Productivity tips

5 Tips To Making an Awesome PowerPoint Presentation

Most PowerPoint presentations are the worst.

Far too often, the slides are text-heavy and the person simply reads them off. And while there is important information being discussed and employees have the best of intentions of listening, their minds invariably begin to wonder and boredom prevails.

Don’t let that happen. Make your PowerPoint presentations memorable by having awesome slides that enhance your presentation, not take away from it.

In her LinkedIn Learning course Content Marketing: Slides, Instructor Dayna Rothman gave five tips for creating awesome slides that’ll make your PowerPoint presentation stand out. To further help you create great slides, we found examples of SlideShare presentations that embody those best practices.

1. Keep your slides consistent.

Whatever style you pick, you want to keep it consistent throughout the piece. Having one style for one slide and then a different style for a different slide can be jarring to the audience.

Instead, one consistent tone makes the presentation flow much better. If you are doing an internal presentation, it’s best to use a branded template for your decks (and if you don’t have a branded template for your organization, make one).

2. Make it visual.

Nothing makes peoples’ eyes glaze over faster than a text-heavy slide, or slide after slide of just text. Use images, charts, graphs, videos or anything else visual to break up the monotony of words. It’ll also add emotion to your presentation.

A good example:

3. Make your title slide stand out.

This is particularly important if you are using your slide deck as a marketing asset for email, social media or any other channel. But, even if it is internal, you want to have a title slide that stands out.

What does that mean? It means having a visually engaging title page and an enticing title that draws people in.

A good example:

4. Show, don’t tell.

Wherever you can, don’t simply speak to problems. For example, if you were doing slides on a new product or new webpage, don’t simply describe it.

Instead, a far more effective deck would highlight the product or webpage and show off its important features. Along with being more visually stunning, it’ll increase your audience's understanding of exactly what you are trying to accomplish.

A good example:

5. Have your slides tell a continuous story.

The absolutely most engaging slide presentations tell a continuous story, where the audience becomes curious about what’s coming next. While highly effective for stand-alone presentations used in marketing, it’s also a great technique to use for internal presentations with a speaker.

A good example:

The takeaway

Creating great slides is similar to creating any great content. It’s about making it easy-to-digest and visually appealing while telling a compelling story.

These tips from Rothman’s course will help accomplish that, and turn your next PowerPoint presentation from something people have to sit through, to something people get excited about. 

Looking to learn more? These LinkedIn Learning courses can help:

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