8 reasons infographics are overrated

You might have gathered I’m not a fan.

Here’s why infographics drive me crazy:

1. The lazy marketer’s argument: The text isn’t really text.

You have text in an infographic, but it’s in an image file, so it gives you no SEO benefit. Creating an infographic means that, as a marketer, I need to write snappy, interesting copy— but it won’t be picked up by search engines. What a waste.

Also, if I like a line of text in an infographic you created, I can’t copy and quote it on my blog or Twitter (with attribution, of course). I have to write it out laboriously, and usually, I won’t make the effort. Hey, I’m lazy. (I could share the whole thing, but sometimes I don’t want to do that.)

2. The pedant’s argument: The graphics don’t always make sense.

In many infographics (though not the best ones), the graphics are forced into visual representations in a way that isn’t strictly logical or accurate. If it doesn’t make sense as a graph, don’t force it. Venn diagrams and pie charts aren’t just circles, you know.

3. The Web 2.0 argument: It’s a throwback to the old school.