10 free tools for creating infographics

Don't have hours to spare crafting something beautiful in Photoshop? Sarah James selects tools that won't cost you a penny...

For all the importance we place on text, it's an indisputable fact that images are processed in the brain faster than words. Hence the rise and rise of the infographic which, at its best, transforms complex information into graphics that are both easy to grasp and visually appealing. No wonder magazine readers and web visitors love them.

The only problem is, infographics that look like they were simple to make are often anything but. Creating something beautiful and instantly understandable in Photoshop is often beyond the limits that time allows. Which is why it's occasionally useful to use a quick and dirty infographics tool to speed up the process.

We've selected our favourites here. They're all free, or offer free versions. Let us know which ones you get on best with...

01. Vizualize

  

This generator could be the start of how ‪résumé‬s will be portrayed in the future

After the success of our post on an infographic ‪résumé‬, it was only a matter of time before this infographic ‪résumé‬ generator turned up. You can visualise your resume in one click and also take a look at previous examples. Enabling people to express their professional accomplishments in a simple yet compelling personal visualisation, we think this is the start of something big.

02. Google Developers

  

Display real live data with Google Developers

Google chart tools are powerful, simple to use, and free. You can choose from a variety of charts and configure an extensive set of options to perfectly match the look and feel of your website. By connecting your data in real time, Google Developers is the perfect infographic generator for your website.

03. Easel.ly

Easel.ly offers a dozen free templates to start you off

This free web-based infographic tool offers you a dozen free templates to start you off, which are easily customisable.

You get access to a library of things like arrows, shapes and connector lines, and you can customize the text with range of fonts, colours, text styles and sizes. The tool also lets you upload your graphics and position them with one touch.

04. Piktochart

The Piktochart's customizable editor lets you modify colour schemes and fonts

Piktochart is an infographic and presentation tool enabling you to turn boring data into engaging infographics with just a few clicks. Piktochart's customizable editor lets you do things like modify colour schemes and fonts, insert pre-loaded graphics and upload basic shapes and images. Its grid lined templates also make it easy to align graphical elements and resize images proportionally. There's a free version offering three basic themes, while a pro account costs $29 per month or $169 for a year.

05. Infogr.am

Customising the data that makes up the infographic takes place in an Excel style spreadsheet

Infogr.am is a great free tool which offers access to a wide variety of graphs, charts and maps as well as the ability to upload pictures and videos to create cool infographics.

Customising the data that makes up the infographic takes place in an Excel style spreadsheet and can easily be edited, watching the software automatically change the look of the infographic to perfectly represent your data. When you're happy with your infographic you can publish it to the Infogram website for all to enjoy and even embed it in to your own website or share it via social media.

06. Visual.ly

Visual.ly is both a tool and a community for infographics creators

Visual.ly is a community platform for data visualization and infographics set up in 2011. It allows you both to create infographics and get them shared on social media. The website is also able to match those commissioning infographics - including brands, companies and agencies - with its community over more than 35,000 designers.

07. InFoto Free

Build infographics based on your photo taking habits

This one's a bit niche, but if you take a lot of photos with your Android phone it's worth checking out. InFoto takes the EXIF data attached to your photos and builds nice-looking infographics from it. It's got a great interface, and the paid-for version (which comes without ads) only costs 99 cents.

08. Venngage

  

Looking for an easy-to-use tool? Venngage is your best bet!

Venngage is a great tool for creating and publishing infographics because it's so simple and easy to use. You can choose from templates, themes, and hundreds of charts and icons as well as uploading your own images and backgrounds, or customize a theme to suit your brand. You can animate them too!

09. Dipity

  

Upgrade to the Premium plan for custom branding

Dipity is a great way to create, share, embed, and collaborate on interactive, visually engaging timelines that integrate video, audio, images, text, links, social media, location, and time stamps. You can join for free but premium plans offer custom branding and backgrounds, analytics, and custom iPhone apps.

10. Get About

This free Windows app lets you monitor your social media activity and generate infographics that help you visualize how you connect and share with your network.

Source - Creating Infographics

User-Generated Content: The Newest Social Proof In Software

While professional advertising and personal selling will always have their place in your marketing mix, there’s a new major contender in the ring of marketing solutions. When it comes to your software sales process, it’s an element you can’t ignore: the social proof of user-generated content.

While we covered more general social proof for software sales in an earlier blog, the specific power of user-generated content to drive lead generation and help close sales is too great to ignore. Here are just a few points to keep in mind when it comes to harnessing user-generated content for your software sales process:

The Most Trusted Form Of Media

Because user-generated content isn’t produced by an advertising agency or marketing company, consumers are more likely to trust the message behind the media. User-generated content comes across more like a peer-to-peer conversation than an advertisement, so a consumer’s mental defenses are lowered when considering the benefits of your software product or service.

Consider the example of GoPro cameras: By harnessing the content generated by users of their video cameras, they’ve created the ultimate form of social proof. In this case, GoPro spent minimal time and budget on advertising and instead let the user-generated content from their cameras – the videos – spread the word for them.

Related Resources from B2C

» Free Webcast: Build Better Products by Identifying and Validating Your Riskiest Assumptions

When it comes to software sales, brainstorm how your company might do the same with user reviews, integrated social media functions, user-built templates or user-generated demos.

Peers Before Professionals

User-generated content also thrives because most consumers (including B2B consumers) would rather hear about a new product or service from a peer or colleague than from a distant, unrelated professional.

This is why your sales team should always ask your customers for business referrals after you’ve closed a deal and implemented your new software. Referred prospects close at a much higher rate than prospects generated from a completely cold call, because a business referral is a brief form of user-generated content. Referrals and reviews of your company work as social proof that your business is trustworthy and dependable.

Social Proof And Social Media

User-generated content without the means or methods to appropriately share it is useless. That’s why your software sales team needs to harness the power of social media to deliver user-generated content to the right prospects and at the right time.

In addition, not only does social media give your team the means to get user-generated content in front of your leads and prospects, but social media platforms also allow those same prospects and customers to share it with their own networks that are completely beyond your initial reach.

The Proof Is In The Conversions

User-generated content isn’t just about buzz or getting your name “out there”; rather, this form of social proof also generates results. According to a study by BazaarVoice, consumers are twice as likely to purchase a product or service after they’ve read at least one positive review.

This is why you should utilize user-generated content throughout the software sales process: from initial lead generation via social media to closing a sale with a critical user-generated demo or case study. Not only do you help relieve the fears and pains of your prospects, but you also help close the deal.

While every form of social proof is important to use in the software sales process, your sales team should no longer ignore the power of user-generated content. With the right approach and strategy, your user-generated content could be selling your business software for you.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/strategy/user-generated-content-newest-social-proof-software-sales-0965951

7 steps to determine content marketing software needs

I've been looking hard at the burgeoning content marketing software landscape recently, and I've realized marketers need help not only navigating a growing universe of tools and software for their content marketing needs, but also determining what their own needs really are.

Without understanding those needs, selecting vendors and determining budgets for solutions are well nigh impossible, and when solutions are purchased, money is often wasted, or inappropriately allocated.

As a content software vendor recently put it, "Most brands aren't yet able to clearly articulate their content marketing needs or end KPIs. This makes creating an RFP and asking the right questions incredibly difficult." Brands and their agencies can't frame "what's needed" or how to get to the end goal.

So my latest project as an analyst has been to create the "Content Marketing Software RFP: A Framework to Determine Needs & Solicit Proposals" (download available at no cost). Existing RFP templates can't be retrofitted to the task of soliciting content marketing solutions due to a number of specific challenges.

There are seven steps to the process, including looking beyond marketing into cross-functional needs, as well as integration with other software systems.

Determine goals and provide background

Because content marketing is still nascent, this initial step helps align the organization with the RFP process. Write a brief that includes project goals and objectives, your initial deployment approach, the competitive landscape (if relevant), and an implementation timeline.

For example, one goal could be to streamline content creation throughout marketing to reduce duplicated efforts. Or you may want to syndicate existing content across multiple websites and use analytics to optimize content for greater visibility. A thorough brief also helps the software vendors understand goals, targets, and unique challenges.

Determine and prioritize content marketing use cases

The next step is to determine which use cases apply to your project. The template reflects the framework outlined in Altimeter's report, "The Content Marketing Software Landscape: Marketer Needs and Vendor Solutions," which explains how to identify marketers' needs against eight use cases, each containing numerous subcategories and integration considerations.

A key part of your RFP process is determining which use cases and subcategory features are most important to your organization. Very rarely does an RFP address all eight use cases; you can reduce the complexity of the process by selecting from the start only those use cases that most apply to your organization's content needs.

Gather cross-functional requirements

Now that you have the broad outlines of your organization's content needs, identify stakeholders and end users, and solicit them for their requirements, input, and collaboration.

Plan for integration and evolution

Integration considerations are essential because of the consolidation driven by converged media, as well as the evolution of content stacks, end-to-end content marketing solutions akin to ad stacks. Each content marketing use case comes with a host of potential integration issues. Identifying essential integrations can help refine your final list of prospective vendors. Content marketing software integration considerations are tripartite:

Integration with marketing systems

This includes legacy and existing marketing-related systems, such as CRM, social listening tools, content management systems (CMS), digital asset management (DAM) solutions, marketing automation, and so on. Integration requirements with other marketing systems are critical and typically comprise the most immediate integration needs when implementing new content marketing software.

Integration with enterprise systems

This includes legacy and existing enterprise systems that support or could support content marketing processes (e.g., management, workflow, analytics, etc.). Examples include internal communications platforms, corporate intelligence, and internal collaboration networks. Depending on organizational needs, enterprise system integration may be an immediate or a longer-term priority.

Future integrations

While future will hold different definitions for different organizations, remember to consider how the business and IT roadmap will impact integration needs down the road. Also consider external forces, emerging technology platforms, changing capabilities, and device types.

Create the RFP background and vendor response documents

The goal of any RFP is to bring structure to the procurement process. Each step outlined above provides you with the requirements needed to build a realistic and complete picture of your current and future needs. Framing good questions around strategies, needs, and business objectives results in better answers from vendors, especially when an industry sector is new, crowded, diverse, inconsistent, and undergoing rapid change and upheaval.

The background also provides company and background information, current tools, and integration needs, enabling vendors to respond to the bigger picture. You should also include the decision-making timeline and any evaluation criteria or budget information that you would like to share.

Identify and prioritize vendors

Having prioritized use cases and integration requirements, you now must figure out which vendors can satisfy the requirements of those use cases. Altimeter requested information from 110 content marketing vendors, and 53 provided responses to our extensive survey. Each vendor was not only asked which use cases their platform supports but also to force rank the use cases they support best. Look at your own prioritized use cases developed in step four, and see which vendors should be on your shortlist because their priorities match your own. Also consider working with multiple small vendors that provide point solutions, as they may concentrate on key use cases that are important to your content marketing organization.

Compile and compare responses

With responses in hand, you can begin to compare your options. Consolidate and review all responses to the RFP. At the end of the process, follow up with all of the vendors and provide feedback to those not selected because you may want to work with them in the future. The information gathered can provide you with pointed feedback and documentation.

While based on research, this framework, as well as the accompanying template, is untested. I'd love your feedback. How can we make it better?

Read more at http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/37151.asp