In the web space, infographics are still one of the best and most cost-effective marketing strategies to build hundreds, even thousands of links to your website. It’s actually quite amazing how viral a well-designed piece of information can become – especially on platforms like Twitter.
Over the last 12 months or so, I’ve watched web agencies (particularly small to mid-sized firms) explode into the industry spotlight all because of a clever infographic that was shared and reposted by the right kind of people i.e. information design junkies like Mashable.
Obviously, nothing stays “bling bling” forever and exploitation will eventually become the demise of this link building buzz tactic. So in the tradition of pushing boundaries combined with absolute curiosity, I find myself wondering what’s next. Then it came to me:
Infographics as we currently know them are static, just like the web used to be. Naturally this means it’s only a matter of time before designers and savvy marketers start to move towards newer technologies to further enhance the viral potential and “linkability”.
Interactive infographics… That’s insane… Or is it?
Enter HTML5 and CSS3
Don’t start panicking; I’m not going to write a guest post on Linkbuildr.com about web design best practices because that wouldn’t be very relevant, but as an Internet marketer and avid blogger, if there’s a new way to spread content that users go bonkers for – I need to know about it.
After a few searches on Google I didn’t find much, and then I stumbled upon a very short but descriptive “challenge” of sorts posted by Mozilla developer and overall cool dude, Paul Rouget, where he asked his blog audience to design an infographic using HTML5 and CSS3.
This is exactly what I’m talking about!
Though there were only about 9 direct responses to his challenge via the blog post, I could already see the potential.
Just imagine how many more people would want to share awesome infographics if they were animated and interactive! The link building possibilities would be staggering.
Enter Live Data Feeds
Companies are fetching live data and using it all over the web, so why not take things a step further and fuse this functionality into traditional information design and create an attractive, viral piece of info-driven content where the data changes as time goes by. Not only would the content be highly engaging and attractive (thanks to HTML5 and CSS3) but it will also be up to date – constantly.
I know you’re probably thinking I’m insane, and the fact of the matter is that I wouldn’t even know where to begin to create my own Interactive Infographic, but from a marketer’s prospective more user engagement means more sharing – and this is what excites me.
What do you think? Too far off the edge or crazy linking potential?
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