How One $5 Infographic Went Viral, Got Facebook Followers
Can you use an infographic to attract visitors to your blog and social media? That was the challenge I set myself recently: To use an infographic to generate interest about my brand – This Dad Does.
Was it a success or a waste of money? And is it something you can do with your own blog or business? I’ve got all the answers to those questions and more.
What is An Infographic?
Before we look at whether an infographic is a smart choice for your blog or brand, you need to understand exactly what one is.
Simply speaking an infographic is a visual way of displaying data, numbers or statistics. You’ll have seen them on social media or featured on television. Many brands use them to promote themselves or campaigns they are running.
Because infographics are easily shared on social media, there is potential for you to get your brand to a large number of people easily.
Because of this, I was inspired to have my own infographic commissioned. Here’s what happened.
Infographics like this contain a lot of data which is easy to access.
How to Commission an Infographic
How do you have an infographic commissioned? These days it’s easy. I spent a short while collecting statistics from other websites.
After this I went on Fiverr (You could also use Upwork or another freelancer website) and entered my project brief.
For the purposes of my experiment, I chose a designer who was willing to do the graphic for the minimum price of $5.
This was probably the most challenging part of the project. With sites like Fiverr you get what you pay for. Someone offering infographics for $5 is either very inexperienced or not good quality.
Thankfully my designer was just inexperienced but (as you can see) the resulting graphic was adequate for what I wanted.
However the designer’s first language wasn’t English and this meant the main changes I needed were grammatical and spelling mistakes.
If you want to try designing your own infographic, you’ll get a $5 credit to spend on Fiverr by clicking here.
Infographics on Social Media: The Results
The results from putting the infographic on social media was a mixed bag. Clearly this type of graphic works well on some forms of social media and not so well on others.
1. Facebook
I posted the graphic on Facebook and spent £5 (about $6) to ‘boost’ the post.
The boost function creates a ‘promoted post’ from whatever you’ve put up on Facebook. It’s a lazy man’s Facebook ad and can have mixed results.
However this infographic had good take up with over 900 ‘likes’ and resulting in several follows of my Facebook page.
On other occasions I’ve spent considerably more money on promoted content with very little payback. Considering the total for Facebook spend (including the graphic) was around $11, this represented good value for money in promoting my brand.
Facebook Summary: 
- 900 post likes
- 5 page follows
- $11 spend
2. Twitter
I’ve used Twitter for more than seven years. Getting shares, likes and follows used to be easy but recently Twitter changed it’s algorythm which has altered the dynamic and not for the better.
Still, the infographic was well received and seen over 5000 times. On Twitter, a 5-6% engagement rate is good so 10% is an excellent rate.
Attracting 37 retweets is also good and resulted in a small increase in traffic to the blog and my Twitter profile page.
The denigration of the role of fathers is having a long term impact on society pic.twitter.com/n5Era6Q5o7
— Neil M White 🇬🇧 (@ThisDadDoes) March 29, 2017
Twitter Summary:
- 5000+ engagements#
- 37 retweets
- $5 spent
Gab:
Gab is the new kid on the social media block. It’s format is similar to Twitter but it has different features including categories and a pro club for premium users.
I’ve not really cracked how to use Gab to best promote This Dad Does. Right now, landscape photographs and gardening seem to be the best topics for Gab on 200 followers.
The graphic got a couple of likes but nothing on the scale of Facebook or Twitter.
Infographics – Worth it to Promote Your Brand?
If you want to promote your brand, an infographic is a great way to do it. I took an experimental approach to see if it was possible to have my infographic commissioned for $5 and do minimal promotion on social media.
If you were to spend a bit more time and money on your infographic as well as a longer promotion period, the results are likely to eclipse what I’ve achieved.
The infographic was good value for money in bringing in blog traffic, Facebook likes and Twitter impressions and there are a range of options on Fiverr for getting your own design done.
If you’ve had a positive experience with infographics or have anything to add, post a comment below.
Neil
P.S. You can get $5 to spend at Fiverr by clicking this link (I get $5 too so we’re both winners).
