With so much content and information being shared on the Internet today, visuals are regularly used to captivate and engage readers beyond the written word. In addition, the speed at which information is now being shared is reshaping how we absorb media. For example, take the rise of Pinterest, the online scrapbook of images which are often sourced from various media stories and blogs. According to comScore as reported by TechCrunch, “Pinterest just hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors, crossing the 10 million mark faster than any other standalone site in history.”

There is no doubt imagery and video have the power to engage and entertain us, and the ability to educate and influence. One visual in particular – the infographic – offers a great way of looking at information in a compelling and digestible way. We have talked about the rise infographics on our blog before and why organizations should consider harnessing the power of these visuals.

I recently did some additional research about how to create a compelling infographic for a project we are working on with a client, and came across some interesting – and fun – tools to use.

• What About Me? If you’re still not convinced how infographics can communicate complex information, try this free infographic generator from Intel to create a “colorful snapshot of the most fascinating subject in the world – You!” This tool allows you to create infographics based on your Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube activities, categorizing when and what you post on all three networks, and even evaluates the average tone of your messages. Once complete, you can download it to share via your social media channels.
• Wordle. Wordle is a “toy” created by Jonathan Feinberg that generates word clouds from text that you provide. By entering in a bunch of text or the URL of any blog, blog feed or web page with an Atom or RSS feed, you will get a word cloud featuring the words most prominently used in the source text. Words with greater prominence will appear differently than those that do not. You can even modify your cloud with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The word cloud featured in this post is created using the Communiqué PR blog.
• Creately. With this free tool, you can create a diagram or flow chart for anything from a database diagram to a family tree. When you start, you simply select from a number of diagram types and can either create your own from scratch or select a template to use. You then add in your data to create a professional-looking visual to use however needed. Apparently this tool also promotes greater collaboration among teams, which I will need to check out further for our own use here.

Naturally, there are a number of tools and resources available to help you get started in creating infographics. What tools or tips have you found helpful when creating infographics? Have you found information is grasped more easily when conveyed in an infographic?