Visual Marketing Tools: Helping Create that Perfect Infographic

Every week, we like to cover some tools that make social media life just a little easier.  As social media gets bigger, more work is required to flourish in this quick changing industry. That’s why we’re here to help you out by providing a list of tools you can benefit from in social media. Recently we discussed web based photo editing and Twitter tools. This week, we want to get a bit more visual with infographics. They are coming up very frequently all across the web. From websites, to social media, people are engaging with infographics as they provide an easy way for audiences to take in information. In other words, infographics are becoming so widely used that you will end up struggling without them. Luckily, we can change that. The tools discussed today will help you create your own infographics so that you can provide information in a visual format that will be accepted by your audience.

1. Visual.ly

It’s easy to use Visual.ly, as you can browse through infographics for information or ideas before deciding to edit them to your liking or even make your own. They encourage you to create your story visually, and they provide just the right resources to let you do that. The nice thing is that they are very community based, and you can do much more than infographics. So when you get comfortable with creation, there is a lot of room to grow. What I personally liked is that they have a trending section which lets you really absorb some ideas from what others may be doing. I think that it’s always nice to engage with a variety of sources, even those that aren’t within your industry. It’s important to be able to see things from a different perspective, and then bring a similar idea back to your expertise so you can leverage it for your business. In this case, getting some ideas of how to visually express your brand will only be beneficial.

2. Easel.ly

Similar to Visual.ly, this beta web-based tool is an easier way to create infographics. Because it is still in its early stages, it may have some rough edges, but it doesn’t mean that they haven’t lived up to their promise by making their tool extremely user friendly. I’m serious, you literally pick a theme, the shapes you need, and the text you will use and drop it into your designated sections. In no time, you will have an infographic that is ready for use. I can’t wait to see where this tool goes as it has a lot of potential to change the way infographics are made and shared. Another thing to note on Easel.ly is that it doesn’t require you to give them access to your social media. (Just in case you cared about that kind of stuff.)

3. Prezi

If you have a little bit more of a budget and are willing to spend a couple of dollars on your visual efforts, then Prezi can definitely help you create a visual story. While they have a free account which you can make presentations, they are all public, and you are limited to 100mb of space. If all you need is 1 project, you might be able to use it for free. However, Prezi is not expensive at all, in fact it is reasonably priced. You can get five times the space along with a variety of additional features for about 5 bucks a month or 60 for a year. If you want to experience a free trial, they give you 30 days, so there’s definite use here if you’re struggling to create visual content. Prezi isn’t so much as an infographic maker as it is a short commercial maker. However, as we continue to move further into the world of social media marketing, these short information saturated commercials will be a great way to deliver our messages to the audience. These tools tend to make our social media efforts much easier while providing us with digital convenience that didn’t exist so long ago.

Do you have any other tools that you use to create your own content? Are there other ways you are utilizing these tools? Share your thoughts with us, we’d love to hear what you think.