3 simple tricks for creating great slideshows

In last week's blog post, you learned how to create a carousel/slideshow in practical terms. Now let's take a look at how to create GOOD slideshows. Here are three simple tricks to improve the quality of your carousels/slideshows:

Make one point per post

We've written about this before, but it bears repeating. We are often eager to show off our knowledge and therefore tend to include a lot of information in each post, but this can have the opposite effect to what we hoped for. Rather than the reader being impressed and wanting to read more, there is a risk that the post will become scattered, causing the reader to lose interest and scroll on. Therefore, in your slideshows, you should stick strictly to making just one point. You should have thought about what the point of the post should be before you start writing. Then, each slide should either refer to the same point or lead up to it at the end. If something is related to the topic but not directly related to the point of the post, delete it. It can be a separate post. It is better for your slideshow to be a little short but stay close to the topic than to fill more pages but stray off track.

Introduction, content, conclusion

Think of your carousel as a speech you would write in high school. Just as your teacher probably insisted that the speech needed both an introduction and a conclusion, your post needs the same thing. It doesn't have to be long (on the contrary, the post will benefit from being kept short), but you should both introduce the post and round it off with some kind of summary of the main points. If you can't think of a nice way to end the post, you can, in the worst case, use a humorous “Now I have nothing more to say. Bye!”. Even that is better than just letting the post end abruptly.

Link the pages to each other

Once you've written your slides, the most important work begins: the follow-up. Think of the carousel you have now created as a rough diamond. You have the raw material, but it now needs to be polished until it shines. Start by reading through and considering the following:

Does everything I have written stick to the same point? Is everything I have written necessary to understand the post, or is there any superfluous information I can remove?

Once you feel confident that the post stays close to the topic, you can now go into detail. Here, it is important to ensure that each slide in the post is related to the previous one and builds up to the next page. There are different ways to do this. You can use connective words to link paragraphs and sentences. However, depending on the tone you want your post to have, you should be careful not to use overly academic connecting words, as your text can take on a somewhat formal tone if you use words such as “thus,” “finally,” or “in summary.” Choose connecting words that both link sentences together and suit the tone you are aiming for. In addition to conjunctions, you can also use questions and answers. You can do this by ending a slide in the carousel with a question that is then answered on the next slide. This way, the pages relate to each other.

Regardless of how you choose to connect your pages, the most important thing is to try to create a logical sequence where the slides follow each other naturally. You want to avoid “jumps” where you go from talking about one thing to another without explaining why. Feel free to ask someone else to read through your slideshows to see if they follow.

If, contrary to expectations, you don't become an expert in social media communication after reading this far, you are very welcome to get in touch. We are happy to help.