Viral Bait: Infographics

Infographics are everywhere. You find them on blogs, websites, press releases, social networks, even the weather report. These colorfully illustrated charts break down data into simple pictures and turn complex information into easy-to-understand symbols. By making the difficult digestible (and sometimes fun), infographics catch the attention of your audience. Just as importantly, Google loves them and will reward their delivery with top search rankings.

Their story starts in late February 2011, when Google made a strategic change to their search algorithm in an attempt to stop the use of content farms from manipulating search results. The purpose of the algorithm, called Panda, was to ensure better rankings for high-quality websites that delivered original content, like in-depth research and data reporting. From this evolved the need for websites to improve content in order to deliver higher search rankings and the infographic was born. 

Adding to the infographic’s growing popularity, the following year, in April 2012, Google’s Penguin algorithm was released. Penguin decreases the rankings of websites that buy links from link farms or directories, offer irrelevant content, or worst, employ black-hat SEO (deceptive SEO techniques like using hidden text). 

How your website ranks in Google search results has a big impact on your bottom line. Smart marketers want their sites to perform well with the current Panda and Penguin search algorithms. How? Well, the saying “content is king” has never been truer. Google’s Panda algorithm must "believe" that you are adding valuable content to the web for your site to rank well. So you need to focus on creating good, unique content that viewers will want to share. One way is by using infographics. 

Also something like 65% of us are visual learners and this visual attribute is the reason for their inherent viral potential. Even better than a picture, when you add an infographic to your content, especially one that contains interesting data or challenges your audience’s world view, it makes your topic more relevant and engaging, increasing the chance that your reader will share that graphic across the web.

Here are some examples from Creative Blog with a list of 60 Brilliant Infographics. Another fun example from Visual.ly provides you with a free tool on their website that takes your Twitter profile and turns it into an infographic in 30 seconds. Give it a try at http://visual.ly/twitter.  

If you design and use an infographic, remember that its viral capacity may remove it from your website. This means that you’ll lose your branding. So expect that to happen and be prepared. Like a dog without a collar, you don’t want your infographic to get lost on the Internet with no one knowing it belongs to you. 

Are there any infographics that you've seen recently that caught your eye? Share your thoughts in the comments. Here’s one that inspired this post. It’s from NowSourcing on The State of Infographics.

My post was originally published on Talent Zoo's Digital Pivot.

Stop Blogging, 5 Things Will Happened...

Updating Your Website? Think Mobile.

Why? Because for most of us earthlings, there's just no other way to get to the Internet except via our mobile phones. In fact, "more than a third of the people in the US don't have Internet access at home, but nine out of ten have a mobile phone," Olof Schybergson writes in a recent Fortune article. And of those mobile owners, he estimates that about a third use their phones to access the Internet. If you need more proof, Hubspot sponsored (in September 2011 but hey the numbers are just bigger now) this great research collection, More than Talk: Action in Mobile Marketing.

If you're introducing a mobile strategy and thinking you can simply shrink down your desktop site, think again. Although for those of us who "grow our own" sites in Blogger and Wordpress, there are convenient adjustments that include recommendations as well as template suggestions. But the ability to view your PC Website with a mobile device with an HTML browser doesn't mean that the experience is fun or easy. 

Mobithinking reminds us of some of these basics like the fact that viewing a PC Website on a mobile phone requires scrolling left and right, and up and down. That most web-enabled phones are not smartphones. Also that most mobile phones have small screens. No matter how good the mobile connection, large images will be slow to load. Many technologies, like Flash for example, commonly used on PC sites don't work well on many handsets. Yes, even Apple.

The conclusion is obvious. Mobile users have different requirements than desktop Web users and provide different opportunities for your business. Just re-sizing your web site for a target audience that's mobile first means that you're missing a chance, to offer your customers a mobile environment that is clean, simple and even intimate. Intimate, like the lady in my mobile navigation application or remember Hal in 2001: Space Odyssey? 

Since it looks like the best advice is to tell you to get a reputable design agency to work with you to ensure your site and campaigns are both mobile and web friendly, I asked my friend, Skip Shuda, co-founder of Philly Marketing Labs, what he recommends. He confirmed that some clients are experiencing regular, monthly growth rates of nearly 10% in mobile traffic and suggested auditing mobile traffic as a first step. 

That said, he had two key suggestions. First, your email marketing should be view-able in a mobile friendly format. In 2011, 27% of all email was read on a mobile device. Businesses need to make sure their emails can be ready and acted upon. Skip advises, "Check with your email service provider to make sure they are sending responsive email that adapts to the mobile device. Mailchimp does a great job with responsive email templates that are ready out of the box."

Second, make sure your landing pages are optimized for mobile. He said that, "Most people can fill out a form easily enough with their phones. However, if they have to scroll around to do so, the completion rate will plummet." Skip recommended Hubspot's landing page tool. "It lets you toggle between the mobile and web version of your page - so you can see both formats. That kind of tool is becoming critical to marketers."

Another trusted resource, Rick Simmons, president of Dinkum Interactive, pointed out that at the end of the day, " While many look at their site on a phone and say it looks fine, mobile requires a different experience for the user and you better be prepared to provide it. It is all about giving the users what they want when they want it and in most cases they are using the phone for different reasons than PC or a tablet.”

And Forrester's research agrees. The report entitled "The Future of Mobile Application Development" (with thanks to Mobile Marketer's, Lauren Johnson) found that marketers and developers need to have a grasp on a user's total mobile experience.

It's clear that gone are the days when talking to someone was the reason to use the phone. Emerging best practices indicate that if you want to build sales and retain customers, as you update your online dialog, you need to be including mobile in your repertoire. But take a look at your current customers first. They won't steer you wrong.

Illustration published on Campbell Ewald (http://www.c-e.com/work/channels.html)

Be Mine, Zombie Teddy Bear!

As Valentine's Day approaches, an English artist, Phillip Blackman, can't make his zombie teddy bears fast enough. On a whim or perhaps after a disappointing day, he got the urge to tear out the guts of an old teddy bear and transform it into a zombie. It took him two days employing his special effects talents, but he ended up with a gore-soaked teddy holding it's bleeding heart, torn from it's own furry chest. (I know, it's sad.)

His bears, which he sells on line for between $70 and $140, have become increasingly popular. In fact  CNN Money reported one being auctioned on eBay with bids reaching nearly $400. Zombie enthusiasts from across the globe are frantically requesting Blackman to make more. But he has a bit of a supply dilemma since he uses previously owned bears and wasn't really prepared for this instant success.  He just can't keep up with demand.  

These Zombie teddy bears are more than a cottage industry started by a smart English artist, they're another indicator of a growing consumer interest in all things Zombie, even in the toy business where earlier this month, the toy maker Mattel reported that its Monster High dolls drove sales up 57% in 2012. Zombie bears are also another good lesson in how a product becomes a brand overnight with the power of the Internet to drive consumer awareness and purchase.  Nothing un-dead about that!

The Marketing Organization

Most people believe that marketing is advertising. You take what the factory creates and sell it by screaming about it on TV or by emailing everyone. Frankly, many companies do just that. That's where they start, and that's unfortunately where they stay, right in the outer circle of this organizational chart. They guess at and implement these tactics and when their advertising doesn't work, they don't know why. But go in just one layer of this diagram and real marketing starts to happen.

This is where you realize that not everyone is a good fit for your product. You bring in researchers and strategic talent to define and find your users and followers. You start looking at your product through your customers' eyes. You and your team develop the product’s story. You examine and network into industries that would benefit from your product. You look at pricing. For example, maybe a subscription is better than a one-time purchase. You evaluate your ROI to determine which tactics result in profits and find out why. Most importantly, you take a hard look to see what the customer experience (with the product as well as the sales cycle) is all about. You understand it and you improve it.
 

Not surprisingly, the next layer in is about creating amazement; recognizing what your customers want before they know they want it. A great example of this type of product design in action is the intuitive features on a tablet; then, so is something as simple as a restaurant having clean silverware. Here’s where you use champions to focus on support and usability. These champions examine and measure customer relationships, and, based on data, improve the product.  They create and implement collaborative sales methods that educate and engage your customers. These methods also recognize and exploit regional and culture-specific opportunities as the world becomes your marketplace. 

At the center of it all is the Chief Marketing Officer. The CMO is responsible for the relationship between your customer and your product. This leader is the customer guardian and the product advocate. The CMO knows that for the product or service being sold to be remarkable, it has to have this organizational structure built in. When business practices are aligned with customer-centric research and focus, revenue opportunities are exposed and your team will change the marketing agenda.  

Marketing becomes easier because it is based on facts. It is no longer a shouting match at the customer, but a dance with the prospective customer while existing customers become partners and even advocates. When you build your business from the inside out, starting with the CMO and moving out to staff implementing tactics, a significant transformation happens. Your marketing team sees your customers' expressed and unexpressed needs, and these are the opportunities that are satisfied by your product.

Inspired by a blog post by Seth Godin, The Circles of Marketing
Motivation from Jay Yarow's The Org charts Of All the Major Tech Companies (Humor)

Warm Bodies and the Rise of Zombie Marketing

The recently released film, Warm Bodies, is a romantic comedy told from the point of view of a zombie. It's a story of a unique friendship between Julie, a young woman, and "R", a zombie and we should add it to a growing list of TV Shows like The Walking Dead and celebrated movies like Dawn of the Dead and the cult classic Shaun of the Dead, that film makers have used to encourage our curiosity with Zombies. Whatever is at the root of our infatuation, by tapping into it, companies are using the undead to breath life into an existing brand.

For example, look in your local toy stores for Zombie themed products, from Legos (check out the LEGO Zombie Apocalypse page on Facebook) to dolls.  The gaming sector is no exception. Resident Evil, Siren, House of the Dead and Dead Space among others have built their reputations upon some form of undead.  

Late last year, the US streetwear brand, Rocawear, got into the act by introducing tattooed model, Rick Genest, also know as 'Zombie Boy' as the look to star in the label's Spring/Summer 2013 campaign.  His ghoulishly striking urban youth presence may challenge your personal perception of Zombies. 

Then there is the story about a government agency that is a great resource on survival information during a catastrophe but no one was visiting its website. So the Center for Disease Control decided to take all of its information for surviving in a disaster and wrap it within the context of how to prepare for a zombie apocalypse. The approach helped the agency to resuscitate its message and tap their existing fans to improve their online visibility. 

So Zombies are more than previously human, gory, stumbling, villager-chasing creatures; they're also part of a lucrative trend that over the past four years has generated $5.74 billion to the global economy.  Check out the infographic below from Wish.co.uk to see just how much they're worth.

Courtesy of: Wish.co.uk