Have you heard of Visual.ly? It's a cool new program that allows you to create infographics by plugging in data and then choosing graphic options to display information in a way that's easy for people to digest. I love infographics but I am not a designer so it's always been a challenge to create them. Well, those days may be gone now that there's Visual.ly. Here's an information graphic I created today displaying Twitter date for me and Oprah Winfrey.
So — me? “Unfazed?” I'm not smiling in the graphic, and — well, you know me — I'm always smiling. I think I'll have to start using 🙂 in my Tweets more so I can change that. Here's more about how I interpret this infographic.
Interesting Tidbits
I must be Tweeting about food a lot. (I won't say what I think of that.) As the leader of INDIE Business Book Club, it makes sense that the graphic reveals that I am obsessed with books and reading. So I'm walking around with a fork in one hand and a book in another. Wow!
It also shows that I'm a big ReTweeter and I'm very social. Both so true.
When compared to Oprah, however, I'm clearly not interesting. (Who is? LOL!)
Toward the bottom, you can see my “strongest connections,” some of which I could have guessed myself (@bellalucce), but some of which are surprises. Not sure how they figured those out.
At the bottom, you can see that I Tweet mostly about “love,” “business,” and “handmade.” Oprah Tweets a lot about her show and people. Both seem right on the money to me!
How You Can Use Visual.ly
I can think of tons of ways you can use this. For example, you could create a graphic showing statistics about your best selling products. Wouldn't that be a great addition to a presentation to your wholesale customers?
How about about making a graphic showing your sales growth over the years? Or displaying the Farmer's Markets you participate in, or how your small business is contributing to your local economy? The possibilities are endless!
According to the Visual.ly website, the full application will launch soon. I hope there's a reasonably priced option for small and independent business owners like us. In the meantime, as I did, you can create your own Twitter infographic here.
Question: What do you think of Visual.ly? Do you notice any ways you might use it in your business?
