Content, Media and Marketing Trends for 2012 [INFOGRAPHIC]

This year, data, sponsored events, memes, and books, whether in print or digital, ruled the search engines.

According to an infographic by Sparksheet, data terms saw a huge number of search results. The word “infographic” was searched 137 million times in 2012, beating out the words “big data” (76.4 million times) and “Nate Silver” (2.5 million times), the New York Times blogger and statistician who correctly predicted the presidential election.

Sponsored events like the Olympics and Euro Cup also raked in big numbers — the former received 624 million searches and the latter 1.4 million. For the year, Red Bull received 43.3 million, in part due to its sponsorship of the Stratos mission.

Books, surprisingly, were on top as well. People searched for “iPad Mini” 93.1 million times, “The Hunger Games” 32.1 million times, and “Fifty Shades of Grey” 21.5 million times. Memes like “Gangnam Style,” “Call Me Maybe” and “Kony” all got huge search engine results, garnering 193 million, 31.4 million, and 3.17 million searches, respectively.

Companies were quick to jump on the meme bandwagon this year (just look at Samsung’s use of Overly Attached Girlfriend for starters).

As Blogger JD Rucker points out, “Rather than read a long article that describes data, infographics puts the data into a format that can be more easily taken in and can add a layer to the understanding by appealing to our natural visual acuity.”

As the internet because more overloaded with text, visuals are becoming the preferred way to communicate ideas.

Image courtesy of Maja H./Shutterstock