Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Did you know that people retain 65% of the information they see, but only 10% of the information they hear?
Also, people follow directions 323% better with a combination of text and illustration than instructions without illustrations.
That’s why, as a marketer, it’s important to display information in a combination of visual and text, in an easy-to-consume way.

A great way to do that is through infographics.
If you’ve wanted to create and publish an infographic, you’ve come to the right place. I know you might be thinking, “I’m not a graphic designer” or “I’ve never made an infographic before.” But you’re not alone.
And that doesn’t mean it can’t be easy for you to learn.
In this post, we’ll take you through everything you need to know about infographics, from what they are to what kinds of infographics there are to how to promote an infographic once you’ve created it.
Table of Contents

What is an infographic?
Infographic Examples
Infographic Dimensions
Infographic Ideas and Topics
Infographic Tips
Infographic Templates
How to Share an Infographic

Infographics typically use engaging visuals to quickly and clearly communicate what the graphic is about.
People use infographics because they can provide a quick overview of a topic, explain a complex process, and display data easily. Infographics are also great for comparing two opposing concepts or ideas.
As a marketer, you might’ve experienced the feeling of indecisiveness when you want to create a marketing asset for a campaign, but you’re not sure the best way to disseminate the information. Is your idea best suited to a blog post, YouTube video, or social media post? The great news is that for any medium, in any industry, you can use infographics in your marketing.

Infographic Examples
1. What is Guerilla Marketing, by Invite Referrals
Below is a great example of an infographic by Invite Referrals, which focuses on describing guerilla marketing. Instead of making a blog post or video, the company decided to explain, in detail, the concept of guerilla marketing in an infographic.
With an infographic, the information is easier to digest because it uses succinct copy and visuals to help get the point across.
Additionally, this infographic has a clear headline that communicates what it’s about, so readers can instantly tell what they’re going to get from reading it.

2. Small Business and Marketing, by SEO.com
This is another excellent example of an infographic because it uses a combination of data and visuals to give information on small business marketing.
The creator, SEO.com, also broke down the information into sections, so readers can easily scan the graphic and see what information they want quickly.
One of the ways this graphic excels is that it knows its buyer persona. SEO.com, a site to help marketers, made this infographic that directly targets small business owners and marketers.

3. Video Marketing, by Visual.ly
In this example, Visual.ly uses data and visuals to communicate why video marketing is important. Additionally, the company uses bright colors to attract attention. If someone is scrolling social media, the color and design might make them stop to see what the graphic is about. It pulls the reader in.
With an infographic, you can hook readers with the visual design and communicate an idea in a way that doesn’t take up too much of your audience’s time.
Again, the concise copy and visuals will help readers get interesting information right away. And this information is exactly what marketers might want to learn about.

4. Modern Marketer, by Get App
This is an excellent example of an infographic because it uses concise copy and engaging visuals to communicate information.
My favorite element of this infographic is how it’s visually easy to understand and you can see the hard and soft skills of being a modern marketer without needing to dive into the topics. This is a quick, easy-to-scan infographic, which is what marketers are looking for when they’re working.

5. Content Marketing, by Ditto Digital
Another great example of an infographic is by Ditto Digital. This infographic focuses on giving tips to content marketers. What I like about this example is that the copy is easier to read than a blog post on the same topic might be.
The copy is concise and the visual elements of headers and subheaders make it easier to read. Additionally, this is visually interesting and has several graphics to pull your attention.

Infographic Dimensions
So, now that you know what an infographic is and have seen some examples, you might be wondering how to get started with your own infographic.
Before you can jump into designing, it’s important to understand what size your infographic should be.
The answer is that it depends on where you’re going to promote it. Below are the most common places you might post an infographic with the recommended sizes:

Facebook: 1200 x 628 pixels
Pinterest: 600 x 900 pixels
Website/Blog: 600 x 1800 pixels
Twitter: 1200 x 675 pixels
Instagram: 1080 x 1080 pixels
LinkedIn: 1104 x 736 pixels

1. Comparison Infographics
A comparison infographic is an infographic that compares two ideas. Infographics are a great way to compare and contrast because you can visually see things side by side.
Below is an example of a comparison infographic which compares bad posture with good posture. Not only can you visually see the difference, but you can also read the copy which explains how posture can impact your health, feelings, communication, and appearance.

Image Source
2. Marketing Infographics
A marketing infographic is a graphic whose main purpose is to build awareness for a brand and boost engagement.
With a marketing infographic, you can showcase business achievements, deliver news, display a new product or service, improve a course with handouts, drive interest on social media, show data, present quotes, summarize key points in a blog post, and more. The options are honestly endless.
Really, infographics can be used for anything. Whenever you’re thinking about creating a marketing asset, consider whether an infographic will help prove your point.
3. Process Infographics
A process infographic simplifies and explains the steps of a process in primarily visual terms.
Generally, it illustrates what happens during each step or phase with an intuitive layout that’s easy for the viewer to follow from start to finish.
A well-designed process infographic makes the concept you want to share more accessible and saves you and the audience time.
Below is an example of a process infographic which explains the process of mechanical recycling.

Image Source
4. Timeline Infographics
A timeline infographic is a way to quickly communicate important information — from key dates in your company’s history to upcoming project milestones or predicted market trends.
This type of infographic is what you would use if you were planning a product launch for example. Or perhaps you want to communicate a timeline of your business achievements for your website.
Featured Resource: 8 Free Timeline Templates for Business

Download Now for Free
5. Statistical Infographics
A statistical infographic is a graphic whose main purpose is to show data and research. Let’s say that your company has first-party data about your industry. What better way to communicate that than with an infographic?
Now that we know what types of infographics there are, let’s give you a few tips on the process of creating one.

1. Find resources.
Before you start creating your own infographics, look for resources that can help you. This is particularly helpful if you aren’t working with a graphic designer.
For example, you can use PowerPoint templates or Canva templates. In fact, there’s really no shortage of design resources — charts, reports, and infographics. And, depending on your budget and needs, there are a plethora of options available, all of which have their pros, with very few cons.
2. Target your buyer personas.
When we went through the examples above, you might’ve noticed that I commented on infographics that correctly targeted their audience. With any marketing asset, it won’t accomplish what you want if it’s not created for the correct buyer persona.
Don’t forget what the purpose of marketing is: to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.
3. Keep it focused and simple.
Infographics are a great way to stay focused and use simple language to communicate a message.
The best messages are succinct and very specific to the audience. That’s why your infographics should be as focused and simple as possible.
As a marketer, it’s important to simplify your messaging whenever you can. Simple messages are easier to understand and retain.
4. Use visuals.
Of course, you can’t have a great infographic without visuals. In fact, the whole point of an infographic is to communicate a message with both text and visuals.
The goal of the visuals should be to hook the reader and make it easier to digest the information. And you don’t have to be a graphic designer to accomplish this.
In fact, you can use premade templates to make your life easier. Below let’s go over why templates are useful.

Infographic Templates
Infographics are a powerful tool for capturing the attention of your target audiences. In fact, businesses that publish infographics grow their traffic an average of 12% more than those that don’t.
The hard part, of course, is finding time and resources to create these infographics. That’s why HubSpot created fifteen fully customizable infographic templates that will give you the inspiration and foundation you need to build your own infographics right in PowerPoint or Illustrator.
Use these infographic templates to present data for your next meeting, promote an offer on social media, or in your next blog post. Visual information is becoming more and more popular — and now you have the resources to easily create this visual content.
Featured Resource: 15 Free Infographic Templates in Powerpoint (+5 Bonus Illustrator Templates)

Download Now for Free

1. Optimize your infographic for search engines.
Infographics don’t go viral by accident — even if you’ve got the best infographic in the world.
Instead, strategically promoting your infographic by identifying the right people and the right websites can get your infographic in front of thousands of people fast.
But before we do that, you’ll want to make sure to optimize your infographic for search engines. SEO won’t necessarily help your infographic go viral, but it’s extremely beneficial because it will help increase your search engine rankings (which means more free traffic to your website).
Check out this infographic by Backlinko to help guide you while you’re optimizing your infographic(s) for search engines:

Image Source
2. Find websites and blogs that share similar infographics.
For example, if I had just published an infographic on email marketing, I would go to Google at type in: “Email marketing infographic.” What you’re looking for are websites and blogs that have published similar infographics made by other people.
After you’ve got a decent list of websites that you think will be willing to share your infographic, it’s time for some email outreach. First, start by identifying the authors from each of the websites that published similar infographics. You can usually find the author’s name in the article’s byline:

Once you’ve got a list of authors, use a tool like Viola Norbert or ContentMarketer.io to find email addresses so you can start sending personalized emails.
If you want to learn how the pros do email outreach, check out this article from Brian Dean at Backlinko. Part of that case study highlights the “Pre-Outreach” and “Content Roadshow” strategies he used to generate buzz for his content.
For example, check out Emil’s 2-step approach to email outreach. Instead of doing what most people do and asking for a backlink or share right away (1-step approach) here’s what he did:

And because he wasn’t being pushy, he gets responses like this from people asking to send his content over (2-step approach):

See the difference?
Now I’ll be the first to admit that email outreach is not the most exciting part about infographic marketing — but it’s crucial if you want to get more eyeballs on your work.
Plus, the long-term benefits from the relationships you’ll build with influencers and bloggers will become invaluable down the road.
3. Share infographic with the right bloggers and influencers.
The best tool to find these influencers is BuzzSumo. Just type in a topic or copy/paste a specific link to pull up content that is sorted by number of social media shares.
For example, if I were doing an infographic on gardening, I’d type in “gardening infographic” into BuzzSumo. Next, I would go through the results one by one and click “View Sharers” on any infographics that are similar to mine:

This will give you a list of the people who have shared that infographic, which is helpful because you can sort by number of followers to identify influencers with a large number of followers who have shared infographics that are similar to yours.
Like in the last step, find their email address and start reaching out one-by-one. Aside from Viola Norbert and ContentMarketer.io, another clever way to find someone’s email address is to subscribe to their blog — the welcome email and all future emails should come from an address that you can respond to.
As an alternative, if you can’t find someone’s email address, you can always use Twitter to reach out publicly:

Sam Hurley has hundreds of thousands of followers but still responded and shared content from Brian Downard:

See how he used the same 2-step outreach approach like the email example from above? He asked if they wanted to see it and then sent the link afterward.
Not being pushy is the key to getting responses and getting your content shared. You might also consider sending a friendly “thank you” note after an influencer shares your content to strengthen the relationship:

4. Submit your infographic to infographic directories.
These directories are basically websites that curate infographics for other people to see. And they are the perfect place to get your infographic discovered by people who might want to share it on their website.
Trouble is, there are dozens of these directories out there, so instead of manually doing each one by yourself, I recommend using Fivver to pay someone to do it for you. You don’t need to have someone submit your content to 50+ directories — just stick with the people who only add it to the top 10-30 infographic directories.

5. Promote through all your digital marketing channels.
Once you’ve added your infographic to the right directories, share it through all of your marketing channels:

Share with your email lists
Schedule multiple social media posts
Paid ads / remarketing ads
Add links to infographic on relevant website pages
Share with industry partners
Send to influencers/bloggers who’ve shared your content in the past
Share with any brand or person you mentioned in your content

Infographics are a valuable resource that marketers can use to communicate with their audience in an easy-to-understand way. Next time you’re coming up with content, consider if an infographic is a better way to communicate your message.

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This is part one of a series on email design essentials from our resident Art Director and design specialist, Tylor Loposser.

Why email design matters
It’s wise to approach design as an intentional act, an act that shows we are interested in experience and want to create a response to our audience. I think it’s a good idea to break down some of the more specific impacts that design has on your email marketing program:
Great design is a way to stand out in the inbox. 
It’s estimated that the average office worker receives over 120 emails per day! A well-designed email is going to help you break through the noise of the inbox and engage your subscribers. Make your emails enjoyable, your content relevant and take your audience on a journey – so that people can’t wait to interact.  
Design is an extension of your brand.
Your email marketing program should reflect your company’s brand voice. Be sure to use every opportunity, from the subject line to the CTA, to echo your brand’s sentiments. Always look for opportunities to add personality into your copy, this can be done by using a conversational style of writing. 
Consistent and on-brand email design (using colour, logos and layout), reduces the chance of confusing your subscribers, making it easier for them to absorb your key messages. 
Increase your deliverability.
It is worth noting that poor email design can trigger automatic spam filters but more likely, it will lead to your subscribers taking action such as unsubscribing or marking it as spam which can impact your sender reputation. Analytics and insights allow you to keep an eye on how subscribers respond to your messages, so use this data to guide your process.
Increase accessibility with inclusive design.
As a marketer, you want to reach a large and engaged audience. Email design that doesn’t take into account accessibility guidelines which can range from insufficient color contrast, exclusionary language, and poor coding habits will mean that your message isn’t going to resonate/ or perhaps won’t even be available to all your subscribers. 
While accessibility focuses on the structures and containers that hold information, Inclusive Design is based on the information itself, and on your understanding and empathy with your audience. Consider your subscribers’ experiences and abilities, then create emails that reflect that. These connections your draw between what you’ve made and who interacts with it will pay off tenfold.    

Brand consistency
When people first get an email, one of their first reactions is to wonder; “Who is this from?” If this question is left ambiguous, they will unsubscribe, or worse mark it as spam.
The ‘From Mailing Address’ and Subject Lines do a lot of the heavy lifting, but the visuals can have a lot more staying power. Brand recognition allows them to spend more time with the content, and brand consistency increases your resonance with your user. It enables them to picture something specific; opposed to something generic. 
For example; picture coffee. Now picture Starbucks. 
I imagine you are seeing a specific shade of green, those plastic cups, their unique way of labeling their sizes, and that mythical siren, right?
While your industry may be vast, you want to find what elements your brand needs to stick out and be unique.
This is why it’s important to make your emails easily recognizable and build a seamless experience between your email program and your other marketing channels. All of these touchpoints can help to assist in this consistency. Using your logo and any marks to accompany it, plus applying a color story is one of the most effective ways to accomplish this. 
Follow your brand guidelines to keep colors, font styles, tone, and imagery similar. If you don’t have brand guidelines, my recommendation is to make creating them the top of your priority list. 
These don’t need to be complicated design systems. It’s all about building consistency that helps create recognizable experiences throughout all media.  Another great tip; if the goal of your campaign is to drive traffic to your landing pages, your email template should share the same guidelines as your website. Think of your template as the sibling to your website. They don’t need to be identical, just share the same visual language. 

Content hierarchy
Whether you realize it or not, you’ve probably done some of this work during the content creation process. Maybe you’ve established the most important pieces of content and created an inverted pyramid ranking your content from most important to least. Even starting with a headline or hero image that then feeds into a paragraph or body copy is a form of basic content hierarchy, which translates well to email.
These distinctions create visual interest and help to guide your subscribers through a campaign and keep them engaged. This practice can manifest in two different ways:
Typographically
The use of weights/styles/colors within our fonts establishes the way in which people read and rank importance. I suggest a 4px difference between each one of your styles to create a good definition. Also, be sure to assign these styles in your HTML to assist with screen readers. 
To all you Campaign Monitor Drag-and-Droppers; don’t worry, the editor will do this automatically!
Pictographically
This pertains to imagery; primarily photos, illustrations, and icons within your email. 
Photography should be assigned to the most important topic, it’s the most effective way to engage your audience – because people tend to look to other humans for connections. 
On the other hand, using illustrations for secondary messaging can be effective because they often use brighter colors and explore more complex situations. 
While iconography allows you a quick solution by using elemental shapes to create a simple understanding, it’s worth noting that these can be lost in translation.
While your brand may have slightly different standards, designers should combine the qualities of each one of these to tell compelling stories. 
Balancing color with size and layout can help build a clear hierarchy that is immediately recognizable. This creates visual interest and helps with skimming, which we know is a common practice in email. Easily-read copy turns into engagement, which leads to the interaction like clicks, forwards, and shares.
P.S. I know finding good stock images for your emails and getting them embedded can be a time-consuming pain. Check out our Free Image Gallery, which lets you pull from the curated Unsplash library of millions of images and add them straight into your campaigns!

Sections and modules
These are imperative to agile design. The needs for sending email are ever changing, and we need to be able to move quickly. These sections help set expectations for copy and design by having established parameters, allowing you to place content appropriately. 
Sections and modules make testing super easy, you can move these around throughout your campaign and see which ones and in what quantity work best for your audience. 
You can see above some of the most popular options, these naturally set hierarchies allowing you to give the biggest real estate to your most important topics – and as importance or content availability shrinks so does space. There’s an old saying: When you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing. 
There are a few proven layouts that work consistently well for email. We’ve already built out many of them in our premade, high-performing email templates. You can use them any time and simplify your design work. These allow you to spend more time perfecting your content and analyzing your results. 
Wrap up
Design is the foundation of your emails. It has a huge influence on your brand and the overall impact of your campaigns. There’s a lot to consider when approaching email design, from accessibility and inclusion to hierarchy and deliverability. Fortunately, you can make the work streamlined and easy using Campaign Monitor’s prebuilt templates.
Stay tuned for the next part of this series, where I’ll share some of my own creative process and some tips to help you get the most impact out of every email!
 
The post Email Design Fundamentals: Everything You Need to Know (Part 1) appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

  
“He once ran a marathon because it was on his way. Sharks have a week dedicated to him. Mosquitoes refuse to bite him purely out of respect.”
Have you heard of him before? Yes, he’s “The Most Interesting Man in the World”— a fictional character that drinks Dos Equis beer and stars in the company’s viral commercials.
The commercials — which make me laugh every time — are part advertisement, part comedy skit and have a similar theme so fans always know when they’re watching a Dos Equis advertisement.
The company targets its audience of sophisticated beer drinkers in an engaging, creative, and humorous way through TV, social media, and YouTube. The unique campaign created fans around the world that helped spread it across multiple platforms, so much so that people even dress up as the commercial’s main character for Halloween. 
Dos Equis may not have been 100% sure that their campaign would take off the way it did, but they had a good idea about its potential popularity. 
Similarly, there is no guaranteed way to ensure your content goes viral, but there are certain steps you can take to give your marketing campaign the best chance at success.
 
Many marketers hope for a campaign to go viral — meaning it’s recognized, widely-accepted, and influential. But there’s no guaranteed formula. However, if you think about some of your favorite viral marketing campaigns, you’ll notice some common features. Marketers wanting to reach a bigger audience should keep these attributes in mind when creating their next campaign:
1. It appeals to a target audience.
A successful viral marketing campaign considers the target audience. For any campaign to go viral, it needs to resonate with the audience and make them feel so strongly about your content that they decide to share it with their family, friends, and followers.
Determine who your target audience is in the earliest stages of your campaign creation. To achieve this, ask questions such as: Who do I want to connect with? What content would they feel passionate about? What are their hopes, dreams, and values? Why would they care about my campaign? What will can I do to make them want to share my content with their social network?
2. It has a strong visual strategy.
Viral marketing campaigns require a visual strategy — this guides potential customers to understand your brand through the use of images.
A campaign should tell a story and that story is best told using visual elements that resonate with your audience. Your visual strategy needs to be compatible with your brand and target audience — it should be interesting, informative, and contain some element of intrigue, such as humor or hope.
3. It’s highly creative.
Think about your favorite viral marketing campaign. What sets it apart from others?
Marketing campaigns don’t go viral unless they have a unique, interesting, and innovative idea behind them — your campaign needs to be something new and attention-grabbing.
4. It has emotional appeal. 
Have you seen the Dove Real Beauty Sketches campaign? It makes you feel frustrated, insecure, strong, and confident in just a few minutes.
Each commercial shows a person sitting behind a curtain describing their appearance while an artist — who cannot see them — draws their portrait. After the individual is done describing his or her features and the portrait is complete, the curtain is removed. The artist then draws a second portrait of the individual based off what they actually see.
After the second portrait is finished, the artist places the two drawings next to each other. As you can probably imagine, the portrait derived from the individual’s self-description is less attractive than what the artist draws in the second portrait.
In fact, in each video throughout the campaign, the portrait that the artist creates is a much brighter and more realistic depiction of the individual. This is a message about self-esteem and the beauty within all of us.
The campaign went viral because of its relatability and emotional appeal. You need to make your audience feel something — otherwise, why would they want to share your content?
5. It’s easy to share and promote.
Thanks to the internet and social media, sharing and promoting your content with the rest of the world is pretty simple. You don’t need huge sums of money to produce successful photo or video content that can be consumed by the greater population. 
For something to actually go viral, it needs to be shared over and over again. This means you and your company need to share the content first in as many places — and in as many ways — as possible. Then, you need to make it easy for your audience to share it as well.
Enable sharing, embedding, and downloading capabilities on all of your content so your viewers can tag their parents on Facebook, message their best friends on Instagram, or download your video so they can easily turn your content into a memorable GIF. Create calls-to-action or elements that encourage people to send it to their friends. 
Think about asking a celebrity to promote your content if an influencer would fit with your overall message and add value to your campaign. For example, viewers may find your insurance commercial more entertaining and share-worthy if Peyton Manning or Brad Paisley are singing.
6. It’s published at the right time.
You should also consider the date and time that you share your content. Marketers use major holidays — such as Christmas — as well as major events, like the presidential race and the Super Bowl, to their advantage.
More people are scrolling through their social media feeds, watching TV, and keeping up with current events during these times which causes marketers to spend more money on their campaigns. 
Similarly, anyone who uses a platform like Instagram knows what I’m talking about when I say the date and time of your posts matter.
For example, if you post on a Saturday at 8 p.m., most people are out at dinner, seeing a movie, or just hanging out with friends — meaning they are most likely not browsing their newsfeed … at least not as much as they do on Tuesdays. 
After all of this sharing and promoting, you need to wait and see whether or not people latch onto your content. If so, you could have created a viral campaign. If not, you may have to try again.
Read this blog to learn about the reasons why some older campaigns stand the test of time.
The Advantages of Viral Marketing Campaigns
Creating a viral marketing campaign isn’t an easy or predictable achievement. But if your campaign does go viral, it can mean thousands or even millions of new people being introduced to your brand and buying your products — money in the bank!
For example, the Dollar Shave Club’s campaign video went viral, which made them a household name. They were then acquired by Unilever for $1 billion — not bad.
Here are a few more advantages of producing viral content:
1. They can build your brand.
When a marketing campaign goes viral, your audience automatically learns about your company, products, services, and brand. This includes people who may not have ever heard about your company otherwise. This is how some small companies make their “big break” and how large companies stay relevant.
2. They don’t require a large budget.
Some of the most successful viral content is created on a low budget. These days, individuals and companies of any size can film high-quality video and take professional-looking photos all on an iPhone.
Many content creators, or people who simply upload a random video, have found themselves become famous almost overnight. It’s not about the resources and budget — it’s all about what catches the attention of the internet. Marketers don’t always need a large-scale production with a celebrity to make their campaign funny, surprising, relatable, or informational. 
Fun fact:Jonathan Goldsmith, the man behind the “Most Interesting Man in the World” commercials, had only done a few gigs prior getting his big break when the campaign went viral. 
3. They get your brand in front of a new (and larger) audience.
Campaigns are considered “viral” when they have a large reach. Companies may experience an increase in sales, greater engagement on social media, and a boost in conversation about their brand and products.
This is exactly what happened for Smart Water when they brought Jennifer Aniston on board for their campaign in 2012. The video has over 6 million views on YouTube, and their humorous campaigns have done so well with the public that Aniston was featured in them through 2017.

3 of the Most Famous Viral Campaigns
Now that we have reviewed the features of successful viral campaigns and how to launch one yourself, let’s dive into some of the most popular viral campaigns ever created.
Old Spice: “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”
Old Spice found that women are the ones to purchase men’s personal hygiene products, so they created an ad that spoke directly to this audience.
The “Old Spice Man” talks directly to the audience in a bold, confident, and humorous way. He tells women that anything is possible when your man uses Old Spice — all while he sails the ocean shirtless, turns sports tickets into diamonds, and rides a white horse on the beach.

This campaign went viral because … well … humor works. It was so successful that it even increased sales for the brand. The commercial has received over 55 million views on YouTube, won an Emmy for Outstanding Commercial at the Creative Arts Primetime Emmy Awards, and won the Film Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.
ALS: “Ice Bucket Challenge”
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge began four years ago and was created to raise awareness for the debilitating disease. For the challenge, you had to pour ice cold water over your entire body and then nominate a friend to do the same. This became a movement that raised $115 million in the summer of 2014 alone. Because … who doesn’t want to watch a family member or friend pour freezing cold water on their head?
Celebrities from around the world started participating, challenging their famous friends, donating, and raising awareness. There was an Ice Bucket Challenge hashtag that gained popularity allowing for the videos to spread easily over multiple social media channels.
Most importantly — the challenge is fun and makes participants feel like a part of a bigger movement, which is why it remains relevant years later.
Always “#LikeAGirl”
This video became a major hit because it directly addressed how phrases that are so commonly used can be detrimental to someone’s self image and confidence. In the video, various men, women, and young boys are asked to “run like a girl” or “fight like a girl”. Then young girls are asked to do the same, with a very different approach: They show strength and confidence in their movements. 
It made viewers recognize how quickly we use female-oriented phrases as insults, and that doing something #LikeAGirl should be seen as inspiring and brave. 

The original TV commercial that came out in 2014 has over 65-million views on Youtube, and the hashtag — #LikeAGirl — remains popular today.
For more great examples of viral video marketing campaigns, check out this blog.
Conclusion
There is no roadmap for making your content “go viral.” You can review what has been successful in the past and try to emulate this, but ultimately, it’s about creating great content that connects with your audience and makes them want to share it. Do this, and you just might find that your brand is the one everyone is talking about. 

Ask any professional athlete or business executive how they became successful, and they’ll tell you they mastered a process. By figuring out which of their habits led to success and which didn’t, they improved their efficiency, effectiveness, and productivity at work.
But implementing a process into a business, department, or even a team is a completely different animal than honing your own personal process. With so many moving parts, how do you track each aspect of your business’ process and how do you refine it?
Data flow diagrams provide a straightforward, efficient way for organizations to understand, perfect, and implement new processes or systems. They’re visual representations of your process or system, so they make it easy to understand and prune.
Before we dive into how data flow diagrams can help refine any of your business’ systems or processes, let’s go over what it exactly is.

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DFDs became popular in the 1970s and have maintained their widespread use by being easy to understand. Visually displaying how a process or system works can hold people’s attention and explain complex concepts better than blocks of text can, so DFDs are able to help almost anyone grasp a system’s or process’ logic and functions.
There are two types of DFDs — logical and physical. Logical diagrams display the theoretical process of moving information through a system, like where the data comes from, where it goes, how it changes, and where it ends up.
Physical diagrams show you the practical process of moving information through a system, like how your system’s specific software, hardware, files, employees, and customers influences its flow of information.
You can either use logical or physical diagrams to describe the same flow of information or you can use them in conjunction to understand a process or system on a more granular level. But, before you can use a DFD to understand your system or process’ flow of information, you need to know the standard notations or symbols used to describe it.
Data Flow Diagram Symbols
Data Flow Diagram symbols are standardized notations, like rectangles, circles, arrows, and short-text labels, that describe a system or process’ data flow direction, data inputs, data outputs, data storage points, and its various sub-processes.
There are four common methods of notation used in DFDs: Yourdon & De Marco, Gene & Sarson, SSADM and Unified. All use the same labels and similar shapes to represent the four main elements of a DFD — external entity, process, data store, and data flow.

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External Entity
An external entity, which are also known as terminators, sources, sinks, or actors, are an outside system or process that sends or receives data to and from the diagrammed system. They’re either the sources or destinations of information, so they’re usually placed on the diagram’s edges. External entity symbols are similar across models except for Unified, which uses a stick-figure drawing instead of a rectangle, circle, or square.
Process
Process is a procedure that manipulates the data and its flow by taking incoming data, changing it, and producing an output with it. A process can do this by performing computations and using logic to sort the data, or change its flow of direction. Processes usually start from the top left of the DFD and finish on the bottom right of the diagram.
Data Store
Data stores hold information for later use, like a file of documents that’s waiting to be processed. Data inputs flow through a process and then through a data store while data outputs flow out of a data store and then through a process.
Data Flow
Data flow is the path the system’s information takes from external entities through processes and data stores. With arrows and succinct labels, the DFD can show you the direction of the data flow.
Before you start mapping out data flow diagrams you need to follow four best practices to create a valid DFD.
1. Each process should have at least one input and one output.
2. Each data store should have at least one data flow in and data flow out.
3. A system’s stored data must go through a process.
4. All processes in a DFD must link to another process or data store.
Levels of Data Flow Diagrams
DFDs can range from simple overviews to complex, granular representations of a system or process with multiple levels, starting with level 0. The most common and intuitive DFDs are level 0 DFDs, also called context diagrams. They’re digestible, high-level overviews of the flow of information through a system or process, so almost anyone can understand it.
Level 0: Context Diagram
This DFD level focuses on high-level system processes or functions and the data sources that flow to or from them. Level 0 diagrams are designed to be simple, straightforward overviews of a process or system.
Level 1: Process Decomposition
While level 1 DFDs are still broad overviews of a system or process, they’re also more detailed — they break down the system’s single process node into subprocesses.
Level 2: Deeper Dives
The next level of DFDs dive even deeper into detail by breaking down each level 1 process into granular subprocesses.
Level3: Increasing Complexity
Level 3 and higher-numbered DFDs are uncommon. This is largely due to the amount of detail required, which defeats its original purpose of being easy to understand.
Data Flow Diagram Examples
Professionals in various industries, like software engineering, IT, ecommerce, and product management & design, can use DFDs to better understand, refine, or implement a new system or process.
But what does a data flow diagram look like in practice — and how does it help your business? Here are three examples to help contextualize DFD impact.
1. Level 0 DFD

 
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This Level 0 DFD provides a contextual map of a securities trading platform. Data flows in one direction from the customer service assistant and the broker to the platform, and in two directions from customers to the platform and back again.
2. Level 1 DFD

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This Level 1 DFD breaks down the customer process in more detail, expanding it to include account creation, cash withdrawals, and eventual securities transactions.
3. Level 2 DFD

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This Level 2 DFD decomposes the “Place Order” process to contextualize the steps required to place an order — either by a customer or by a broker. It even accounts for a third-party stock exchange center where transaction details are forwarded after an order is placed.
1. Select a system or process.
Begin by selecting a specific system or process you want to analyze. While any system or process can be turned into a DFD, the larger the process the more complicated the diagram and the more difficult it will be to contextualize. Wherever possible, start with a small function or process you’re looking to improve.
2. Categorize related business activities.
Next, categorize all activities related to this process into external entities, data flows, processes, and data stores.
Consider a restaurant food ordering system. Customers are external entities, the food ordering system is a process, and the interaction between customers and the system (which goes in both directions) is the flow. 
Also worth noting? The ordering system doubles as a data store, so for an SSADA model, this means drawing it as a rectangle with rounded corners with two horizontal lines inside to represent its dual function.
3. Draw a Context DFD.
Now it’s time to start drawing. DFDs can be created by hand, using free templates available online, or via browser extensions.
Begin with a simple, Level 0 DFD: Start with your process or system, then map all basic connections and flows.
4. Check your work.
Before diving into more complex DFDs, check the work you’ve already done to make sure it’s accurate and complete. If you’ve missed (or added) a process, entity, or flow, your next-level DFDs may not make sense and you may be forced to start over.
5. Create child diagrams.
For each process or system described in your Level 0 DFD, create a new child diagram with its own entities and flows. Eventually, you can use these child diagrams to connect processes together. 
6. Expand processes into Level 1 DFDs.
Using your child diagrams, you should map more in-depth connections between each process. In the case of our restaurant example, this could mean digging deeper into the food ordering system and its connection to suppliers, managers, customers, and kitchen staff.
7. Repeat as needed.
Each process — no matter how large or small — can be reimagined as a Level 0 context diagram and the cycle can begin again. Repeat these steps as needed to create as many DFDs as required, or break processes down further to develop Level 2, 3, etc. DFDs.
Perfecting Your Process
While there’s no such thing as a “perfect” data flow diagram, continued practice can help streamline the process and offer critical insight into what’s working, what isn’t and where your business can make improvements that offer the biggest impact.
Your best bet? Remember the rule: Keep it simple. Start with context, build out connected processes, and repeat as needed to map key connections, flows, and entities across your organization.