Infographics have been around for a while, but they have really hit their stride within the last few years. Social media, marketers and tools to make them have all helped them grow. Infographics also are efficient, which is important for today’s web. People rarely take the time to read, they want quick hitting bullet points and easily scanable text. If it’s a long copy article, most readers will not invest the time to read it unless they trust the author or really need the information.

Most people don’t mind checking out an infographic because they know the investment will be low on their part to get a quick idea of if the information is worth their time to study further. It’s a great way to capture information and put it in one nice digestible block rather than paragraph after paragraph of text that the reader does not want to take the time to read.

There are also psychological reasons infographics work.

- 65% of people are visual learners, infographics make it easy to learn and remember.

- Visual data is processed 60,000 times faster by the human brain than text.

- 99% of all sensory data gets filtered out by the brain immediately, visual data is in the 1% that is left.

- People are drawn to pictures and aesthetically pleasing pictures and colors. If you can combine information that is useful with that, you have a winner.

As a marketer, there are a lot of benefits to using infographics.

- They are easily and often shared.

- They can build credibility and position you or your business as an expert.

- They can drive traffic and get links.

- They can encapsulate a lot of data in an efficient manner.

- Infographics can get used many times and attribution is included on the graphic (typically) in case someone misses it.

I was looking at infographics and found the interesting infographic on infographics below from Neo Mammalian Studios via Unbounce. Ironic, I know but also a great example of how infographics can be used multiple times as long as they are useful and present relevant information. Take a look and if you are not using infographics there is still time, they are not going anywhere, but you won’t benefit unless you get started.