How to Easily Create a SlideShare Presentation

You know how hot visual content is and want to jump on board to enjoy the engagement, traffic, and following leads. But maybe you don’t want to blog and you don’t have the production resources to make videos. What should I do? Create a SlideShare presentation.

I know, I know. You may have felt personally bullied by PowerPoint at some point in your career. When you open it, you’ll be hit by heavy black Calibri writing on a white background that kills any creative spark you might have felt. Creating a deck of 10 slides to report your monthly marketing metrics is daunting enough – whether you’re putting together slides for the large number of SlideShare users to see.

Well, there’s good news: creating a SlideShare presentation in PowerPoint doesn’t have to be that daunting. With the right templates and tools, it’s easy to create an engaging, visual presentation – all without fancy design programs, big budgets, or hiring contractors.

How to Create a Stunning SlideShare Presentation in PowerPoint

To help you create your own SlideShare, we’ve created some free PowerPoint presentation templates that you can use to create awesome SlideShares. This way your presentations will look great and It’s a breeze to put them together.

Download the free PowerPoint templatesScroll down and we’ll go through using it. When we’re done, you’ll know exactly how to create a sexy presentation featured on SlideShare’s homepage. Ready? Let’s dive in.

1. Get an idea of ​​the types of presentations you can find on SlideShare.

Just like you have mastered any other medium, it is helpful to use other content in that medium to get an idea of ​​the format and how it works. Go to SlideShare.net and discover SlideShares that interests you. You can view them on the platform or download them to your computer and view them on your local computer.

Download SlideShare presentation

How to download a PowerPoint from SlideShare:

1. Register for a SlideShare account.
2. Navigate to the SlideShare presentation that you want to download.
3. Click the button labeled “Download. “
4. When asked if you want to cut out the slide, clickKeep downloading. “
5. Click “save file“and then confirm with”okay. “

Some may not download as a PPT file, and some may not download at all. However, this method works in all other cases.

2. Decide on fonts and a color scheme.

Before getting too into the ins and outs of your plot, it’s a good idea to figure out what fonts and color schemes to use. (If you’re using our free templates, you can skip this part.)

When choosing fonts, consider two different fonts to use in your presentation – one for your headings and one for your body text. Your header font should be bold and eye-catching, and your body text font should be simple and easy to read. The contrast between the two makes it a lot easier for your SlideShare viewers to grasp your core messages.

For your color scheme, choose a scheme that has enough contrast between the colors to make the colors stand out. Whether you choose two, three or four different colors in your presentation is up to you – but certain color combinations go together better than others.

Below is an example of what certain fonts and color combinations can look like. Notice that the header fonts stand out a lot more than the body? You can also see what different color palettes might look like: the top is monochromatic, the center is complementary, and the bottom is analog.

3. Outline the major takeaways and major sub-spheres.

Next Up: Creating an Outline for Your SlideShare Narration. I like to treat SlideShare outlines as if I were blogging posts – you decide the working title and top takeaways first. Then explain these sections with a few supporting points.

Create a slide for each of these components (title, section headings, and some supporting points). Below is an example of what these slides might look like:

title

headlines

Supporting points

You’ll also want to create placeholders for slides for the call to action and closing slides (you don’t need to explain them just yet).

Remember, these slides shouldn’t be complex – just a title and maybe a few details to remember later. No heels. No supporting images. Nothing that is not yet integrated into your template.

4. Fill in the text of your presentation.

Then fill in the meat of the content – all the slides between the headings. Just make sure you don’t rely too much on text. SlideShare is primarily a visual platform – people are used to blowing through presentations. So if your presentation reads like an e-book, then you should edit the text down and rely more on visual content.

Another thing to remember is to change your format from slide to slide. Try making a checklist slide followed by a quote slide – it will keep people busy as they flip through your presentation.

5. Add introductory slides.

After you’ve created most of your SlideShare presentation, return to start. Wonder why we didn’t start here? It will be a lot easier to play the bulk of your content if you already know what that content is about. In this step, just introduce what you just wrote about – it’ll be a breeze.

6. Complete the conclusion.

Then go to the end of your SlideShare and wrap it in a slide or two. There’s nothing like walking off a body slide Law to a CTA film. It only takes a slide or two to complete your presentation, but of course it should add to the CTA you’ll have next.

7. Add a call to action.

At the verrrrrry end of your SlideShare, you want to engage your viewers with a call to action. The CTA can be about downloading an e-book, attending an event, or just visiting your website – pretty much any CTA you want to include. Here are two CTA slide examples that we included in the SlideShare template:

8. Edit, edit, edit.

You are almost there! Next you need to edit your copy and design components. Try to get another employee – whether or not a marketer – to try again. If you need guidance, you can use our ultimate editing checklist to make sure you’re catching everything you can.

9. Add “animated slides” and clickable links.

While it’s easy to create a presentation in PowerPoint and instantly upload it to SlideShare, you won’t see all of the functionality in both programs. As a result, you need to add two things: “animated slides” and clickable links.

As for slide animations, SlideShare does not support PowerPoint animations. This means that any smooth entrances that you have planned for your text boxes and objects will disappear from the window as soon as you upload your presentation to SlideShare. However, it’s easy to manually add new elements to a series of slides to make them appear “animated”.

Once you have your animations built in, you also need to make sure that users can actually click the CTAs in your presentation.

10. Upload your PDF file to SlideShare.

After you are done with your clickable links, your presentation will be displayed in PDF format. Now you are ready for the final step: uploading your PDF file to SlideShare. When you do, you have the option to add a description and tags, and even schedule SlideShare to go live at a specific time. Once your SlideShare is live, be sure to spend some time promoting it on your blog, social media accounts, and email lists. (For more SlideShare promotion tips, check out this blog post.)

Just follow this process whenever you need to make a SlideShare presentation and you will never have to fear that blank PowerPoint template again.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in August 2013 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy and completeness.