PrintAny new media manager who has ever posted, shared, retweeted, pinned, or tumbled an infographic has first hand experience of how popular and powerful infographics can be online. Communicating your data and calls-to-action in visual format is smart strategy. However, you can have an exceptionally well-designed, useful infographic, but if its not compatible with social media and mobile devices, then it’s unlikely to gain traction. To ensure that your nonprofit’s infographics have the best chance possible of success, then adopt the six best practices detailed below.

1. Upload your infographic in full-size as an image (not a PDF) to a landing page.

You’d be surprised how many nonprofits launch their infographics in PDF format. Doing so ensures that only a fraction of could be, would be supporters will view your  infographic. Your supporters will not be able to share, pin, or tumble your infographic if it is in PDF format and this will hamper your traffic and exposure. If your nonprofit is going to invest time and financial resources into creating an infographic, then please also invest time and resources in launching it online. The first step is to embed a large version of your infographic (minimum 800 pixels in width) to a visually appealing landing page within your website (or blog). For example, the African Widlife Foundation’s “Africa’s Poaching Crisis” infographic:

Peaching infographicView Full Infographic and Landing Page

2. Crop and size sections of your infographic when promoting on social networks.

Ideally, your infographic is designed in blocks of 500 x 500 pixels and 500 x 250 pixels so that you can easily crop sections of your infographic to maximize promotion on social networks. This is not standard practice in infographic design, but doing so will increase retweet, repins, and shares and thus website traffic and the longevity of your infographic.

tweet of infographicView Cropped Infographic on Twitter

3. Ensure that your infographic is sharable.

To maximize sharing on social networks, be sure that the landing page prominently features “Share” buttons and that when shared on social networks, the web page (or blog post) is formatted to generate visually appealing thumbnails and/or a full version of the infographic. You must also ensure that a well-written title and summary automates when shared on social networks. Finally, use keywords that describe the infographic and the word “infographic” in the page (or blog) title and summary to maximize SEO in Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

Poaching infographicPinterest automates a full version of the infographic:

Poaching infographic PinterestView Infographic on Pinterest

4. Ensure your landing page is mobile responsive.

To maximize traffic and social sharing, embed your infographic on a responsively designed landing page to ensure mobile compatibility. This infographic is over a year-old, but it is still getting online traction because of how well is was designed and launched online for PCs, tablets, and smartphones. Even if your nonprofit only produces one infographic a year, it can have a live span of months or even years, so do it right. It pays off in the end.

iPhone 2 iPhone 1

5. Prominently feature calls-to-action on your infographic.

It’s good strategy to prominently feature calls-to-action on your landing page so you can convert infographic viewers into donors, followers, petition signers, e-newsletter subscribers, etc.

calls to action

6. When promoting your infographic via email, send subscribers to your landing page.

Never promote your infographic by linking to a PDF in an e-newsletter. It’s an outdated best practice and many supporters find PDFs annoying. When promoting your infographic via email, send e-newsletter subscribers to your landing page (via image link) where they can then share your infographic and be prompted to take further action.

When pitching your infographic to digital media or bloggers via email, sending a link to a PDF of your infographic is useless. Most will not know how to convert the PDF into an image and even if they did, why make them jump through hoops just to get a version of your infographic that they can use and promote? Even worse, nonprofits often pitch their infographic via email as an attached PDF! That may have worked five years ago, but today will only ensure that your pitch will be ignored.

Mobile for Good: A How-To Fundraising Guide for Nonprofits

mobile for good look insideBased on more than 20 years of experience and 25,000+ hours spent utilizing mobile and social media, Mobile for Good: A How-To Fundraising Guide for Nonprofits is a comprehensive 256-page book packed with more than 500 best practices. Written on the premise that all communications and fundraising are now mobile and social, Mobile for Good is a step-by-step how-to guide for writing, implementing, and maintaining a mobile and social fundraising strategy for your nonprofit.