Month: September 2014

Online advertising facts, in an easy-to-read diagram

I don’t know what’s happened to me, but in the past few months I’ve become fascinated with infographics. I’m tempted to blame it on the sentience-sucking phenomenon known as ‘Staying at Home With a Toddler’, but I think that’s only part of the problem.  The truth is that these days I spend an awful lot of time writing content for other people/brands, and when you’ve spent the day writing 2500 words on bedbugs plus another 1500 on syndicate mortgages, pictures just seem a lot more appealing than prose.

(I’ve also been doing more blogging on LinkedIn.  Click here to browse what I’ve been posting there.)

So today I give you another infographic that I found appealing:  ‘Digital Advertising by the Numbers’, by SayDaily.  I don’t have a lot to say about it – I think it speaks for itself. Though I do encourage you to look at the $3.6 billion spent on video ads.  Everyone thinks that no one watches them, but in fact if you can get your message across in the first 5 seconds, they’re more powerful than you realize.

 

It’s no wonder you’re feeling a little overwhelmed by social media

I came across this infographic today, outlining just how much information is uploaded, shared or transacted on social (and social-related) media every single second, and the first thing that came to mind was the Total Perspective Vortex from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

In the words of Wikipedia:  

“The machine produces a virtual reality model of the entire universe by means of the axiom that any piece of matter is affected by all other matter. The Vortex reconstructs the universe through computer processing of a high-resolution scan (“extrapolated matter analysis”) of a piece of fairy cake. When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, ‘You are here.'”

And when you are forced, suddenly, to grasp the impossible hugeness of the universe and your own, infinitesimally small part within it, your mind explodes.

It is “…allegedly the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected.”

In other words, I know it can be difficult to think about just how much stuff (information, photos, opinions, websites, likes, transactions, pingbacks, videos, songs – etc.) is being uploaded to Teh Interwebs every second of every minute of day, but sometimes we just have to look it in the face and decide that it’s going to make us try harder to be relevant.

And that is my motivational advice for the day.

I found this great infographic here.