How To Make Your Infographic Go Viral

A single piece of viral content can catapult your business to new heights, but how do you actually make your infographics go viral?

The truth is you can never 100% guarantee that a piece of content will go viral, but there are several things you can do to increase the odds, starting with choosing the right type of content. Infographics combine interesting data with visual cues that make them more memorable and shareable, so they are more likely to go viral than many other types of content.

Importantly, if you can get some initial attention on your infographic it can set you up for short term and long term traffic. Typically, the short term traffic will come from social media shares and then as the infographic picks up momentum, you will often find it gathers natural links which then helps it to rank high in Google for ongoing traffic. There is a nice example of this under point 4 below.

Still, deciding you’re going to share your information in an infographic isn’t enough to make it go viral. You also have to follow some proven steps to success, which we’ll take a look at now:

1. Clearly map out the story

You want different pieces of information to be in clearly defined areas of the infographic so people can easily follow along. You also want to make sure that your infographic is actually telling a story rather than just sharing a handful of interesting facts.

2. Minimize the text

Infographic blurbs should be as short as Tweets(or even shorter). Focus primarily on filling the space with appealing visuals to increase the odds of people sharing your infographic.

3. Think mobile

People are spending more time accessing the internet through their smartphones and tablets than ever before. In many parts of the world people actually use mobile internet more often than they use their home internet. If you aren’t designing infographics that are easy to digest on a smartphone you’re missing out on a huge chunk of your potential audience.

4. Tie your infographic into a popular or trending topic

This isn’t necessary if you have an excellent infographic and a good marketing strategy but it definitely helps, especially when you’re trying to garner that first bit of attention. A stellar, recent example is this infographic by LocalDigital.com.au that placed an online marketing angle on the Australian political race to come up with a timely and effective infographic that has generated dozens of fantastic links and plenty of attention.

Take a look at the link acquisition for the infographic in just a few short weeks!

link building with infographics

5. Submit your infographic to blogs and directories

Several directory sites host large collections of infographics. Some are curated and focus on a specific theme but others allow you to post infographics on any topic directly to the site. We’ve covered a list of popular options here.

It’s important to know that some sites allow for free submissions, but will generally have a lengthy queue before publishing. Many of these submission sites offer an express publish option where you can pay a small fee and get published quickly and this is a key tactic for getting initial eyeballs and links to your infographic. Five great low-cost infographic submission sites that publish quickly are the ones below:

You can also send your infographic to bloggers and other influencers in your niche. These people are always looking for relevant information presented in an exciting way.

Summing Up

There is no guarantee that your infographic will go viral but if you take the time to carefully follow all of these steps your infographic is much more likely to get shared and become a fantastic source of traffic for your website.