We’re gonna take a crazy guess and say that your brand has churned out a few infographics. Maybe you have one in production now. Maybe you have an archive full of them. Either way, if you have infographics, you should always look for ways to reuse, repurpose, and extend their shelflife to get the most mileage out of them.
We’ve been doing infographics for a long time (we even wrote a book about it), and in that time we’ve learned a few ways to remix infographics. One of our favorite? Turn a static infographic into an animated infographic. Whether through GIFs or motion graphics, enhancing your infographic with motion helps you tell your story in an engaging way. For a little inspiration, here are three ways to do it.
1) Make an Animated Infographic
Publishing platforms and social platforms have come a long way since we started making infographics back in 2008. They now support static images, video, and GIFs, meaning you have a lot more formats to play with. While static infographics are still effective, turning a static into an animated infographic ups your game just that much more. Using full-on or even light animation makes your infographic more dynamic and attention-grabbing. This is especially true for social, where you’re trying to stand out in a feed. (It’s also more likely to get you published, as publishers are always looking for A-plus visual content to enhance their own editorial mix.)
You can animate any and all infographics, but if you’re looking to experiment with one to start, we suggest one of your most popular or evergreen pieces. If you plan to turn your infographic into an animated masterpiece, we also recommend designing it in sections that can be easily extracted to support other content.
Example: We turned a Newscred survey into an animated infographic, designed in modular panels so that each section could be used individually.
If you’re nervous about experimenting with animated infographics, you can also encourage your team to experiment with an internal project. As part of our own content marketing, we created an animated infographic on tips to hack a drought, which let our team flex their creativity and bring the useful tips to life:
2) Create Smaller GIFS
Technically, animated infographics are GIFS. But the GIFS most people are familiar with are those standalone little loops you see all over the Internet. Those little gems get shared for a reason. They’re simple, entertaining, and eye-catching. You can join in on the fun by extracting single elements from infographics (again, this is why we’re big fans of modular design) to turn into GIFS. These make great microcontent for social and can be used to tease a larger piece of content. (This approach is a big part of a divisible content strategy, where you create additional assets from cornerstone pieces of content.)
They can also make great additions to your email marketing. When Dell used a GIF-centric email campaign to promote a new product in 2014, they saw tremendous success, including a:
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- 6% increase in open rate
- 42% increase in click rate
- 103% increase in conversion rate
- 109% increase in revenue
Additionally, GIFS are great ways to enhance your blogs. In 2014 QuickSprout analyzed 41 blogs across different industries to try to find a correlation between the type of images included in blogs and how many social shares those blogs earned. The results were pretty interesting; animated graphics grabbed the no. 1 spot.
To create great GIFS, look at all the assets in your infographic, including illustrations and data visualization. If you can make it move, you can get even more attention.
Example: We partnered with Takepart to create a set of GIFS highlighting important statistics about veterans’ mental health. Though simple, the animated data visualizations make a powerful statement.
3) Turn It into a Motion Graphic
Video storytelling has exploded in the last few years, as more social platforms have expanded their video capabilities. People are particularly drawn to this format because it’s an efficient form of storytelling. (A 2014 Levels Beyond survey found that 40% of consumers would rather watch a brand video than read the same information.) It’s also passive, so people don’t have to do anything but press play and kick back. For that reason, turning your infographics into full-on motion graphics may be the right way to go, depending on your use case. (Explainers, tutorials, or process overviews are particularly well suited for the motion graphic treatment.)
Your motion graphics don’t even have to be that long. A single infographic can easily be distilled into a 30-second motion graphic, saving people time and energy in consuming the content.
Example: To celebrate Earth Week 2015, we created a motion graphic with NBC Universal, which featured stats about food waste in the U.S., as well as helpful tips to avoid it. It’s a simple story brought to life in only 45 seconds.