Content We Love: Using Infographics to Dominate the Competition like a “Terminator” at the Gym

By Niphon Goodyear

One thing that weightlifting has taught me is to NEVER just show up. When it is time to train it’s time to go 100% and for press releases and life in general, you never just want to go through the motions. Go hard or go home. You don’t want to be that guy or girl who goes to the gym and mopes around in the corner doing an occasional set of curls whenever their friends stop replying to them on WeChat. You also don’t want to be that guy who lets out a primal scream each time he manages to lift more than 3 pounds. No, you want to cut through the distractions with something bold, something different!

-13 celsius and windy? No problem. Time to do a set.

Agoda has really pushed the envelope with its newest press release. You can tell they went to the gym ready to do a thousand squats. No, there would be no slacking by Agoda, they came out ready to lift some heavy weight. The release “Agoda.com Study Reveals Travelers’ Prefer Free Wi-Fi to Free Breakfast”  jumps out at you with one of the more effective press release enhancers around: the infographic. Surprisingly, I don’t run across very many release with infographics and there really should be more companies out there that utilize these wonderful tools. Here are two UNFORGETTABLY AMAZING reasons why infographics will help ANY press release:

Does Things that Photos and Videos CANT Do!

We all know that the inclusion of multimedia powers up your results. But what if you want to try something different? And why would using an infographic be worth it against the proven results of photos and videos? Well, infographics convey information quicker than any video can and they are more in depth than a simple picture. Previously boring statistics suddenly become fun and colorful via the magic of colors and design. The key is to providing relevant information. Information regarding what people prefer in terms of hotel amenities is interesting to those who would read an Agoda release and useful to not only consumers but also hotel management.

Encourages People to Share the Release!

Infographics are popular because most people are visual thinkers. Therefore infographics are much more effective in terms of allowing readers to retain information than a standard press release which would take several paragraphs to summarize everything in word form. Of note, per Graphs.net, searches for infographics increased by 800% between 2010 and 2012. Being easy to understand, infographics are often shared on social media allowing for increased exposure that can be measured. Notice that Agoda has included their logo at the bottom right of the infographic. This increases brand awareness. People will associate the numbers presented with Agoda which means next time they are preparing to book a room online, they will probably visit Agoda.com.

Unsure if Agoda was thinking about social media when they wrote this release? Look no further than the following call to action: “To connect with Agoda.com and learn about special deals and promotions on hotels worldwide, like us on Facebook or follow us on Google+, Instagram, or Pinterest.”  As if that wasn’t enough, Agoda could take things even further by expanding their presence on other popular international social media platforms. Infographics are international and people everywhere regardless of their level in the language appearing on an infographic will be interested in what an infographic conveys provided it is designed similar to how Agoda designed theirs.

The sky is truly the limit when you are thinking of adding an infographic to a press release!