Video infographics become a hit on social media, other online journalism

It is not uncommon to find an infographic with an online article. Publishers are well aware of an infographic’s ability to report complex news in a more engaging and simple way.

That trend has evolved into the use of video infographics, which have been well-received.

The Pew Research Center has posted some video infographics to its YouTube. Over the past year, most of them have been viewed more than twenty-five thousand times. That far surpasses the number of views for *their* other videos that have seldom reached five thousand.

The popularity of them has become strong enough to spawn VideoInfographics.com, where you can find sort of a gallery of them covering an array of topics.

Getting them made
On VideoInfographics.com, each video, whether it’s a YouTube or Vimeo one, has a link to contact info of the video’s apparent creator. And for those who want to look elsewhere, graphic design company Thought Café has garnered attention for their work for non-profits.

Trying them on Instagram
Most video infographics run at least a minute, as it takes at least that long to convey most issues. But considering the response to ones on Pew’s YouTube channel, uploading to Instagram 15-second infographic videos seems worth a try if they cover their topic sufficiently. In fact, one of Pew’s video infographics explained in 30 seconds remarriage in the U.S.

ESPN’s Grantland gets artsy with Steve Nash documentary, ‘The Finish Line’

NBA player Steve Nash joined the Los Angeles Lakers in July 2012, but since then has spent most of his life off the court recovering from injuries.

The 40-year-old’s journey tending to these injuries, as well as facing his grim, NBA future, is chronicled in a YouTube documentary series called “The Finish Line.” The surprisingly cinematic series, presented by ESPN’s Grantland on their YouTube channel, debuted February 14 13 with its second and most recent installment coming February 28.

Sports media blog Awful Announcing calls the series “outstanding.”

“We’ve grown accustomed to the site churning out articles with varying degrees of success, but this video series is a step in a new and refreshing direction. They’re no stranger to video (Grantland has 561 videos on their YouTube page), but this is new territory. The feature on Nash is a personal look at one of the most familiar names in the NBA at the end of the career.”

The production team behind the project, Hock Films, is led by Emmy-winning filmmaker Jonathan Hock and has specialized in sports docs, making some with ESPN. However, the Nash project apparently marks the first on social media. Hock discussed his experience reporting for the series in this ESPN radio interview.