The Social Media Brandsphere [Infographic]

Originally posted on Forbes.

Over the past few years, my team and I have had the pleasure of working with social media author and expert Brian Solis on a number of infographics, including The Conversation Prism and The Twitterverse, which we have updated each year.

So it’s with great pleasure that we’ve partnered up again — this time to bring to life The Social Media Brandsphere. Click to enlarge:

The Social Media Brandsphere is a handy tool that breaks down the division of media opportunities for marketing professionals. The infographic goes beyond the standard opportunities of Paid, Owned, and Earned Media (P.O.E.M.) and includes the more recent strategies of Promoted and Shared to create a complete picture of the opportunities available to engage audiences.

From there, Solis breaks it down even further with eight different “rings” — types of activation, platforms, ways media objects are pushed, ways media objects are measured, what their destined audience is — all which lead to center ring, the brand story.

JESS3’s Information Design Director, Robin Richards, shared a few thoughts with me on how our team reached the final product:

Jesse Thomas: What was the inspiration behind designing the Brandsphere?

Robin Richards: Using the title of the graphic as the visual metaphor, the information is presented as a sphere. The narrative is formed from the centre of the graphic and evolves out — taking the viewer on a journey based on the starting preference of the centre.

Jesse: How did the infographic evolve from concept to the final product?

Robin: Once the jumping off point of the sphere was established, the graphic was refined so that the placement of the different actions related as they flowed out from the centre. The width of the lines were also refined to help show where the cross action and overlap was the greatest.

Jesse: What challenge did the design team face in constructing this complex infographic?

Robin: We had to make sure it was easy to see the different levels of engagement for brands, while also helping to showcase the across different outlets.

Check out some of our early explorations below:









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