Friday, March 25

Social Media Infographics Built to Last?




REALITY CHECK!
When you first discover a social media infographics goldmine, you are like...WOW! Now, I can really spice up my presentations with some sizzling social media infographics to stimulate the audience. But, then you start to look at the statistics found in these infographics, and then you realize (I hope!) that much of the data shared are outdated and kind of useless (at the moment of discovery).

Yes, the infographics look cool, but should coolness override showing relevant and updated data?

The problem with many social media infographics is that the social media numbers are still radically changing, and will so for some time to come. For example, Facebook has around 650 million users now, but is expected to grow to 1 billion by 2012. Or worse yet, your super infographic shows 400 million Facebook users!

So, can we find social media infographics that are built to last (at least for a year or two!)?




FUTURE INFOGRAPHICS?
For finding updated Facebook infographics/charts (not totally cool, but at least reasonably updated), Socialbakers is a great place to find tons of stats, including informative details on your country. But, you will still have to manually update your slides with the latest Facebook stats once a while to ensure that they are updated and still relevant.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could use a dynamic plug-in or widget plucked into your presentation (PowerPoint/Keynote), which via the Internet could continuously keep your social media stats updated and relevant? Better yet, it allowed presenters to manipulate or play with the data, and then we could visually experience the process from inception to present, besides the final snapshot. Gapminder is a perfect example of how I would love my dynamic (social media) infographics to work.


Another good example would be Gary's Social Media Count:




Besides these three (3) examples above, I am pretty sure that there are many more dynamic social media infographics to discover and use, and that I hope YOU can share with US (Thank you!). I will add them below as we discover together.

In a nut shell, dynamic infographics should:
  • Provide easy access to continuously updated and relevant data/information.
  • Have an embed feature (script/widget/plug-in) making it easy to add to our presentation (or website).
  • Be self-updating every time you access the Internet.
  • Show the changes over time (start to present) of what it is illustrating (if applicable).
  • Enable us to manipulate the data/information (if applicable).
Have you found any dynamic infographics that meet some, or all the criteria specified above? Now, that would be cool... PLEASE SHARE :)

1 comment:

social media for schools said...

This a great representation of how social media effect the daily life of people. Love the infographics.