How to Get Your Infographics Viral

So you followed my tips in my post about using infographics for social media, and now you’ve got yourself some custom-made infographics just ready and waiting for people to start sharing them. That’s great!! But now how do you, y’know, actually get that to happen?

I can’t promise every infographic has the potential to go viral, but here’s a good way to try.

Infographic Distribution Services

At PuTTin’ OuT, sure we’re a social media marketing service that exists to “do” social media for others, but on our blog we like to make things a bit more DIY. That said, you can find plenty of hands-free infographic distributors, but I recommend trying it guerilla-style first.

Make Them INTERESTING

Okay, the first step is to make sure your infographic is actually interesting enough that people will WANT to read (let alone share) it. Let’s say you’re marketing for a septic tank manufacturer. It’s a crappy industry (couldn’t resist 😉 – so work with what you have.

You want to appeal to more than the niche user, so rather than creating an infographic about how many Americans use septic tanks or something boring like that (you can do the niche stuff once you’re rolling these out fast), play on funny/interesting stuff, like American pooping habits. Or what happens to poop once you flush it. Or how much poop gets flushed daily. (Are you sensing a pattern yet?!?!)

I don’t know about you, but I’d read that, and I’d share that. Get creative and branch out.

Make Them ORIGINAL

We’re talking custom infographics here, original ones people can’t find anywhere else. If you’re reposting someone else’s infographic – first of all, it’s dishonest to link back to your site with it and steal the creator’s traffic. Second, you’re missing all the people who already shared it before you. GET YOUR OWN, MAN!

(If you’re making them yourself, here are some free infographic templates!)

Make Them PROFESSIONAL

If you have to, contract out to a digital designer/copywriter, or both. These are usually pretty simple projects you can get on the cheap through sites like fiverr.com, but don’t skimp on price if it means a drop in quality. Make sure the images are commercial-use-friendly, the copy is compelling and well edited, and the final product “flows” well.

Make Them SEO-FRIENDLY

Make sure your infographics are alt-tagged and titled with SEO-friendly key phrases that are relevant to your website, URLs, and any page content surrounding the infographic on your website. You should have a dedicated page for each one, even if it’s just a blog post with a few sentences around it. And if you distribute it, be sure that the image is hyperlinked back to the page you’re hosting it on, and if you can, by-line your website domain on the distribution site.

Distribute Them

Once your infographic practices are sound, you’re ready to distribute.

Start on all your regular channels: email it out, post it to all your social outlets (ESPECIALY Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram), blog it, and even write a press release about it. Reddit, Digg, and StumbleUpon are great freebies, too, along with your favorite image-hosting sites like Visual.ly or Flickr.

Then, hit up the infographic directories. UK marketer Paddy Moogan has a great breakdown list of infographics – the free ones are a great starting point!

Got more tops for making infographics viral? Please share in the comments!