Naturally if your infographic isn’t up to par then no amount of marketing will make it go viral. But even then you can at least manage to get some links from sources you wouldn’t otherwise have had links from. So without further ado, here are both the free and paid options we dug up.

Please do comment and suggest more places or approaches, I’ll be happy to update the list to make it a better resource.

Submit the Infographic to 24 Free Infographic Showcase Sites

Free to submit infographic showcase sites are an excellent way to get some exposure and most will give you one or two free links to boot. Whether you’re going to get the attention of your targeted demographic via these is a different matter entirely.

http://visual.ly
http://www.coolinfographics.com
http://infographicsite.com
http://infographr.tumblr.com
http://www.loveinfographics.com
http://theinfographics.blogspot.com
http://www.best-infographics.com
http://submitinfographics.com
http://www.infographicpost.com
http://infographicsbin.tumblr.com
http://infographicsonline.com
http://www.pureinfographics.com
http://www.bestinfographics.co.uk
http://infographaholic.tumblr.com
http://fuckyeahinfographics.tumblr.com
http://iheartinfographics.tumblr.com
http://www.dailystatistic.com
http://infographicjournal.com
http://www.bestinfographics.info
http://www.infographicas.com
http://www.infographicheaven.com
http://infographipedia.com
http://www.flickr.com/groups/16135094@N00/
http://www.reddit.com/r/infographics

Submit the Infographic to 6 Paid Infographic Showcase Sites

We didn’t leverage these ourselves, primarily because we could acquire more targeted placements on industry relevant blogs and sites for similar costs. If you’re going to pay for placements then might as well make sure they get seen by the people you’re trying to connect with. Then again if you have a substantial marketing budget they may come in handy.

http://www.infographicsshowcase.com – $100 / 2 links
http://www.infographicsarchive.com/ – $49.95 – $149.95 / 2 links
http://www.amazinginfographics.com/ – $100 / 2 links
http://www.infographicsinspiration.com – $100 / 2 links
http://infographic.co.za/ – $10 / 3 links
http://dailyinfographic.com/ – not clear if paid or free

Submit the Infographic to 5 Niche Infographic Showcase Sites

In our case these weren’t suitable, for you they might be. Expanding on this list could be quite useful, so if you know of others please do let us know.

http://chartporn.org/
Data visualization has to be very high quality and educational.

http://datavisualization.ch
More focused around in-depth data visualization projects, not just simple infographics.

http://videoinfographics.masternewmedia.org/
As the name suggests, only for video infographics

http://videoinfographic.com/
As the name suggests, only for video infographics

http://html5infographics.com
For interactive HTML5 infographics

Infographic Marketing through 5 Paid Advertising Options

Most of us hope that our infographics will end up on the mainstream social media sites and hopefully go viral on them by themselves. But if things are slow you might want to consider creating some momentum through these paid advertising options.

https://adwords.google.com
A self-explanatory option.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/ads/
Cost – $0.05 to $0.25 per visitor. Cheap & can also lead to a good deal of FB likes and tweets.

http://www.facebook.com/advertising/
CPC ranges but generally pretty affordable. Great for highly accurate targeting.

http://www.reddit.com/ad_inq
Bid for CPM. Didn’t try it so can’t report back on effectiveness.

http://about.digg.com/ads
CPC bids. Didn’t try it so can’t report back on effectiveness.

http://sponsoredtweets.com/
CPC, CPM or Cost per tweet. Good targeting opportunities if your niche is popular.

Submit the Infographic to 5 Document Sharing Sites

It’s dead-simple to convert your infographic into a pdf and to upload it onto a few of these. Some will let you add a link in the description. Beware though – most offer embed codes for users to embed the documents on their sites – if you were hoping to build links through your own embed codes then you could be shooting yourself in the foot if your infographic goes viral through one of these sites. That being said, there are lots of these document sharing sites out there, feel free to suggest any decent ones we’ve left out.

http://www.docstoc.com/
http://www.scribd.com/
http://www.slideshare.net/
http://www.esnips.com/
http://issuu.com/

Infographic Marketing through 8 Press Release Sites

If you have created an infographic that’s newsworthy then one of the top paid press release sites could be worth trying. Otherwise the free ones still give you a shot in the dark and let you write about and link back to your creation.

http://www.prnewswire.com/ – paid
http://www.prweb.com/ – paid
http://www.prlog.org/ – free & paid
http://www.24-7pressrelease.com – free & paid
http://onlineprnews.com/ – free & paid
http://www.pressmethod.com/ – free & paid
http://www.prbd.net/ – free & paid
http://www.free-press-release.com – free & paid

Infographic Marketing through 10 Content Publishing Hubs

Anyone can publish content on these – write about and embed your infographic in a post on these platforms. Sites such as Gather have fairly big followings around specific interests as well which could get you quite a few views from your target audience. Of course you can also get links back from your posts on these sites (9/10 are do-follow).

http://www.gather.com
http://www.infobarrel.com
http://www.wikinut.com/
http://www.redgage.com/
http://www.triond.com/
http://www.flixya.com/
http://www.snipsly.com
http://seekyt.com/
http://www.squidoo.com
http://www.hubpages.com

A Quick Word on Infographic Marketing via Blogger Outreach

Running an outreach campaign targeting relevant blogs can produce some good results. From our experience the key here is first off to have an infographic which is highly relevant to the blog(s) and which can add real value and is of interest to the blog’s respective audience. Find out the bloggers name and write them a personal email, don’t resort to obvious templates. Be very courteous, especially so if this is the first time you’re communicating with them.

Also, you might want to consider not targeting the giants and instead going for slightly smaller, less established blogs. For one they will generally be less swamped by requests such as yours and they’ll also at times be less fickle about embedding something which includes a bit of branding or a link.

Last But Not Least

We left out www.pinterest.com, which is an excellent platform for infographics as it’s highly image driven. Currently however they don’t offer paid advertising. None-the-less, if you have a half-decent account on Pinterest with a few followers then be sure to submit your infographic there.

Did we leave something out? Drop us a comment with what you think should be added to this list.

Unlike Facebook, which by default only lets search engines find limited information, Google wants their Google+ pages to be found by search engines. To this end, Google+ pages are optimized to impact search results. Be sure when creating your Google+ page to fill in all the fields with consideration of the keywords you’d like to optimize for: every field is important and will be used to determine your profiles position in search rankings.

Let’s say, for example, that you have a Google+ page for your portfolio of freelance illustration work, and in your page you have provided links to your actual portfolio website. If somebody is following your profile, and puts in a Google search “freelance illustrator”, your actual portfolio website – not your Google+ page – has a chance of having its ranking increased.  If that same search is performed while not logged into Google+, you would see a noticeable decrease in ranking for your site. This clearly displays the power of the interconnectedness of the Google+ social platform and the Google search engine itself.

Aside from the ability of Google+ to boost your position in the SERP, the actual search results themselves are bolstered if they have been optimized for Google+. The ability to claim authorship for your articles by linking them to your Google+ page adds a nifty little avatar to the search result, resulting in more trust from your audience, and more valuable screen real estate being taken up by the search result. Look at this search for Toyota USA, and how much is taken up by just the first result, thanks to its integration with Google+:

Another factor making Google+ attractive is that a Google+ result on the Google SERP takes up far more screen real estate than a Facebook Page, for example. By integrating a “+1” button into your website (much like a “Tweet” or “Like” button), your Google+ activity actually shows up in search results. And because Google is both the social media platform and the search engine, far less SEO optimizing is needed for you to dominate search rankings with a Google+ page. This may seem like ‘cheating’ on Google’s part:  Facebook has for more users and far more authority in the social realm, but Google is able to boost the results of its own social platform above those sites which should naturally occur higher.

Keep an eye on the Gnu World Blog for more insights into the rapidly changing world of social media and how you can leverage its power for your business.

What this means first and foremost is that a custom landing tab can no longer be used. A custom interactive page can still be used, although it will only be displayed underneath the “cover photo”, along with any other apps you may have.

The cover photo is quite large and is definitely the first thing you will see on any page – it is 850 x 315 pixels, and if used cleverly, could direct people to click on some of the applications listed underneath it, perhaps by having arrows point in their direction, or by having the imagery in the cover photo and in the app images underneath designed to complement one another.

The terms and conditions around advertising, contact information, and calls-to-action on the cover photo or in your profile picture have changed too. All contact information, sales-speak, website addresses, email addresses and the like are no longer allowed to be displayed anywhere in the cover photo.

The four smaller images underneath the cover photo (not the one that is slightly inset into the cover photo, this is the Profile Picture) is the space where you can potentially link to your custom FBML (Facebook Markup Language) pages. This shift away from custom landing pages suggests that Facebook Pages for businesses are now being more geared towards providing a platform for interaction within a community or industry, as opposed to using your Page as a direct outlet or advertising platform for your product.

Previously, Facebook offered the chance to SEO optimize your Page in many ways: business Pages used to have Discussions, Notes, Info Pages, home pages and custom landing pages, each of which with their own fields which Google considered either H1’s or <titles> or meta descriptions. The new Timeline layout lends itself to community interaction and ‘shares’ from the business itself, as the opportunities for SEO tuning are being phased out.

Facebook should not be seen as any less powerful as a means to reach your audience. The opportunity to engage with a community who is interested in your service is as strong as ever, and this opportunity that Facebook provides, to be seen and “Liked” by as many as 845 million active users, should always have been the focus of any social media marketing: engaging with your users.

Whatever changes Facebook undergoes, and there have been plenty, Gnu World will always be at the fore, anticipating and learning from the changes to ensure your business has the best social media presence it can.

Online search trending tools are proving to be critical to this part of search engine optimisation. By analysing search, social media and general interest trends these tools providing assistance with keyword ideas and combinations.

Here are some free tools and tips on using trends for keyword research.

Google Trends

Google Trends shows how many times a search term is entered relative to the total number of searches for a particular region. This free tool allows you to compare 5 search terms, evaluate singular and plural versions of keywords and view related searches. Take a look at Google Trends Hot Searches for daily content ideas for and article marketing keywords.

Although Google Trends does not tell you how competitive your chosen keywords are, you can still go back to check them on the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Google Insights for Search

Google Insights presents more detailed information than Google Trends. Search keywords can be filtered by web, image, product or news searches. The site offers a wealth of free data including:

• Worldwide top rising searches
• An animated map showing the changes in regional interest over time
• Top search terms
• Rising searches statistics
• Regional interest

Trends Buzz

Use this resource to keep up with hot topics and search trends across Google, Yahoo Buzz, Bing, Twitter and even Wordtracker. This valuable tool has the ability to view searched words for an exact moment as well as top searches for the entire day.

Trend Hunter

Loaded with information from fashion, art, news and pop culture, to social media and search trends, Trend Hunter can be a bit overwhelming due its huge amount of information. However, it is a worthwhile research tool for websites that focus on viral news, social media, design, fashion, culture and technology.

Twitter Trends

Trending Now can be used for getting an idea of real-time search and online discussion trends. A simple search on Twitter Search for your keywords or related phrases can also give you an idea of how many people are actively discussing your topic, product, or even your company name.  Check out Trendistic for more Twitter statistics and trending topics over 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days.

Competitor Sites

Don’t forget the valuable information you can pull from keeping an eye on what your competitors are up to online, what keywords they use and social media strategies they implement. Arming yourself with this information will be crucial when conducting keyword research as it provides an insight into successful (and sometimes unsuccessful) keywords and phrases.

Keyword tools and resources:

• Google Adwords Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
• WordTracker Free Keyword Suggestion Tool: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
• Keyword Basics: http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/keyword-basics
• Google Search-based Keyword Tool: http://www.google.com/sktool/#
• Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends
• How to Spot Keyword Trends: http://www.seobook.com/how-spot-keyword-trends
• Keyword Discovery: http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/
• Microsoft AdCenter Labs Keyword Forecast Tool: http://adlab.msn.com/Keyword-Forecast/default.aspx

As opposed to a website that just provides static content to users, Social Media websites promote and heavily rely on user interaction by encouraging people to share their opinions and information. The bulk of the content available on Social Media type sites is dynamic and user-generated. You probably frequent these types of websites recreationally.

People are talking about their experiences with your business whether you like it or not. Social Media gives you the chance to find out what your customers are saying, interact with them and expose your business access to a larger (but often more targeted) audience.

Examples of Popular Social Media Websites

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Digg
• YouTube

A Common Misconception

The numerous links to your website from Social Media sites such as Twitter and Facebook will not directly benefit your search engine ranking as they are set to “no follow”. However, they do a great job of directing traffic to your website and the Social Media profile pages can be indexed by Google.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

More Control Over Your Brand Name

If a potential client types your brand name into a search engine, you want the top results to be of pages that are owned and run by your company and marketers. Social Media helps you to manage this task by usually offering URLs that are unique to your brand name. This also hinders spammers and competitors from abusing or misrepresenting your brand.

Increased Traffic and Exposure

Social Media sites receive and generate massive amounts of traffic. According to Alexa ratings, Facebook & YouTube are the 2^nd and 3^rd most visited websites in the world. Creating indexed profiles for your business on various Social Media platforms can expose you to a wider audience and increase organic traffic to pages on your main website.

Customer Interaction

A Facebook fan page for your business is a great example of how social media can help you interact with clients by replying to their compliments, complaints, criticisms and concerns. It is also a good way to feature incentive programs (“Like” our page and get a 10% discount) and limited time special offers.

Increased Transparency

Customers appreciate seeing the people behind the brand. Allowing customers to meet your team and read testimonials helps to establish trustworthiness and familiarity.

Industry Networking

Social Networking allows you to connect with professionals in your industry. It gives you the chance to develop business relationships, share ideas and advertise job opportunities.

Price

Social Media marketing is relatively cheap compared to other types of marketing campaigns.

What now?

Not every business will necessarily benefit from Social Media Marketing. Get in contact with our Social Media experts and let us help you make informed decisions on how to spend your marketing and advertising budget.