Interactive maps: The most visual way to inform your audience

A real treasure map is an interactive map; an efficient and versatile format of communication. No wonder the online media outlets use them so much!

Whenever the topic allows, display your information in a personalized interactive map: it’s the most visual and powerful way there is to engage your audience.

As you know, Genially is leading the way in visual and interactive communication. In this post, you’ll discover how an interactive map can help you communicate better and help your audience understand the information more easily. We’ll also look at how to create personalized interactive maps super easily and for free.

A communication superpower

We are constantly being bombarded with information. I don’t know about you, but I even feel a bit bombarded by information about this bombardment.

Why do we feel overwhelmed by information? Well, there’s too much of it, yes. We live in the era of data and we have tons of information to give and receive. What’s more, information often arrives unstructured and out of context. Information can overwhelm us because:

• It doesn’t interest us,
• It arrives at inopportune moments,
• It arrives at the right moment, but it’s too complex. and of course, when something is complex and is not essential, what tends to happen is that we don’t pay attention.

Doing something about the first point, that is, changing what interests your audience, isn’t so easy and is not, of course, what this post is about. But it is possible to influence the other 2 points. The good news is that if you use visual communication and interactivity, you can solve both issues: make it so that the information arrives at the right moment and so that it’s also easy to understand.

Who knows when the optimum moment to receive the information is? Your audience. Your audience knows better than anyone. If you use an interactive format to deliver the information, people will consume it when they are ready for it. You simply share it and your audience will click through to learn more when the time is right for them.

Visual communication and interactivity also help to simplify the information so that it’s easier to digest.

In a time when the most consumed content formats are video and image, interactivity and visual communication help to eliminate any barriers of written communication and help the audience to be more informed and to draw their own conclusions.

Using interactive elements helps the online media outlets to convert complex information into a stimulating experience for the person receiving it. As well as maps, other similarly useful formats are interactive infographics and interactive timelines. Use the one that best suits your communication needs.

Better the picture than the 1,000 words

This is the real challenge for communication nowadays: summarizing information, extracting the part that interests the audience, and communicating it in an engaging way. Take this example of an interactive map used by ABC10 and just think how many more words they would have needed to communicate this detailed information without the infographic.

What do you think your audience prefers, an image or 1,000 words? An interactive map will help you achieve your communication objectives. It’s the perfect way to give your audience the simplified information at just the right moment.

Interactive maps for informing and educating

As well as being an excellent communication tool, interactive maps can be used in education and are also a very powerful tool in this area. Education is many things, but above all it is communication.

Studying geography is much easier with an interactive map, and it’s something you can come back to again and again for many years. Believe me, the effort of making it will pay off in no time. Check out this example of a map of Europe. It’s reusable; personalize it however you like.

With Genially, it’ll look great and is oh so easy

A map is a visual format by definition, and has been around for as long as anyone can remember. Did you know there are records of the use of maps from the year 2300 BC? Maps have been used throughout history as a support for effectively and instantaneously communicating information in many different fields.

Thanks to new technologies, now we can add interactivity to our maps and greatly increase their value. Online media outlets around the world use interactive maps to show election results, demographic data, and lots of other information that has a geographical component.

With Genially it’s super quick and easy to create interactive maps, and it’s free. It’s also really easy to share them! You can insert them in a blog or webpage, or simply share the link to your resource. All this without installing software or writing a single line of code.

Among the many great advantages of creating your interactive map with Genially is the fact that you can update the information as many times as you need to, without having to share the content all over again.

Whoever has the link will always see the latest version with any changes you’ve made. Even if you’ve inserted your map in a blog or webpage (such as a digital newspaper for example), it will update automatically and instantaneously. In a world where changes happen in the blink of an eye, this can be a considerable advantage.

Here’s another example. Isn’t it a super convenient way to consume the information?

Three elements, a million different uses

To create an interactive map, you need 3 things: the map, the tooltips or interactive markers, and the information that you want to display when your audience interacts with each pin.

You’ll find lots of this stuff already in Genially. There are tons of templates for creating interactive maps, and you can also upload your own images and resources. If you choose one of the illustrations from the Genially library, you can personalize the color of the map. It’ll also be easy as pie to create your interactive map with your brand’s color palette, or whatever colors you like.

There are also lots of different tooltips. In the Interactive elements section, you’ll find a wide variety of buttons and markers. Choose the one that fits your design best and personalize the color and size to your liking.

Another advantage of Genially is that you can include content in any format. What do you want to happen when your audience interacts with each pin? A text to appear? Images? A video? Want an audio to play? You can integrate any kind of content in your genially, even social media posts. That way your map will be even more expressive!

Templates for creating personalized interactive maps