Powered by:

ETHOS3.COM

The following how-to guide contains a wealth of tips and tricks that will help you create a powerful presentation that captures the attention of SlideShare’s professional audience. We’ll show you how to create a compelling presentation that demonstrates thought leadership and provides a rich content experience for the viewer.

The average SlideShare user spends five to six minutes on a presentation, which illustrates how effective presentations can be as a medium to distribute insights. But in order to garner that kind of engagement, we must create presentations that are impossible to ignore. With this guide, we’ll show you how.

We’ll cover three essential parts of every presentation– conceptualization, creation, and maximization. Conceptualization is the first step to tackle, in which you’ll streamline and beautify content. As you’ll see, simplicity and storytelling is the root of all success. Next, we’ll supply you with a few mini tutorials, supported by case study examples, of how to create a visually striking presentation. And last, we’ll talk about how to maximize the impact of your presentation by becoming a thought leader, announcing a clear call to action and promoting your presentation with purpose.

Think of this all-inclusive how-to guide as your sage presentation design sidekick. It will provide you with an arsenal of tips and tricks to create a presentation that truly resonates with SlideShare’s professional audience. Turbocharge your content, and maximize audience engagement with a presentation that leaves everyone wanting more.

Table of Contents

Part I: Conceptualization

Part II: Creation

Part III: Maximization

Chapter 1: Simplicity is the Ultimate SophisticationChapter 2: Move the Audience to Feel Chapter 3: Statistics & Storytelling: A Compelling Bond

Chapter 4: Use Stock Photography Chapter 5: The Art of Minimalism Chapter 6: The Power of the Infographic

Chapter 7: Be a Thought Leader for Your Audience Chapter 8: Incite Movement with a Call to Action Chapter 9: Promote Your Presentation with Purpose

ConceptualizationPart I:

Chapter 1: Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication

There’s this movie called Up in the Air. Maybe you’ve seen it. It came out in 2009, and it’s about a guy– played by the perpetually dashing George Clooney– whose job is to fire people. He gives advice to a new, much younger colleague on how to do the job right, and along the way, he doles out some advice about life, too:

“How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff… the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home… I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… your brothers, your sisters… You get them into that backpack. Feel the weight of that bag…”

He concludes bleakly (“The slower we move the faster we die.”) but his message is poignant, and unwittingly apt for the world of presentation.Think of your online presentation as a backpack. Feel the weight of it. How heavy is it? Can you carry it with ease or is it dragging on the ground behind you? Is your presentation bogged down by too many words, too many visuals or too many slides? You have to add five more slides? That’s more weight in the bag. Need to insert one extra objective? More weight.

Now imagine the weight of your backpack on your audience’s shoulders. Is it too light? Is it too heavy? Is the weight of the pack appropriate for the content inside?

It’s important to consider these questions as you craft your presentation because the weight of your backpack– your presentation– will be on another person’s shoulders when you’re done.

Chapter 1: Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication

Do what you can to avoid giving your audience a heavy backpack. Remember, their backpacks are already full– of people, places, things, emotions, dreams, and on and on. Don’t saddle your audience with the task of finding room in their “backpack” for a cumbersome, bulky online presentation. Give them something light and airy that fits in there nicely.

What can I do to simplify my online presentation? How can you condense those five slides into one? How can you make that text-heavy slide into five separate slides with little text? Can you find a way to depict a concept visually instead of with text? Can you find a way to explain that slide in a sentence rather than in a paragraph? Simplicity is key. It’s a characteristic present in any outstanding online presentation.

People respond favorably to easy to understand, easy to digest information, so use words economically in your presentation– pretend like you have to pay for each one you use. The power of your online presentation depends on your ability to embrace simplicity.

ASKYOURSELF

Chapter 2: Move The Audience To Feel

One of Maya Angelou’s most famous declarations is a wonderful reminder when crafting an online presentation: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

It may sound insensitive, but there’s a pretty good chance your audience will forget most of the what’s in your online presentation especially since you are presenting in person. They have a million other things going on in their lives (and on their computer screen, for that matter). Unfortunately, your online presentation isn’t the most important thing.

If you don’t believe us, think of the last presentation you attended or viewed online. What do you remember from it? What sticks out in your mind about it? Our guess is probably not much, which segues nicely into our next point…

With an online presentation, there’s really no opportunity to leave an impression through what you do. Even if you have the chance to deliver the presentation in person, unless you do something truly shocking, sincerely fascinating, or mind-blowingly unexpected, then it’s a good bet that your audience will forget what you did.

So, if there’s a good chance your audience is going to forget what you said and what you did (or didn’t do), where does that leave you? Well, as Angelou sagely says, “people will never forget how you made them feel.” And guess what? The easiest, most effective way to get people to truly feel something is by telling a story.

Chapter 2: Move The Audience To Feel

Let’s say, for example, your online presentation highlights the necessity of health insurance. Rather than present unmemorable, prosaic statistics about the abstract benefits of having health insurance, tell the story of Jim, who has advanced stage lung cancer because when he first felt something was wrong he didn’t go to the doctor because he didn’t have health insurance and couldn’t afford treatment. Tell the audience how Jim’s family is now in massive debt because of Jim’s lack of health insurance.

Pull at those heartstrings! Move the audience to feel something about health insurance by telling Jim’s story. Never placate or pander. Instead, base your stories on something real, something true, something that could happen to each and every member of the audience. Because just as Maya Angelou says, if you make a person feel something, they’ll remember.

Chapter 3: Storytelling & Statistics: A Compelling Bond

Let’s say you’re given a choice between listening to a 30-minute list of statistics, and listening to a 30-minute story, which would you choose? The answer is fairly obvious, especially as there’s a better-than-good chance that at some point today you’ll consume a 30-minute story, whether through reading, listening, or watching.

Our lives revolve around stories–– the stories we consume and participate in, the stories we tell ourselves in order to understand the world, the stories we tell ourselves in order to understand ourselves, and on and on. If storytelling is so ingrained in our daily lives, why would we exclude them when we use statistics?

Perhaps most importantly, stories promote conversation rather than encourage an automatic judgment. If you present your audience with a statistic– point blank– they have one of two options: to agree or to disagree. If they disagree with you, they’re likely to completely turn off and tune out for the rest of your presentation. But if you frame that statistic within a story, you give the audience room to participate in conversation with it.

Moreover, while statistics are heartless and dispassionate, stories are emotional and persuasive. They encourage the audience to feel this and express that; they inspire and most importantly, they incite action.

Another way of looking at the bond between storytelling and statistics is that if you do nothing to place your statistics into a story, your audience will do it for you. People continually place information into the context of a story, whether consciously or not. It’s simply how we respond to incoming stimuli.

Consider the multitude of stories you tell yourself on a daily basis. Maybe you walked past a homeless person on the way to work this morning. What did you tell yourself about his life? Did you assume that he lost his job in the Recession? Did you ask yourself what happened to his family and friends?

Chapter 3: Storytelling & Statistics: A Compelling Bond

All of us are chockfull of preexisting information, biases and judgments, and when we’re presented with new information, we attribute all our established knowledge to it.

With that in mind, take control of where your audience’s minds go during your presentation. If you present a cumbersome statistic by itself, your audience will have a multitude of differing responses. They won’t have a collective, similar experience of the statistic. But, if you present that stat in the context of a compelling story, they’ll respond in a similar fashion because you’ve given them the framework in which to place it.

Storytelling is the most effective way to get people to understand, remember and embrace new information. Think of presidential debates–– what people tend to remember from those are the stories the candidates tell, not the enigmatic statistics presented. The bond between statistics and storytelling is undeniable. Make the most of the connection in your presentation.

CREATEPart II:

Chapter 4: Use Stock Photography

Now that we’ve discussed the importance of simplifying content and telling stories, and given you an arsenal of tips and tricks to move your audience from attentive to engaged, let’s talk about creating and designing a beautiful presentation.

Let’s begin with a few very common statements regarding presentation design: “We want to avoid stock photography.” “Nothing cheesy or staged.” “No stock photography.” Stock photography has a bad rap, and with all the Death by PowerPoint decks out there (think horrendous Clip Art, unreadable slides jammed with text and bulleted lists), we can understand why. But eliminating stock photography from your presentation entirely is limiting and shortsighted. With a dash of creativity and a keen eye for design, stock photography can do wonders to visualize and disseminate your presentation’s message.

The following are five slides from a presentation we designed for Jon Acuff, bestselling author of Quitter and Stuff Christians Like. He wanted a smart, witty deck for his Quitter conference, and we delivered just that by using stock photography in a creative way. Let’s see what we can learn from this case study.

When people think “stock photography,” a perfectly exposed, highly saturated photo typically comes to mind. Don’t limit yourself to that narrow definition. The grenade to the left is a stock illustration, and it gets the slide’s point across masterfully. Play around with opacities and gradients to nuance the photo and background.

Chapter 4: Use Stock Photography

A surefire way to avoid cheesy, phony photos is to keep business people out of it (trust us, even SlideShare’s professional audience doesn’t want to see photos of fake, beaming business people). Start thinking outside the box. How can you say what you want to say without a using a photo of cheesing businesspeople? Instead of using generic photos of people on this slide, our designer thought outside the box and used skeletons of people. The same idea is disseminated but in a much more creative way.

A good place to start is by brainstorming metaphors that

appropriately describe the concept you’re discussing. In the slide to the left, for example, the message is “Start Somewhere.” What images, words and ideas

come to your mind when you think of that phrase? We used

a blank road sign, perfectly conveying the point in a single

image.

Chapter 4: Use Stock Photography

Consider using a common color tinting or photo effect to unify all the slides in the deck, and think about integrating type into the photo (like in the slide to the left) so it doesn’t look like it was just pasted on top.

Finally, the way you angle and crop a stock photo adds a lot of power to the image. The image to the right is obviously a stock image, but the interesting way

that it’s cropped (just showing the legs) makes it work. Also, notice how the designer incorporated

the ‘patience’ text into the photo by reflecting

it on the water.

Subtle nuances like these make stock photography compelling

and visually appealing. Don’t automatically rule out stock photography of your

presentation. There’s a lot of potential hiding in those happy,

shiny images.

Chapter 5: The Art of Minimalism

Wikipedia defines minimalism as a movement where:

“the work is set out to expose the essence or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts.”

That same definition applies to an effective presentation. We should work to expose our content as clearly and cleanly as possible for our audience, and the best way to do that is by getting rid of anything non-essential.

A significant amount of power can be harnessed by using a minimalist style in your presentation. The more you eliminate unnecessary clutter, the more accessible your information will be for the audience (whose attention is already fleeting at best).

Chapter 5: The Art of Minimalism

The following are examples of before and after slides from a presentation we worked on for Match Media Group. Notice how the before slide examples are nearly exploding with information with no emphasis to draw the audience’s eye to what’s most important. Contrast that with the after slide examples where there’s a clean, minimalist design that focuses on one point.

Before

After

Chapter 5: The Art of Minimalism

Notice how the before slide here tells the Match Media Mindset, whereas

the after slides shows the Match Media Mindset by telling the story of

Jane & John’s date. While the before slide

includes a cumbersome list of elements of the

dating process, the after slides allow the audience

to imagine the process through storytelling,

giving the presentation a more powerful and

personal tone. Also notice how minimalistic the after

slides are compared to the before slide. Break

up your information onto multiple slides to make it

more compelling and simplistic.

Before

After

Chapter 5: The Art of Minimalism

Both the before & after slide examples display nearly the same information, but the way it’s presented in the after slide is much more compelling because of its minimalist design. It leaves a much more powerful impression on the audience than the before slide because it makes the same point but with less information (the point here being that singles and marrieds spend money on different things). A minimalist design helps you say only what is truly necessary to get your point across.

Before

After

Chapter 5: The Art of Minimalism

There is far too much information on the

before slide, leaving the audience with no indication as to what

is the most important takeaway. The after slide

is much more compelling; it’s sure to leave a

memorable impression on the audience. Of course, it’s fine to include some

of the other facts on the before slide, but put them

each on a separate slide.

Minimalist design leaves a much more powerful and

memorable impression on the audience. They

know what to look at, and thus, they know what they

should remember.

Before

After

Chapter 6: The Power of the Infographic

Infographics have quite suddenly become all the rage in the design world. So suddenly, in fact, that ‘infographic’ isn’t even an official word in the dictionary (little red squiggly lines will annoyingly stain this document throughout its creation).

An infographic (officially deemed an informational graphic) should express one idea cleanly and clearly, allowing readers to quickly digest and understand complicated information. And as someone presenting to an up-to-date professional audience on SlideShare, it’s a good idea to become well versed in this relatively new craze that is most likely here to stay. Here are a few tips on how to create an effective infographic.

We should get one thing straight right off the bat: Infographics are not graphs. They aren’t charts and they aren’t lists. An infographic tells a story with illustrations and graphics. Sure, they can employ graphs, charts, and lists but story is an inherent part of an infographic.

Make sure that the design of your infographic reveals something about the topic at hand. If you’re creating an infographic about global warming, for example, be sure to use design elements that speak to the environment and the world. Design your infographic in a way that it tells a story simply by looking at it.

As always in the world of presentations, simplicity is king (have we said this enough, yet?). Narrow your focus by choosing just one question to answer with each infographic. Don’t try stuffing a hundred ideas into one infographic. That’s a surefire way to maximize complexity and minimize simplicity, which is precisely the opposite of what you want to do.

Chapter 6: The Power of the Infographic

Avoid using legends or keys. Don’t make viewers hunt for information. Don’t make them look up and down and around and this way and that way. This isn’t “Where’s Waldo?” The flow of an infographic should be intuitive. Ideally, viewers should start at the top and simply follow it down until the end. Minimal text is ideal; the design should say it all.

Another crucial consideration when creating an infographic is ensuring that the data included is entirely accurate. If one number is three times larger than another and you want to show the difference in the sizes with circles, make sure to create a circle that is accurately three times larger than the other. An infographic loses its meaning entirely if the data is not accurately depicted. Don’t be misleading, and never deceive viewers in your depiction of data. Your audience is smart and well educated. They’ll know when they’re being duped.

Also, be as transparent as possible. Make citations easy to find, and be open and honest with where you found the information featured in the infographic. Not only should you have nothing to hide if you’re presenting data accurately, but you lend much more credibility to your presentation if sources are there looking viewers straight in the face. Infographic is the new buzzword in the land of designers and creatives, and it looks like they’re here to stay. Embrace this new method to disseminate information, and with the aforementioned tips you’ll be able impress the professional audience of SlideShare with your neat infographic housed inside your beautiful presentation.

22

MaximizationPart III:

23

Chapter 7: Be a Thought Leader for Your Audience

Here’s a question for the ages: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

A myriad of philosophers have mused over the question’s implications regarding meaning, observation, and reality, but Scientific American, true to form, answered it neatly sans philosophical concerns: “The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce the vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound.”

We’d like to propose a similar question in regards to presentations: If there is a presentation and no one is around to hear it (or view it, as in this particular case), does it make a sound? Sure, the deck will appear on a computer screen, but it may as well not. With no audience to view it, the presentation will simply float on, undigested, into a void.

Your audience is the most important part of a presentation, and don’t you forget it. Strive to be a thought leader for LinkedIn’s professional audience. Don’t settle for being just another face in the crowd. Stand out by engaging your audience so much they can’t stand to look away.

The first step in cultivating that kind of engagement with your audience is to do your homework. You wouldn’t present to a roomful of teenagers the same way you’d present to the professionals on LinkedIn, so know a thing or two about your audience. Better yet, learn as much as possible about them, so you can tailor your presentation’s message to them directly and act as a thought leader.

24

Chapter 7: Be a Thought Leader for Your Audience

If you know specifics about your audience– where they’re from, what work they do, what their interests are– you can speak in particulars regarding how your message is relevant to their lives. You can tell them in detail why it should matter to them. Remember: Your audience doesn’t care about what you want; they care about what they want. So align your message with their interests.

Once you accept the rather humbling fact that the only person that cares about what you want is you (and likewise for all the men and women on SlideShare), you should take a brisk walk around in your audience’s shoes. Get comfortable in those shoes because it will improve your presentation immensely if you commit to memory what it’s like to live in them.

Become a master at viewing things from your audience’s point of view so that you can craft your presentation specifically for them. View yourself, your company, and your story from the eyes of your audience on SlideShare, so you can better explain to them why your message is important and why they should care.

To conclude, we’d like to offer a slightly more nuanced version of our introductory question: If there is a presentation and an attentive yet unengaged audience is present, does it make a sound? Sure, but not one that anyone will remember.

Be unashamedly, unabashedly, unambiguously interested in your audience. Know them like the back of your hand, walk around for a while in their shoes, and engage them unrelentingly, so you can become a thought leader in their eyes.

25

Chapter 8: Incite Movement with a Call to Action

Now that you’ve streamlined and simplified your content, told compelling and emotional stories, and engaged your audience effectively, don’t forget to call them to action. Because what’s the point of your presentation if not to incite some kind of action or movement?

A call to action can range from something as concrete as “Try this product today!” to something as abstract as “Seize the Opportunity!” Regardless, the most important thing is to tell the audience (simply) how they can follow up on the information you’ve just provided in your presentation.

To begin, decide how you want your audience to respond to your presentation. Can they buy your product? Can they implement your process in the workplace? Can they sign up for a newsletter, follow your company on LinkedIn or Twitter, or head over to your website? Give them all the options and avenues available to respond to your presentation.

Obviously, telling the audience why they should take action is what the bulk of your presentation is for, but don’t forget to highlight those reasons again as a preface to your final call to action.

Think of the top two or three reasons why what you’re offering them is something they can’t refuse. Compel them to accept your call to action. As we mentioned before, people like to hear about themselves and how something will benefit them, so appeal to those characteristics. Tell them how this-and-that will change their life for the better.

Finally, a call to action can also be as simple as posing a challenge or question that incites the audience to think further about your presentation’s topic. Leave them with a little food for thought that encourages them to think more about your topic and the problems and solutions it presented. But above all, always remember to include a way they can reach out to you for more information. Be available to your audience. After all, the best response you can ask for is some kind of interaction with a viewer.

26

Chapter 9: Promote Your Presentation with Purpose

Finally, after hours, hours and hours of work– simplifying, streamlining, storytelling, and creating– you have a final product: A beautiful, brilliant, compelling presentation. But the work’s not over quite yet. Now it’s time to get as many eyeballs as possible on your presentation. Because– harkening back to our tree in the forest metaphor– without those eyeballs, the power of your presentation is severely limited.

So, how can you go about sharing your epic presentation with an audience other than that of SlideShare? Well first, grab ahold of the low-hanging fruit: the rest of your social media channels. Which means Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Pinterest, maybe even Reddit. Hopefully, you already have a substantial following on those channels– a following that’s interested in you and your presentation’s topic.

With any luck, you’ll get a great response after exhausting those channels, and your well-crafted call to action will be acted upon as you had designed.

From there, it’s time to get creative and start thinking outside the box about how you can maximize the reach of your presentation. Since this was originally posted online on SlideShare, are there any upcoming speaking opportunities you can sign up for to present the presentation in person? How about potential or existing clients who would appreciate seeing the presentation? Do you have a strong lead who’d be impressed in a well-designed, engaging presentation that gave him or her a better look into your business? Schedule time to brainstorm where this kind of potential lies. Don’t underestimate the power of your presentation; people love clicking through beautifully designed, interesting material, which is precisely what your presentation offers.

27

Chapter 9: Promote Your Presentation with Purpose

Lastly, keep in mind how resourceful SlideShare is in providing you a detailed level of feedback on your deck. It automatically captures all sorts of analytics, including the number of downloads and embeds, total views, favorites and more. And when the viewer comes to the end of the deck, a lead capture form pops up, so your viewer has the opportunity to contact you for more information. Needless to say, SlideShare is the ideal place to learn who’s been looking at your presentation and who’s been particularly engaged by it.

In short, do whatever you can to get as many people as possible to look through your presentation. Don’t limit the number of people who see your presentation to just the audience on LinkedIn, but rather, work to capitalize on the amount of work you’ve put into your presentation by promoting it as much as possible. The world is ready and willing to see what you have to say, so make sure you give them the chance.

28

Final Thoughts

Whew! You’ve made it to the end of our guide on how to build an online presentation that will blow the socks off the professional audience on SlideShare. By following these steps– conceptualization, creation and maximization– and embracing these tips and tricks, your SlideShare content ad will provide a rich, unforgettable experience for the audience.

Begin by simplifying and streamlining your content, and focus on telling stories as much as possible throughout your presentation. Once you’ve nailed down the content, it’s time to move onto the creation stage where you’ll visualize the words on the page. And finally, when you have a beautiful, engaging presentation, capitalize on that investment by giving a clear call to action, establishing yourself as a thought leader and working to maximize the number of views on your deck.

Hopefully, this how-to guide has helped steer you in the right direction when it comes to designing a presentation for professionals on SlideShare. Don’t settle for creating anything less than a presentation that will make a clear mark on the world. Let’s get started!

Powered by:

ETHOS3.COM