences it won t take long! Click on Settings in the drop down on the far right of your screen. It is located next to your image. There you ll see your profile your name, number of followers and number of created infographics. You can change your infographic to be either Public and Not Public to see infographics in each specific category. You can also manage accounts and connect to Twitter, Facebook, Google+. Linkedin here. To get back to your infogram, simply click on the LIBRARY at the top of your dashboard. Optimizing Your Profile If you logged in using social media such as I did with Facebook, you will notice my image is already on my profile. If you chose to login with and a password, you can click on your settings to the left to update your profile and add a photo. When you are finished, click DONE and you are good to go Women in Ecommerce -

13 Step 6. Share it Our final step sharing your new infographic. Press Sharing in the top right corner of the dashboard. As you can see from the above image, you can copy the link to share the infogram or you can click on the social links to share. With a basic account you cannot download the image to share. Be sure and give your infographic a keyword rich description so people know what they are about to view and your infogram will be searchable on social media. ONE LAST TIP - have all your graphics ready to go in a file and your text in a txt or.doc so you can simply copy and paste the info to the infographic by infogram Women in Ecommerce -

14 As you can see, infogram is fairly simple to use. Especially when you are prepared. Be sure and visit to get your free account and begin sharing your custom infographs. Remember to use the hashtag #infographic when you share Women in Ecommerce -