15 Reasons why Slideshows are a Perfect Presentation Format

My slideshows are being showcased at insightory.com, a slideshow presentation community that can be best described as a Powerpoint-deluged Harvard Business Review. Over the past few months, I’ve become a slideshow devotee for many reasons:

1. Good slideshows get the point across to readers much more readily and efficiently than text blog posts.
2. Slideshows are like video with the reader controlling the pace of the presentation.
3. Slideshows are like manga, easy to digest and fun reads (if they’re done correctly).
4. Good presentations follow the Twitter template: Soundbite phrases, LARGE fontsize.
5. Like film-making or any visual media, edit for humorous timing, surprise jumpcuts and impactful messages.
6. Slideshows can reside on a number of slideshow “repository” sites for marketing purposes – Slideshare, Insightory, Scribd, DocStoc to name a few.
7. One slideshow constitutes a message, a portfolio of slideshows demonstates a mission.
8. Slideshows are self contained content and easy to embed into any social network or blog site, allowing other participants to virally distribute the slideshow.
9. Slideshows are easier to produce than videos, which generally require some production expertise.
10. Slideshows can easily add audio, like podcasts, making them more like video lectures. Slideshare and Flowcast are two free applications that manage “slidecasts”.
11. Slideshows are quality, anchor content for blogs. They usually take 5 times as much time to produce than a blog post, but deliver 5 times the usefulness to the reader.
12. No need for photographic talent. Slideshow producers can add visuals as fantastic or artful as desired with access to the massive online royalty free stock database.
13. No need for perfection. Although it’s great to have a bomb slideshow that wins contests, the message is really the medium. I myself have no artistic talent, but I can tell a great picture.
14. More mainstream media publishers have caught on to their utility – Inc.com and Business Week slideshows
15. This Top 15 list could actually be a slideshow.

Tagged as: docstoc, insightory, scribd, slideshare, Slideshows