The general rules of creating a meme like Hadouken is that your main protagonist adopts a ‘street fighter’ pose and 1 or more individuals react to this by being thrown through the air. This is all captured on camera and Tadaaa ‘Hadouken’.

To create your Hadouken meme photo in your office you will need:

1. A camera set to -pre-capture
2. A camera tripod
3. A bunch of Volunteers
4. Basic Photoshop / Fireworks skills
5. Lighting (i.e: shooting in dark probably not the best)
6. A boss that allows you time to do this in work
7. Some smaller objects that can be thrown into the air to create an effect

You do not need an expensive camera, I shot these on an old Olympus Sp-55OUZ

Ideally it will have pre-capture or Manual settings

The camera settings i used for the SEO team shoot

Always run a tester session. We ran this 3 days before the real shoot and it made me understand when we should get the money shot and how to get it. The Gif is purely for the amusement of readers

The day of the shoot, I got the teams together and we planned the staged photos. The idea is to make it look as realistic as possible, so staging things like a door behind them propped open and paper thrown around to look as if a massive magic attack has just happened and been captured on film.

Add a lightening PNG http://s488.photobucket.com/user/KimiVengenz/media/Textures/Lightning-psd7258.png.html

Here is how it was done.. I set up the shot. Opened doors. Told guys to jump on 1,2,3 JUMP and Katherine was asked to stay very still. Pre-capture / continuous shot set on camera and started shooting from 2 of the count-down. Touching toes in jump, gets the best height and overall look.

So, next i wanted to capture the Copywriters team. The idea was to mix it with office furniture. I must admit that this was not as impressive as it does not get the movement needed to create the overall atmosphere of the Hadouken attack. the Gif is funny though!

You can over-do the lighting additions.. oohherrrr

Gif of how it is done

Then it was the Online -PR team’s turn. My first thought was to do a double Hadouken with Peter and Ping in the center.

But it quickly became apparent that a focus on one attacker was the best course of action. We used papers and the open doors on this to show movement.

Gif of how it is done, this is at normal speed.

But i still felt that it needed more, so we decided to switch angles and shoot if from the perspective of the attacker – in this case Ping.

Then of course we had to get the SEO team involved and I was of course expecting big things from these guys.

Final Fantasy special

Of course Brett the owner of Mediaworks had to get in on it with a bit of Vadering. Here is how he deals with Johnny’s 12 month review

I hope you have enjoyed our little how to create a meme session. Please add links to your own Hadouken shoots.

We all have old mobile phone cases that we have no idea what to do with. Apple keep changing the bloody size of their phones making your old case useless every few weeks. But lets face it, when you get a new phone a new case is a must have.

So… with it being April and most of the country/world is covered in snow when last year it was blazing sunshine, and many of us are wanting to kick the living crap out of anyone who says “lovely day isn’t it”.. I thought… why not take our frustrations out on old mobile phone cases? .. you know you want to.

The rules of how to get your ‘destroy a phone case suggestion’ chosen

Of course destroying something could also mean altering its use, like this case that has been turned into a camera stand http://unleashthephones.com/2010/11/28/make-your-own-cell-phone-tripod/ creative eh?

So I want your suggestions on how to destroy a mobile phone case OR alter it – and the 10 best i will do and send you the videos of their deaths or rebirths.

How to enter:

Write a short blog post -

Title – something like – Destroy your old mobile phone case

How – How you would like the case destroyed and any preference on the he type of case

Link – To this post so i will know you have posted it – http://www.mediaworks.co.uk/top-10-ways-to-destroy-your-old-mobile-phone-case-vote-now/

Choosing – I will then choose the top 10 suggestions. If you try and make it something I can actually do, then your choice will have more of a chance

Action - I will carry out your wishes and send you a video of the deed

What are you waiting for!!

Don’t worry, it’s not really about sex.  I am not going to cover the whole event as loads of other people have done that already, I am just going to give a very brief run through of the day at #linklove 2013 and add some takeaways stolen from other posts far more in-depth than this one.

I thought it might be interesting to see a bit of what goes on behind the scenes of Linklove; I know this is my first one and it would be far more interesting to see pictures of Rand or Wil eating breakfast or dancing with the hairdryer before the conference… but you’ve got me.

3.15: On the Train to London Town. Finished my notes (they look smart) and yes that is sellotape.

4pm: Arrived in London a bit shattered and having drank far too much tea. Nervous already as Lynsey contacted me to say that I had saved my Deck (slides) in the wrong format. Eeeek …

4.38pm: Arrived in the lobby of the beautiful Montcalm Hotel and was offered a hot towel. Lovely. I was also curious as to the bar co-joining the hotel as I had seen taxidermy animals in there from the from the taxi as I arrived, and anyone who knows me knows I like a bit of taxidermy.

4.43: After a short, what seemed like 15 mile round-trip, I arrived in my room and instantly began to test out everything: kettle, hairdryer, slower, TV, a weird smoke blowing device that was intended to convey calm.

Ooh lovely bed, but what’s this? Can we see the toilet through the wall……. ? “The mind boggles?” it’s like Amsterdam.

Ooooh free Slippers!!! – Check!

Tried to use shower and stood under giant roof shower nozzle – “Crap!”

6.15pm: Ready for speakers’ dinner, and so left to mingle and eat good food. Decided to wear a dress; something I have not done for many moons. My jeans tried to talk me out of it… but I explained the situation and we are fine now.  The meal was superb; the poor Hungarian girls I was sat with had ordered black Pudding without knowing what it was, so hilarity ensued. Lynsey and Lauren, who are the backbones of Linklove, did not stay for the meal, but instead went off to organize things for us, including leaving a thank you card and chocolates in our rooms  “hope to hell my underwear was not lying around floor ;/”

11.00PM: Back at the hotel and it took me an embarrassing 28min’s to find my room… made worse only by a very drunk man following me around like he was auditioning for the walking dead.  I kept saying “shoo, don’t follow me, I’m lost”.

 7am: Out of bed and practicing through talk in the mirror.. taking advantage of the free tea and coffee and (soya milk) in room. The fear levels made it impossible for me to enjoy breakfast.

8.48am: Arriving at Linklove

9.10am: In the Linklove conference hall ready to see Wil Reynolds – SEER Interactive speak. He was full of so much energy that it took my nerves away for a bit. I felt a surge of both pure panic and warmth… “I was ready” unfortunately I was on last.. so this was short lived.

9:00 am – Duncan does the intros

Duncan Morris – the Founder and CEO is such an unassuming and lovely man, he is the man behind the whole damn conference along with the Lynsey and Lauren who worked their buts off to keep everything running smoothly.

9.10 – 9:40am – Wil Reynolds – “Head Smackingly Simple: Post Conversion Link Building Tips”

Wil is a superb character, I think the audience was a little cold with him at first but you can’t help but get carried along with his enthusiasm and skill and he said ‘shit’ a lot

Wil’s Slideshare Deck

Wil Reynolds Takeaways -

Wil goes recommend using Littlebird

Wil advocates G+ Ripples as a great way to see the bigger influences who you need to connect with and this in turn.

Twtrland, here you can see how many retweets your tweets are getting

Wil talks through the benefits of G+ Data

CircleCount is another great tool to do just this.

Nudge by Richard Thaler – read the book

“Ask yourself, who do your link targets link out to? Wil recommends searching links through domain searches in Bing. Who are your targets? Who do they link out to? Use SEOquake to run them through Screaming Frog and you will learn about the sites people you want links from are typically linking out to.”

9.40-10.10am – Lyndon Antcliff – “How do I Get Them to Link?”:

I have known Lyndon for years and always admired his take on Linkbait and his successes, i feel at times that his talk lost a few of the audience members, but he gave some great insights into the human mind and linkbait.

Lyndon’s Slideshare Deck

Lyndon Antcliff Takeaways -

‘think like the Economist but make content like the Sun or the Daily Mail’ when it comes to your link building approach”

The primal brain loves a good headline because its about something that’s fundamental to us.

The subconscious – The bad boy of the brain. This compartment can perform 11 million processes at once. It handles your emotions and memory as well as the act of linking impulse buying. All purchases are made on an irrational basis and linking is kind of like a buy in process as well and so it has that element of irrationality.

Conscious brain – This is more subverted and in fact, most of our decisions are not conscious.

Read Alan Carr’s book on comedy for inspirational ideas about link bait.

Book recommendation from Lyndon is Robert Cialdini’s Influence: Psychology of Persuasion.

10.10-10.40am – Hannah Smith – “23,787 Ways to Build Links in 30 Minutes”

Hannah is great, she knows her stuff and she punches it down your throat in such a polite way that you are startled and happy all at once. Her talk was great with a load a superb tips to takeaway and use. The idea of asking for an image credit rather than an attribution link for infographics was inspired.

Hannah’s Slideshow Deck

Hannah Smith Takeaways -

“Stop talking like an SEO”

Do not ask for an attribution link, you want an image credit for your images.

Don’t write once and move on, become a regular contributor.

You don’t want a guest post you want a byline; yes, this does require more commitment.

Leverage your existing assets and create new assets to leverage.

Use Rapportive for finding emails in Gmail.

Use Boomerang for scheduling email reminders in Gmail.

http://www.tineye.com/ – does not handle large images though (like infographics) shame

Twitter chats: I was chatting to some lovely folks on the day Iain Bartholomew @iainbartholomew being one of them (he has done a very honest write-up of the day that is worth a read) http://www.perfectlyplausible.com/linklove-2013/

11:00-11.30am - Ian Lurie – “Enterprise Link Spam Analysis”

Ian was the techies’ sex machine; the air was palpable with excitement at this point.

Ian’s Slideshow Deck

Ian Lurie Takeaways -

Check out Google’s Prediction API if you are interested in knowing more about machine learning.

Machine learning is very real and is improving all the time

The context of your links is important and Google is very sensitive to context so consider this when cleaning up your link profile. Don’t just delete the link if the page looks spammy but the context is very relevant.

Ian introduced http://isitspam.portent.com/ as a tool that can be used to see if a link is spammy or not

11.30-12.00pm – Richard Baxter - “How to Build Agile and Actionable Link Data Reports. With APIs”

I have to admit that Richard lost me somewhat and i am sure i had seen the same talk a few times.

Richard Baxter  Takeaways -

SEO Tools for Excel to super charge your SEO analytics skills.

Find anything about APIs at Programmable Web.

Sharedcount.com have an API that gives you the number of social shares for a URL.

12:05 pm: I had a headache and had to go get a headache tablet and a massage

12:31 pm: DINNER – I ended up not actually eating anything as i was so nervous but i did host a table – this of course is not me its Duncan. I met some cool people on my table for ‘risky linkbuilding’ – and we talked about a few ideas, i actually wish we had had more time – if any of you guys are reading this, drop me a line OK

1.28pm: Red Nose Time. I have added an arrow to the people who did not wear noses, as they make me smile . Mediaworks did wear the red noses.

 1.30-2:00pm – Rand Fishkin – “How to Transform Your CEO into a Link Building, Social Sharing Machine”

Rand is a force of nature, I think he could talk about the inner workings of a Dyson vacuum cleaner cylinder head and still be sexy and that’s coming from a lesleybean. He gave some great insights into how CEO’s can use their power to promote their business and also make staff part of the culture not just making them fit into it.

Rands Slideshow Deck

Rand Fishkin  Takeaways -

SEOmoz spend $700 per month on cupcakes and $700,000 on Amazon Servers! Both are considered essential to the success of the business.

As a CEO become a marketer like these examples. Be a proactive industry contributor, do guest posts, get involved.

Empower your marketing team with development resources so they can leverage their efforts too.

CEOs amass favours, ask for links and shares by calling them in.

Embrace authenticity. People care more about why a company exists than what it produces. Wealthy people want to be hipsters now and have the latest cool thing that no one else has.

As SEOs we can encourage our client’s CEOs to use this influence and benefit the outcome we are trying to achieve.

 2:00-2:30pm - Ade Lewis – “Small Business SEO for £350 per month”

I love Ade, he was a Linklove virgin like me and I enjoyed his presentation as it was no nonsense, concentrating on affordable campaigns that work.

Ade’s Slideshow Deck

Ade Lewis Takeaways -

Identify orphaned pages and 404s then fix them. Use SEOmoz tools.

Use Buzzstream to find and manage outreach link building prospects.

Improve the site speed using Google Page Speed Tools.

Teapot have built an Link prospecting Tool to help you find linking opportunities

Check out Matt Beswick’s Guide to Outsourcing if you haven’t done it before.

Ade recommends using Text Broker for content but it takes a while to find the best writers at the best prices

2:30-3:00pm – Claire Stokoe – “Out of 5 million infographics only 1.3% will give you an orgasm in 0.3 of a millisecond”

I swore – a lot… a lot!!! but it was great and I did not need my notes. Think it took me a bit to get into it, but once up there, I felt fine. What I wanted more than anything, was not go in on the defensive ‘yes people think infographics are a bit of fad’ but I don’t and shouting that at someone will only enforce their negative approach… so I swore at them in a friendly way

Claire’s Slideshow Deck

Claire Stokoe Takeaways -

Infographics are visualisations of data, not just a collection of pretty graphics

Go to Colour Lovers for effective palettes

Use Reddit for promoting infographics

Identify outreach targets on LinkedIn and join the groups they are in

Always have at least three outreach target audiences for your infographic.

Get credibility by association.

Test your infographic before publishing

Walk the viewers through your infographic.. hold their hand through it

The header needs to tell the WHOLE story

Make them SCROLL!!!

2 more peeps worth a mention

@sarahesinfield

@mrkylemitchell (who offered me headache tablets)

3.05 pm: aaaaaaaand RELAX!!!

3.20-3.50pm - Will Critchlow – “The Future of Link Building”

Will is an intelligent and fun guy and this presentation did not disappoint, the first ‘Linklove is dead’ opening had a few people gasping. But it was a thoughtful look at how linkbuilding is changing and how to experiment, which i am all for.

Will’s Slideshow Deck

Will Critchlow Takeaways -

Link building is not dead but don’t do crappy link building because it can be harmful.

Concentrate on getting the best most relevant links and forget about manipulating opportunities for a quick win.

Check out Scott Cowley’s Ugly Infographics Pinterest Board for some great examples of what not to do.

Check out Jamie Steven’s slide deck on Technical Skills for Marketers if you need more technical oomph!

Things to do – to learn more skills -

Get together with a few colleagues from departments you don’t normally work with and debate a Harvard Business Review Case Study.

Contribute feedback to an open source project. It doesn’t have to be a very technical response, it could be pointing out a typo but do it. Use things like GitHub.

remove someone from a digital photo, you’ll learn some useful photo editing skills and it’s fun too!

film and edit some video. Use your smart phone and an app. Try to make it look good and put it on YouTube.

initiate a live usability test. In a coffee shop offer to buy a coffee for someone in return for them doing a live test on your website

Write a piece for a publication you previously bought (tip: it doesn’t have to be about marketing, it can be about motorbikes or gardening) and try to get it published.

4:00pm – Me and Wil with the @BloomSEOMonkey

 3.50-4.20pm – Q&A with the speakers from the afternoon sessions

Rand and Will Trying to figure out how i get my hair to do that.

Answer to the infographic sources question – http://www.mediaworks.co.uk/where-do-i-find-free-data-to-create-awesome-infographics/

Another top tip list for designing infpgraphics – http://www.mediaworks.co.uk/the-breaking-bad-formula-to-make-infographics-that-are-the-bomb/

4.20-4.50pm – All Speakers – “Let’s Get Real”

My joke was “don’t wear heavy wool under bright lights” ;/

One thing i should have mentioned was how to show up TOP in Reddit via paid ad’s.. this works really well, kicks the ass of FB and Twitter ad’s.. def worth a try. This is a super page by the oatmeal on how to do it.. http://www.reddit.com/ad_inq/

5:30pm – LinkLove 2013 Conference,London-AfterParty

I don’t drink so this is my slim line tonic face, pictured here with the lovely Dan Hoggan Head of SEO (it was not a flattering picture – thus the mask) at Mediaworks and Jonathan Birch who works on the Links team.

6:30pm – Train back to the North doodling – Siobhan in the office on a starbucks mug (artwork by Jonathan Birch)

6.45pm: A doodle of Rand by Dan made me confront his similarity to Wil Wheaton.

Evidence:

8:00pm – More doodling by all of us – this is Dan

11:00pm – Home to this -

Thanks to http://www.strategyinternetmarketing.co.uk/roundup-of-actionable-tips-from-distilleds-linklove-2013/ for the awesome takeaway list that i copied

It seems that the BBC weather’s twitter account has been hacked, some very funny Tweets coming through like those posted below.  The group behind it are called the  Syrian Electronic Army. Business insider have said that Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a cyber clan that spreads propaganda in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

http://leaks.syrian-es.org/

http://syrian-es.org/index.php?lang=en

Tweets -

Saudi weather station down due to head on-collision with camel

— BBC Weather (@bbcweather) March 21, 2013

Scandal: Edinburgh storm warning station decommissioned after maintenance fund diverted to arming Syrian opposition

— BBC Weather (@bbcweather) March 21, 2013

Looks like Syrian Electronic Army is behind it…

“well at least it’s not a disgruntled employee LOL

Thank for hanging out with us! To know the truth about the global terrorist war on #Syria, follow @official_sea #SEA

— BBC Weather (@bbcweather) March 21, 2013

Syrian Electronic Army Was Here via @official_sea #SEA #Syria

— BBC Weather (@bbcweather) March 21, 2013

It was reported earlier that Digg.com has been de-indexed in Google search results and sure enough, this is the case.

As you can see, Digg.com is nowhere to be found for a search for its own domain name.

A tweet by Matt Sawyer of Datadial.net tweeted earlier:

Does anyone know the story behind Digg being deindexed by Google? ow.ly/jfpra

— Matt Sawyer (@mattuk) March 20, 2013

Whether this is a causative de-indexation for Digg confirming they were to build a Google Reader replacement following the announcement by Google that they were to shutting down the Google Reader service on July 1^st 2013 is something of mass-speculation amongst the digital community at the moment.

At one point in time, Digg.com was one of the most popular social sites on the web, thanks to its innovative take on social news. Nowadays, Digg doesn’t have quite the same pull that it once did, but it still is a force to be reckoned with.

As recently as last year, Quantcast estimated around 3.8 million monthly unique visits in the U.S – a lot of which came through Google.

As of now, everything that is being circulated is pure hearsay, but there are a number of reasons that this may have happened.

1. One possible explanation is that it is an SEO penalty for links, which appears to be the main reason that brands are getting de-indexed by Google – evidenced by penalties by Google to Interflora, and even warnings given to the Beeb (BBC) itself, suggesting that the same may also be true of Digg.
2. Google appears to be continuously increasing their grip on SEO, low quality links in particular. The fact that big sites are getting penalised may suggest that Google are aiming to set an example, and sending out a warning signal that they are getting better and better at finding bad links.

As of now, all we have is rumours and speculation, but we will bring you the latest information as and when we get it.

Twitter Updates

16mins

linklove 2013

OK.. so I have put a few of the sources I have used in the past below and shuffled them into categories.. feel free to add you own to make this a nice little resource for peeps… and I shall give you a sneaky twitter bum squeeze as a thank you.

Infographic Data Links

Cars & autos

This goes without saying… data on cars, motorbikes and so on. You can of course mix this with environmental stuff, celebrity and tech.

http://www.imcdb.org/

http://oica.net/category/production-statistics/

http://www.reportlinker.com/ci02294/Automotive.html

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2013/02/2013-car-brand-perception-survey/index.htm

Movies

Remember who your target audience is and stick with it, also don’t just target film buffs… mix in others like -  car fans – horror fans – pet lovers etc. Just because it is about a celebrity or a new movie does not mean 1) that is has not been done before and 2) that you will not have to promote it.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/

http://www.imdb.com/stats

http://www.the-numbers.com/

http://www.uis.unesco.org/FactSheets/Documents/FS16-2011-Literacy-EN.pdf

http://www.celeb-height-weight.psyphil.com/celebrities-height-and-weight-chart-%E2%80%93-celebrity-stats/

Education

These are long lasting if you do it well. Make sure your data is correct and that if you are doing something that has been done before that you are adding to it. Do not rehash the same old stuff just because it did well once, unless of course you have been promised that you can get it on a top site like huffington post or a few edu sites.

http://www.education.gov.uk/researchandstatistics

http://collegestats.org/colleges/new-york

Money & Jobs

This can be as controversial or just plain helpful as you want it to be. But make sure you know which you are going for, if it is controversial then some blogs will not touch it, unless they have a back bone.

http://www.payscale.com/

http://www.indeed.com/salary/Data-Analyst.html

http://www.salary.com/

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9224243/IT_Salary_Survey_2012

http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2011/women/

http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2013/productivity/

Fashion

Every blog and his dog will post on fashion from films and celebrities so speak to the likes of Vogue, Chicago Tribune,  Esquire, Washingtonpost and Daily Mail etc.

http://thesuitsofjamesbond.com/

http://www.britishfashioncouncil.com/news_list.aspx?RegionID=&q=figures

http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/fashion/

World data

This is more like a general graphic and could work for employment, travel and law clients. Loads of global data here and can work for disaster reporting also.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/41000.html

http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory

https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-featured-story-archive/snapshot-of-global-youth-challenges.html

http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime

http://esa.un.org/wpp/unpp/panel_population.htm

http://www.geohive.com/earth/world.aspx

http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/contnent.htm

http://www.theglobaleducationproject.org/earth/human-conditions.php#2

http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/sandy/

http://www.popes-and-papacy.com/statsarchive.htm

Sex

Because lets face it, people like to read about it.

http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/resources/FAQ.html

http://marriage.about.com/cs/sexualstatistics/a/sexstatistics.htm

http://www.guttmacher.org/index.html

Health

This can be approached in much the same way as education and money, good data that will be used as a resource.

http://www.who.int/gho/tb/epidemic/cases_deaths/en/index.html

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

http://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/en/index.html

http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Statistics/StatisticalWorkAreas/Statisticalpublichealth/index.htm

http://datatopics.worldbank.org/hnp/

Geographical / Travel

This can be both accurate and silly as far as data is concerned. So top 50 places where you are likely to get eaten by small animals… for example.

http://www.visitengland.org/insight-statistics/

http://www.nycgo.com/articles/nyc-statistics-page

http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/stats-and-the-city/tourism

Sport

I am useless at sport and TBH put these in as i know guys like sport and well.. guys like sport.

http://www.nfl.com/stats/statslab

http://www.sportstats.com/

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/clubs/profile.statistics.html/man-utd

http://bikeraceinfo.com/tdf/tdfstats.html

http://www.stats.com/pdfs/NFL_ITN_QB_Rating.pdf

Food

OK everyone love food, tell them whats good, whats bad.. what they should eat and what they should limit. The weirdest foods on the planet and the most popular this has so much scope.

http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/

http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/foodfarm/food/pocketstats/

http://kids.fao.org/glipha/

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/74192/icode/

http://england.lovefoodhatewaste.com/content/naked-truth-about-how-packaging-can-help-you-waste-less-food

http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/annual-report-of-incidents.pdf

Products & Retail

This is the one to look to when you are looking to WIN XMAS and other celebrations / holidays etc. BUT do not just use data that everyone else has done (i am guilty of it also) and make it extra hard for your to stand out from the crowd.

http://www.statista.com/

https://signin.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SignIn&runame=terapeak-ebay-marketplace-research

http://www.census.gov/retail/

Brand stats (clients)

Talk to your clients, ask them to give you their data. Sales data, who buys what and when… where they live and what age they are etc etc. Its unique data, no one else has it and if you leave it too long the PR dept will get it and turn it into some crap chuff.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/aboutebay/thecompany/companyoverview.html

facebook brands – http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-pages/brands/

Tech

This should be easy as we all work in it, do not however aim your audience specifically just at tech… other areas are out there – education/tech, travel/tech and family/tech.

http://gs.statcounter.com/

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

http://www.statisticbrain.com/computer-sales-statistics/

All data

And here is more that I will be adding too over the coming months, this is a bit of a free for all but they are work checking out. DO NOT FORGET that you can run your own polls, run one on Facebook, use http://twtpoll.com/ and my favorite Money Saving Expert polls. Get your clients to run a poll via their emailers, make sure that you are trying to get the data that NO ONE ELSE HAS. Be the change you want NOW!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

http://www.grabstats.com/

http://www.factbrowser.com/

http://www.shmoop.com/american-revolution/statistics.html

http://www.reportlinker.com/ PAID

http://www.ranker.com/

http://www.worldometers.info/

http://www.thedataoctopus.co.uk

This is an ongoing list as these will change, some will shut down and I would love for you guys to add your own links to sources in comments (NOT SPAM PLEASE)

Cheers folks

Claire

Using online professional networking directory, LinkedIn, Mediaworks posed the following question to various industry experts:

“Do you think infographics are a fad, OR do you think that they are important to link building and brand promotion?”

The results indicated that the majority of business practitioners thought that infographics were a powerful online marketing tool, which can help to effectively develop a brand, providing they are done properly.

Steve Jobs, late visionary Apple CEO, once said that time is the most precious resource that we have; in todays ‘always-on’ culture, a well-constructed infographic has the power to ‘get the point across quickly’ (Yuricon); ‘make complex lists of information understandable’ (Zennie62.com); ‘effectively communicate with a population that is becoming increasingly visual’; and ‘convey information in a memorable format’ (Prosper by Design).
However, it was also readily apparent that certain businesses were unsure of how to harness the true marketing potential of the infographic.

Some business practitioners believed that infographics run the risk of becoming ‘another quick and dirty way to promote a product’ (THINK DIFFERENT[LY]), which suggests that some firms are devaluing infographics in pursuit of meaningless ‘likes’ and ‘fans’ (Communications Plus).

The majority of industry experts believed that the secret to developing and promoting your brand lies in the quality, rather than quantity of your infographic. It is all too easy for an infographic to ‘become bogged down and hard to read’, ‘appear too messy’ and ‘hide the information rather than illustrate it’.

However, if you focus on keeping your infographic ‘small, clean and punchy’, ‘humorous’, ‘well laid out’ and ‘well executed’, you are likely to create an infographic with instant viral appeal, which will ultimately help your business to gain numerous good-quality links to your site.
Links are an inevitable by-product of creating powerful infographics, as many people are happier to share visual content as opposed to written content; this can be seen in the meteoric rise of social media sites such as Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr.

As one of the UK’s leading online marketing companies, Mediaworks are able to harness the power of link building & infographics to increase online visibility for our clients. If you would like to discuss your aims for the online presence of your business, feel free to contact one of our digital marketing specialists.

Written by Craig Bradshaw – mediaworks

Thank you to all of those who took part:

Here are all the quotes:

‘Melissa Galt – Keynote Speaker ~ Success Coach ~ Relationship Marketing Specialist, Lead Generation, Customer Service, Touch Campaigns

They are a brilliant visual tool to convey information in a format that is memorable. They are likely the first step in up and coming formats, definitely brand builders. www.todaybydesign.com’

‘Cody Sharp – Inbound Marketing Manager at Delivra. Delivra = Email Marketing Software

I think infographics are typically misused. In the beginning, it was a quick way to convey statistics but now they are being used for things that would be better served by whitepapers. IMHO, few are done well.

I do think their usage will decrease over the coming year/s as the benefit of doing one will decrease. There are so many of them at this point and so few that are done really well, it can be a challenge to find ones that really bring in traffic and convert visitors to leads or sales and yet, good ones are time consuming and expensive to create.’

‘Brad Hauck – President – National Speakers Association of Australia Qld Chapter

I’m sure their like any new tool, they’ll be popular for a while then people will stop reading them and they’ll be replaced by something new. http://www.aiimtraining.com.au/’

‘Kyle Clouthier – CEO/Founder of Boostsocialmedia.net (Established Supplier for Real Targeted Social Media Fans)

Infographics is a way to catch people’s attention, at a glance. It is fast becoming a staple medium in most Social Media such as facebook and moreover, in Pinterest where it is a Photo driven social site. it is very attractive and can be a very effective tool if it’s laid out and executed well, like embedding a link to a website, so it would be easier for guests to Digest the information it portrays. Yes, it is important promotions and marketing.  http://www.infographicboard.com’

‘Tim Dickinson -Principal Customer Success Executive at CA Technologies

Infographics are both a fad AND can be important for link building and brand promotion.

Infographics are in many ways an extension of graphs and charts. Humans have long found it useful to capture numerical information in visual form. It can help us perceive trends and relative differences. You’ve undoubtedly heard before that humans are very visual creatures.

Infographics are an evolution of this. And while their novelty is past, and some people are already over them, I think they’re here to stay. Just like a chart they can be done poorly or they can be done well.

I’ve provided three links below. None are brand new. The first describes how infographics might already be overdone (i.e., they’ve “jumped the shark”). The second is how they might be evolving. The third shows people who’ve used infographics as their resume. https://www.linkedin.com/in/timinator

Links:
http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/01/how-infographics-jumped-the-shark/
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665029/3-trends-that-will-define-the-future-of-infographics
http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2012/6/15/200-infographic-resumes-an-escalating-trend.html‘

‘Karen Maskall Founder Pledging for Change Premium Member Site and Ethical Business Directory. Giving Back

I love some of the infographics that out there and I know many have been added onto multiple sites , which is a bit like using duplicate articles in some ways unless there is a unique description included in the post before the infographic itself.

But some infographics are too messy, and often have text that is so small it cannot be read.
Conveying information with charts and graphs on an infographic is sometimes a good idea but at the end of the day unless this is really clear then I’ve seen many that are essentially quite useless.

Presentation of factual infographics can be quite boring unless they are eye catching, unique and can capture my attention with perhaps a bit of humour included too.

I was invited to host an infographic on creating a vertical garden ( in my sites niche) and at same time was offered the unique introduction to it also. I know this Infographic is now on many sites but all of them have unique intro text accompanying them. (see link below)

So if you are going to ask a site to host your infographic makes sure you give them some unique text too.

http://pledgingforchange.com/blogs/green/how-to-design-your-own-vertical-garden.php‘

‘Hanna Takala takes organizations and experts into social media, clients e.g. Raisio, Helsingin energia, City of Salo

I think infographics are definitely both fad and important branding tools. Especially if these graphics evolve into something rich, more interactive they go beyond fad.

I could imagine, that in future serivices like Thing Link could improve infographics and their SEO.

Links:
https://www.thinglink.com/
http://support.thinglink.com/thinglink/topics/is_a_thinglink_image_search_engine_readable’

‘Susan VonAchen Social Media Strategist

I’d love to see some of your infographics! I love them as well and agree they are especially helpful in demonstrating an idea. People are getting more and more visual as photo sharing is on the rise and want a picture to tell the story. I did hear infographics would be fading away this year, but that may have been from someone very techy, who knows.

Links:
http://www.enduracom.com
http://www.facebook.com/enduracom‘

‘Lucas Walker Creativity meets hustle
1) Infographcis as a marketing tool from a branding point of view are very faddy. As more and more people use them they level of design needs to increase to stand out from the crowd.

2) The principles behind them are here to stay. Infographics are a great way to communicate a lot of complicated data in a clean and beautiful way.

We pivoted from the traditional infographics space to the reporting and analytics space. Now we are focused on helping communicate lots of intricate data to an internal audience.

http://www.venngage.com‘

‘Erica Friedman Social Media Optimizer, Publisher at ALC Publishing, President of Yuricon

Infographics fail to capture *me*, but I am not everyone, by which I mean, some people find the graphic part more eye-catching and comprehensible and others look for the text first.

The power of infographics *should* be that they get the point across in multiple ways, quickly. The reality is that they are often clogged, hard to read, full of erroneous editorializing and unrelated “facts.”

Keep ‘em small, clean and punchy and they can be powerful. http://socialoptimized.blogspot.com‘

‘Lyndon Johnson Disrupting the PR industry. Helping entrepreneurs to tell their story.

They’re not a fad and can be great for brand building. The caveat on both these opinions is that they are done properly.

The world is becoming more graphical and a well conceived, well designed infographic with credible, supportable data that illustrates a market trend or answers an important question they will always be in demand. If, however, they’re seen as another quick and dirty way to promote a product then they’ll lose their value and become a commodity [much like the majority of press releases].

lyndon@thinkdifferently.ca
@THINK_Lyndon’

‘Tabitha Jean Naylor Results Oriented Marketing Extraordinaire; Sales Guru; Certified Inbound Marketer

I don’t think that the use of infographics is a fad. It has been around for a long time; it’s just now that it is being used a lot. Infographics allows you to share a ton of information in a more fun and easy to digest way – unlike your traditional graphs or whatnot. You can adjust your infographics layout and icons based on the brand image that you want to exude. Do you want your brand to be perceived as serious, fun, or creative? You can support your brand image with all your marketing efforts, even with a simple infographic.

http://www.TabithaNaylor.com’

‘Zennie Abraham [LION] – toplinked.com – Zennie62.com

An infographic is a story-telling tool that is used to make complex lists of information understandable. We have so much data thrown at us every day that a cartoon-like presentation is more memorable and fun than the norm. I don’t think infographs are a fad; my interest is in what they may morph into given tech improvements. Try making one yourself to see its advantages.’

‘Kay Paumier Marketing communications consultant, public relations (PR) consultant and writer

I think the answer comes down to the quality of the infographic.

I think some are fads–the kind that try to cram in every bit of information, as if bigger is better. Too many images. Too many different fonts. Every color in the rainbow and then some. Such infographics hide the information; they don’t illustrate it.

On the other hand, clear infographics can be a way of communicating with a population that is becoming increasingly visual. Probably the classic example of such an infographic is one of the oldest: Minard’s space-and-time illustration of Napoleon’s ill-fated march on Russia. Edward Tufte’s classic work, “The Visual Display of Quantifiable Information,” gives a solid explanation of the importance of illustration rather than simple text.

http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard

www.CommunicationsPlus.net’

‘Tina Brinkley Potts Keynote Speaker | Social Media | Online Marketing Trainer | Business Consultant | Business Development | Local SEO |

Remember the old saying, “A picture speaks 1000 words”. Just look at the rise of social sites like Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram.

Infographics will be around for a while.

http://tinabrinkleypotts.com‘

Why Create An Infographic?

If you have been on the internet recently you might have come across either an infographic, most likely about ‘how cool Pinterest is’, or caught people talking about an awesome series on AMC called Breaking Bad. Being a fan of both and slightly bemused by the rash of complicated infographic design tips out there, I thought – using this expression ;/

“Why not mix these two topical things together and have some darn tootin’ fun?”

This is the result and I hope you find it as helpful as it is shareable (hint, hint).

In Breaking Bad - Walt’s reason for getting into meth cooking is due to his cancer diagnosis and his worry for his family’s financial situation after his death.

For you – In infographic could be just what you need. It’s about what the client wants. What is their Walt? – More traffic, social presence, links and/or brand recognition?

Who Is Your Link Distributor?

In Breaking Bad – Walt fears that he is running out of time to make money when his health rapidly deteriorates, so he pushes his meth partner Jesse into finding a distributor to help them move the meth in bulk. They choose Kingpin Tuco Salamanca based on Jesse’s loose connection with the guy and his sheer dominance in the drug trade.

For you – Like Walt, you need to position your product and work in conjunction with your own Tuco Salamanca – high profile blogs who know what their audience wants. You can even give them exclusivity and add their logo, if needed, to persuade them to host. If you want your infographic to be republished you will need at least one Tuco Salamanca in your promotional belt. If hosted on the Clients site then liaise with client on design and strategy, but always go back to your high profile blog to see that this is in keeping with the tone of their content. If you don’t do this, you will be left with a really expensive product and no way to move it.

Who Are Your Info Addicts?

In Breaking Bad - For Walt and Jesse, the main targets are meth addicts like drug addict girlfriend Jane.

For you – You need to have at least three different audience types for one infographic. For example, if it’s an infographic on James Bond Cars you should instantly be targeting car fanatics, James Bond fanatics and movie lovers. Info porn lovers are not an audience, they come with the territory so don’t include them.

What Is The Infographic Concept?

In Breaking Bad - Walt might have the capability to create top quality meth but he needs someone who knows the product inside and out. He finds out that former student Jesse Pinkman is a meth dealer, then seeks him out and makes him a deal.

For you – What is your Jesse Pinkman? What idea could make this infographic explode into viral status?  Most of the ideas will come out of initial talks with the client, trends on Reddit, Meme blogs, Stumbleupon or Tumblr. Do not forget to go back to your Tuco Salamanca blog for ideas, they will have a lot of experience in this and will want the infographic to do well. You will also need to double check that you have really found your Jessie Pinkman by running searches on the data. It might come up cold and then you need to change to another idea.

Produce Blue Magic Data

In Breaking Bad -  Walt is adamant that his product will be perfect, but when he starts producing more he is restricted to what chemicals he can get his hands on. He opts to change to using various chemicals to produce racemic meth and purify into a brand new blue form that becomes a signature for his product.

For you – Once you have found your Jesse Pinkman idea and you know you have a superb data source, you can begin. Perhaps the data is being supplied by the client, which is easier, but always think outside the box. Could you add more? All data must be checked and rechecked and all supporting URLS retained for the footer of the graphic. But like Walt, make it different by adding your own ‘Blue Magic’ data; by (where possible) run your own data collection via polls or questionnaires.

Mapping Your Product

In Breaking Bad - Walt and Jesse end up working in a lab owned by another Kingpin, Gustavo Fring. It’s a high tech meth lab and has everything set-up that they need to produce the product in bulk.

For you – Be as fastidious as Walt with your data, planning the layout to make sure that the customer gets that first pure hit of what you want to say. Can they absorb the data quickly? Does it flow? When you are done this should be like Walt’s lab, fly-free, spotless and ready to cook.

Cooking Your Infographic Design

In Breaking Bad - Because of Walt’s expertise in chemistry he can produce 99.1% chemically pure crystal meth. But he also uses a blue methylamine in the cooking process that gives the product the nickname of ‘Big Blue’ or ‘Blue Sky’ on the street.

For you - Like Walt, you should make sure that your infographic is as pure as it can be. It will go through a number of stages and also, like Walt’s meth, you will need a beautiful header and hook (like the blue colour) to draw them in and to understand what it is that makes your graphic tick. Then they should get the first hit of information and the graphic should flow and allow the readers to absorb it quickly. Don’t forget that the footer should complete the story and the URL references always need to be added here.

Moving Your Product

In Breaking Bad - Gustavo Fring does keep his end of the bargain and the Blue Sky is sold in bulk on the streets and makes both Jesse and Walt very rich

For you - You need to make sure that everything is perfect at this point, if you miss a keyword or have an issue with the embed code it can tarnish the whole promotion. If you are hosting on a client’s site you might have to anticipate this earlier to make sure they can set-up the embed code. Your Tuco Salamanca site will be used to adding embed codes and links, so you will typically just send over the infographic.

Plan Your Promotion

In Breaking Bad - Jesse uses his crew to sell Blue Sky both before and while working for Fring.

For you - Once your infographic is hosted on the client’s site or on high PR sites you need to look at promotion. Like Jesse, use a few dealers. Post on Reddit as an advert, publish to Twitter, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Ebaums and Facebook, if applicable. Do lots of blogger outreach and make sure that your infographic is selling, and selling like crazy.

Evaluate results

In Breaking Bad - Walt does get the money that he dreamed of, although some of the other events surrounding his change of career impact greatly on his family life.

For you - Like Walt, if you follow all these guidelines you will see a payoff. Unlike Walt, it probably won’t lead to almost getting killed a number of times. Check how well things are doing one week after promotion and results noted, and then one month after this to check links etc. These can then be relayed to client.

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