Infographics are totally ‘in’ at the minute, there’s no doubt about that. We love looking at them, we love (trying to) create them, we love learning from them, and most of all, we love sharing them.

Personally, I think they’re great because of the impact they can have on my ability to take in, and appreciate, factual information (most infographics are used to show the impact of something or how something has grown/declined over time).

So one day I was looking at a really cool infographic, this one in fact, and starting wondering why this infographic was working for me. Was it the information provided? The design? Or maybe even the fact that it was an image over a chunk of text? I pondered it for a while, did a bit of research, and came up with three reasons as to why I think infographics just work.

(Infographic by Jeff Bullas)

People Actually Put Effort Into Making Them Work

I truly believe that the main reason infographics work because people really try to make them work, it’s as simple as that. Designers understand that there’s no point in pushing a poorly designed infographic because no-one will share it, and when you’re investing what can be a great deal of time and money in design, it needs to be worth it.

Content is easy to write, it can be done relatively quickly, by someone not particularly qualified in anything, and can be posted to pretty much any website around.

Infographics on the other hand take skill, require the right tools, and need the right outlets. When something requires that much attention, it can be an epic waste of your resources if you don’t give it your all.

We Understand the Value of Infographics

Because we understand the value that infographics can bring when it comes to link building and publicity, even as an audience, we’re prepared to ‘play along’, and this is the second reason infographics work.

I’ve often found that I’ve seen an infographic and I’ve shared it, regardless of my audiences interests, because not only did I find it interesting but I could tell that a lot of thought and effort has gone into it. This is how, as the audience of that infographic, I want to play along and give a link or a share where I can.

Particularly on social networks, sharing can very much be a ‘you scratch my back’ kind of mentality. Not in a seedy ‘you follow me I follow you’ type way, but in a respectful way. You may also find that if an infographic is ‘cool’ enough, irrespective of its information, it’ll get shared on its aesthetic merit, but if you’re creating them, obviously put some thought into the content, don’t just rely on the design.

I’ve found that this mentality is practiced more so in creative industries involving marketing, design, tech etc, so don’t assume from this that you’re guaranteed engagement if you just make a pretty picture!

If you want more info on increasing your shares on social networks, particularly Twitter, then check out this post: Awesome (and Easy) Tips to Increase Clicks on Your Twitter Links

The Scientific Bit

In a Winter 2010 report tiled “Understanding of Health Risks Aided by Graphics with Text”, Babara M. Miller and Brooke Barnett explored whether the use of images and infographics on medical promotional material helped the public better understand health risks.

Obviously the vast majority of the report is somewhat irrelevant to this article and probably wont relate to the industry you’re in, but they do draw up some universal conclusions that apply to the perception of infographics as a whole.

They found that “On their own, text and graphics are both useful yet imperfect methods for communication. Written language allows an almost infinite number of word combinations that allow deep analysis of concepts but relies heavily on the reader’s ability to process that information. Graphics may be easier for the reader to understand but are less effective in communication of abstract and complicated concepts….This study showed that for the presentation of scientific information, combining text and graphics allows communicators to take advantage of each medium’s strengths and diminish each medium’s weaknesses. (p. 63, “Understanding of Health Risks Aided by Graphics with Text”)”

That particular finding suggests that infographics are the ideal combination of both images and text and therefore project messages in a more effective way than both mediums would individually.

So basically, the third reason as to why infographics work is that, scientifically, they just work!

If you can show me a company that is not utilising at least one social network as part of their online marketing strategy, I’ll eat my hat. Everyone’s doing it, that part’s undeniable, but not everyone is doing it properly.

When it comes to using social marketing as a business there is a certain etiquette that you should follow (however loosely you like) in order to best present yourself to your fans or followers, whoever they might be.

Here are some tips that will come in handy when you’re going through the process of setting up your social accounts:

Find Your Voice

Before you let your social media guy lose on your Facebook account it’s probably a good idea to decide what kind of message you want to portray; what kind of company do you want to be?

I’d recommend having a chat with your marketing team (or whoever is responsible for social media) and establishing a set of social guidelines that anyone using your accounts needs to adhere to. This way you’re all writing in the same tone, posting at the right times, choosing the right content to publish, and just generally on the same wave length.

Finding your voice is (arguably) the easy bit, it’s maintaining consistency in your voice where most businesses fall short so bear this in mind when you’re establishing your tone.

Choose Wisely

Contrary to popular belief you don’t actually need to have an account with every social media site in the world to have an effective social media strategy.

Its fine to dabble if you think a certain site will be beneficial to your marketing strategy but don’t be afraid to delete the account if it doesn’t quite work out. There is nothing more detrimental to your social presence than sites/accounts that aren’t updated on a regular basis.

Depending on your industry there may well be a site or two that you need to be on; if you’re in the travel industry for example you should probably take control of your TripAdvisor page, but that doesn’t mean you need an account on every site related to travel.

Spend some time testing your engagement on various sites and be realistic about how many sites your business can maintain.

Post Unique Content

So we’ve established that you’ll probably have a handful of social accounts that need to be updated on a daily/weekly basis, and that’s fine, but make sure that you’re not always using the same content for each update.

If you’ve got a link to your latest blog post then think about what audiences need to see it, is it really necessary for the link need to go on Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Google+? Pinterest? Remember there is such a thing as over saturation.

As I’ve just touched on, the great thing about social networks is that they do attract different audiences, and that’s something you can play to. Where Twitter followers may benefit from 140 character updates, your Facebook followers will probably want something a little more substantial (pictures, videos, events etc.) given the capabilities of the site.

Have a think about ways you can interact with your different audiences and this could even inspire some of your content/updates.

Get Personal… But Not Too Personal

As I’ve covered in this post, it’s great to include a personal touch to your website, and even more so to your social media profiles given the informal nature of social networks, however, make sure that you don’t end up with profiles that look more like they’re managed by an individual than by your company.

Feel free to post some pictures of the team or promote your latest charity efforts, but avoid the I’s and Me’s or you’ll start looking like a one man organisation and it could taint how people perceive your company (link back round to the finding your voice point).

As conversational as sites like Facebook and Twitter can be, remember you’re still representing your business, and ultimately trying to promote and sell a product/service.

I’m a very strong believer in the idea that trust in a brand can be enough to retain customers. I also believe that your website, the images used and the message you portray, plays a big part in creating and nurturing that trust.

My job role has me looking at tonnes of websites every day so I’ve become pretty good (and quick) at deciding which companies I like, and which I don’t, based on their websites. Here are some things I’ve found that can really make me put my trust in a brand, as well as a couple of things that are big turn offs.

Turn On: Mascots

This is more of a branding strategy and doesn’t apply to all kinds of business but if you can brand yourself in the right way using a mascot then you can almost demand an air of ‘cool’ that a lot of mascot using companies have.

Some of the most popular companies around put a strong emphasis on their mascot as they can create all kinds of emotional bonds with audiences as well as being memorable. Take a look at companies like SEOmoz, Mail Chimp, and even Google’s Android brand.

Mascots can give you a really strong brand identity which in turn can instil a sense of trust in your audience, therefore increasing their likelihood to buy your product. They can also be reasonably cheap to get made so if you know what kind of mascot you want it’s worth getting in touch with a designer and seeing what they can draw up for you.

Jeeves had it nailed years ago!

Turn On: Team Pages/Personal Pictures and Profiles

You don’t need some stats from an in depth study to know that, in business, people trust what they can see, especially if what they can see is a bright and cheery team of staff that genuinely look like they love their jobs.

If your team really love what they do then your customers, or rather potential customers, should see that. Think of it as a sneak peak into the kind of service they can expect when they do business with you.

Obviously, not all companies will be able to have a page dedicated to every member of their team but I believe it’s important to have a face for the departments that matter. Take Google for example; in a company made up of thousands of workers I know that Vic Gundotra is their VP of Social. I know his Twitter, I know his Google+ and I know that I can find personalised, up to date information of Google’s social stuff on these pages. I trust him as a spokesman for Google.

Turn Off: Cheesy Stock Photos

A huge, huge pet hate of mine is really bad stock photos. You know the kind of thing I mean; grinning businessmen in suits or standing in front of a whiteboard whilst a table of other suits with glasses on watch on expectantly.

They’re so 2000 and everyone knows that. We’ve developed this kind of ‘start-up culture’ where everyone wears hoodies, square glasses without lenses, and prays to Mark Zuckerberg between FourSquare check-ins.

We’ve moved away from the ‘executive’ and ‘associate’ job roles, we’re now ‘gurus’ or ‘evangelists’, and the images on your website need to reflect this. If people think you’re paying attention to the latest technological trends (are you using HTML 5 btw?) then they’ll believe your services are just as up to date.

I’m sure there are more ‘traditional’ marketers and businessmen out there that will completely disagree with me but just take a look at the website of some of the biggest companies in the world. HP, Samsung, Sony, Qualcomm, Goldman Sachs, Zappos.com; all Fortune 500 companies, all with stunning websites, not cheesy suit in site.

Turn Off: Images That Don’t Work and Haven’t Been Tested

There are loads of different scenarios in which you could use images to increase trust in your brand. You’ve got methods like display advertising, directory listings, email marketing, and of course the no brainer; using images on your website.

You might just use one, or you might use all of them at the same time, but the one variable that won’t change depending on which type of images you’re using is the need to test them out.

There is no bigger turn off for me then being confronted with an image that clearly doesn’t work. This can apply to things like slogans and product names too; sometimes it’s just obvious that they either weren’t thought through, or just haven’t been tested.

There is no excuse for not testing your images and it can be really easy to do. I always favour split/AB testing with images because you can get some definitive stats on whether or not your image is working. Get some dynamic creatives running on your site with a couple of variations of images and just take a look at the results.

Which images keep people on the page? Which ones increase conversions? Which ones achieve a goal? Which ones aid in navigation? All of these things can be recorded and it can be pretty obvious when they’re not.

These are the main reasons why I feel that images can either build of destroy a consumers trust in your brand. Do you agree? What is it about websites and branding that makes you trust a brand? Let us know in the comments below.

Whether you’ve just started experimenting with AdWords or you’re a long time veteran, you will appreciate the importance that Google’s quality score plays on your AdWords campaigns.

The higher the quality score of your ad groups, the lower the prices of your CPC’s will be. It also means that your ads will receive a more prominent placement on the search results page, so it’s vital that you constantly strive to keep your quality score high.

That, unfortunately, is easier said than done but if you’re finding that your scores are a little on the low side there are a handful of basic things you can do to perk them up. Here are 4 tips for improving your AdWords quality score:

Group your keywords together closely

Where most inexperienced AdWords users fall short is their keyword grouping. Always make sure that your ad groups only contain keywords that are closely related to each other. Just a handful of words can throw out the whole group so if you’re finding that your quality score for certain campaigns is low, this is the first place I’d advise you start.

Don’t be afraid to have really small ad groups. If keywords don’t quite fit into your existing groups then put them in their own one! Google recommends grouping keywords into ad groups of 5 – 20, so don’t be afraid to have a group this small. Better to put them on their own than risk them tainting your other groups with their irrelevancy.

Also make sure that you group misspelled and negative keywords together. Although they may seem related to a human eye, to a computer they have no connection. Take ‘Twitter’ and ‘Twitteer’ as an example. Google will recognise Twitter and will be able to associate it with social networks given the related content on the internet, so if you have keywords like ‘social networking’ or ‘social media’ in your ad group, everything should be fine.

‘Twitteer’ on the other hand doesn’t mean anything to anyone, anywhere on the web, it’s nothing but a typo, so Google is unlikely to be able to associate it with the rest of your group, and will therefore reduce the quality score of that group.

Always AB Test/Spit test your ads

This is a fantastic way to improve your quality score. By split testing different variations of your ads you’re able to tell which ones are working better. Having two ads running at the same time means you’re able to tweak an element of ad #1 and test it against ad #2 that has the old element in place still.

It’s a great to test headlines, test, deals, keywords; everything involved in the ad creation process.

A lot of people think that running two similar ads could end up costing them more money in clicks but that’s not the case. Okay, you might get lucky with your ad first time and somehow choose the perfect combination of variables, but 99.9 percent of AdWords users won’t. Running two ads can help you find the weak link in your content much quicker than tweaking a single ad that has no alternative for comparison.

Design specific landing pages for Ad Groups

This means making sure your targeted keywords appear on the landing page. No, I obviously don’t mean stuff the page with keywords, but make sure Google can tell that there’s a link between your ad text and your landing page.

Most people will tend to do this by including their keywords in their page titles and/or H1 tags and headers and obviously creating relevant and useful keyword optimised content is another great way to tell Google you know what you’re doing.

If you’re split testing similar ads always make sure that the landing pages you’re directing traffic to are updated to coincide with your text/keyword updates. You can end up making changes quite frequently when you’re testing ads so just make sure your landing pages are updated to. If Google thinks the relevance of the landing page is starting to loosen, your quality score will too.

Play around with keyword insertion

If you’re targeting loads of keywords then it could be worth playing around with Google’s keyword insertion code. If you insert a certain bit of Google’s code into your ad text, the keywords in your text will be altered to include one of the words from the search query. This makes your ad more attractive to searchers and also much more relevant at the same time.

You need to be careful with this code though and be aware of what keywords are featured on your landing pages. If you don’t utilise the code and landing pages correctly you could end up causing your quality score unintended damage.

The keyword insertion code is an advanced feature of analytics, so if you feel a little out of your depth with it, either consult with someone more confident with AdWords, or just hold off until you’ve had a bit more practice.

Facebook may be rolling out the ‘timeline’ style theme to all brand pages but don’t think it’s missed a trick by letting companies keep the cover photo.

When I first started playing with the new timeline on our brand pages the first thing that sprang to mind was ‘Great! Look at that lovely big cover photo. That’s the perfect spot for a banner’, but alas fellow marketers, Facebook are way ahead of you.

With a load of new advertising options in the pipelines (Offers, Deals, and the log-out screen thing) there is no way that Facebook is letting you get around giving it money but putting up a free banner on your brand page; so there’s a few little restrictions that you should probably be aware of.

Facebook only briefly mentions what your cover photo should be (“a photo of a popular menu item, album artwork or a picture of people using your product”), but goes into a lot of detail on what it shouldn’t be:

Cover images must be at least 399 pixels wide and may not contain:

- Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
- Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
- References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
- Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

That’s right folks, NO ADVERTISING allowed in your cover photo. No promotions, no contact details, no website URLs, no calls to actions, and you’re not even allowed to encourage visitors to Like the page they’re on. Madness.

So just bear that in mind when you switch to the timeline and have the same epiphany I did! Here’s what Facebook’s timeline looks like: