As a content manager, much of my focus is on the written word. I grew up devouring newspapers, magazines and books and writing everything that happened to me in my primary school ‘news’ book each Monday. As putting pen to paper or finger to keyboard became my career, I evolved into quite the perfectionist, taking the often-quoted approach of spending all morning putting a comma in a sentence and all afternoon taking it out.
But in 2024, being so obsessive about writing and crafting the perfect sentence is no longer the only game in town. As the world changes, content changes with it, and it is my job to distil it into the most appropriate format for its audience. We’re constantly on the go and demand forms of content that fit around our busy lives. Look at how we went from long-form blogging on platforms like Blogspot or LiveJournal to 140-character (now 280-character) tweets or Instagram posts of single images.
Infographics make things easier for your audience
The infographic is a perfect example of this habitual change in consumption. Rather than a long, rambling piece of text that does its best to be descriptive, it instead features all of the information presented graphically. After all, a picture paints a thousand words. They’re just the job to learn important information on the commute to the office or while sitting at the kitchen table as the vegetables come to the boil.
The infographic’s convenience was recently, brilliantly, used to full effect by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The article title in the web address tempts you before you’ve even clicked on it, doesn’t it? But the rewards that await after clicking are really quite remarkable and, dare we say it, hilarious. While it’s not an especially serious subject, it is presented with all of the gravitas of a United Nations report.
There is simply no way that this information could have been better presented as text. Illustrations and a terrific sense of creativity bring the many mullets of the Australian Football League to life.
Infographics in B2B PR
But the infographic is not just there for the ridiculous things in life like the predilection for 1980s-style hair in Australian professional sportsmen. In B2B PR and communications, they are just as important when presenting key facts and information in annual reports or summaries of research projects. They can help you reach the people you want to, allowing them to digest the information that is important to them quickly and easily.
Take a look at how we used an infographic to describe a career path, in step-by-step detail, with one of our clients on their website. Hovering over each step offers up more information for the reader. It allows them to understand it at their own pace without the daunting pressure of forthcoming paragraphs of text.
Infographics are a key piece of armoury in the B2B PR space. Shouting about your company’s achievements or what you have discovered after talking to your customers is made much easier when it can be done graphically. It’s easy to share on social media too, as you watch your reach spread.
Contact us to talk about how an infographic can communicate your business’s news and vision to your customers today.
