How to Create Your Own Infographics..

Infographics are a great way to capture attention, tweets, likes, links and new readers and are proving very popular with a growing number of online sites.

If you’re not familiar with what infographics are, then basically they’re a way to communicate information – especially dry, boring facts – in an interesting way by incorporating visual elements so your visitors can interact with them.

You could create an infographic to communicate pertinent information to your prospects – information that could help them to make the decision to use your product or service. And a good infographic can even go viral, appearing on numerous sites and tweeted about hundreds of times.

The use for infographics in your business is pretty limitless..

Check out these websites for plenty of infographic examples:

http://dailyinfographic.com/

http://infographicsite.com/

http://infographiclist.com/

http://www.infographicsarchive.com/

http://infographics.socialnama.com/

http://www.infographicsshowcase.com/

http://theinfographics.blogspot.com/

So how do you create your own infographics? You could of course simply hire someone to do it for you – or you can try doing it for yourself.
For the more adventurous soul – or the marketer with a limited budget – here are 20 infographic creating resources, all of which are free or very low cost.

Software, Both Online and Downloads:

Inkscape – Vector graphic software is simple and intuitive.

Http://inkscape.org

Gapminder – Current data on major world issues with impressive visualizations – good one to practice on since the data is already there. http://www.gapminder.org/

Tableau – Windows only software for creating visualizations. Another good one to practice with.

http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/

Wordle – Like playing with words? You’ll love this; create word visualizations using the text you enter. Lost of designs to choose from.

http://www.wordle.net/

Tagxed – Word clouds with “styles”

http://www.tagxedo.com/

Creately – 100’s of features for diagramming, one click styling and even team collaboration.

http://creately.com/

StatPlanet – Create fully customizable, feature rich interactive maps & graphs and publish them online. The award-winning StatPlanet is a free download. http://www.statsilk.com/

Many Eyes – Upload your own data or use data from the site.

http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/

Hohli – Is an easy to use online chart maker. Just pick your chart type, add your data, play with the colors and sizes and you’ll be surprised at how good your chart looks.

http://charts.hohli.com

Tutorials on Infographic Creation:

Anatomy of an Infographic – 5 Steps to Create a Powerful Visual

http://spyrestudios.com/the-anatomy-of-an-infographic-5-steps-to-create-a-powerful-visual/

7 ½ Steps to Successful Infographics

http://visitmix.com/Articles/seven-and-a-half-steps-to-successful-infographics

Create Cool Infographics

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/?featureid=1823

How To Create Outstanding Modern Infographics Tutorial http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutorials/designing/how-to-create-outstanding-modern-infographics/

Tips For Journalists Creating Infographics

http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2010/4/27/10-tips-for-journalists-designing-infographics.html

Yet More Tools: