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Use Social Share to Post Your PPT to Facebook & Twitter

Posted on by Rick E

Use Social Share to bring your PowerPoint to your Facebook feed or send a download link via tweets. This free plug-in was developed by Microsoft Garage, a small and diverse community within Microsoft that creates innovative projects.

Now, there’s no need to open a new browser to check on your deck’s status. Use this new feature to share your deck on Facebook and Twitter without having to leave PowerPoint, saving you the time and effort of switching from program to browser.

Fast and Easy Application

Upon downloading the plug-in, you’ll see a new tab in PowerPoint’s ribbon called Social Share. This is where you can choose which social media network you want to share your deck to. It also automatically uploads your documents to OneDrive, where you can share a link of your file to your friends.

Post your presentation per slide as an image, an album, or even a video on Facebook. PowerPoint will already display a live feed of your presentation’s status on Facebook and Twitter. You can watch the activity feed from this window and get immediate feedback from your presentation.

Watch this video to see Social Share in action.

A Few Hitches

Since it’s a recent release, Social Share comes with a few limitations.

Because Twitter doesn’t fully support it yet, you currently cannot share a photo album or video on that social media platform. Not all is lost though: there will be a download link to your presentation at the end of your tweet. Social Share also can’t tag friends and add location information to your deck when you post it on Facebook.

In addition, authorization is also limited to the Friends-Only status for this popular social network. Despite these setbacks, you have nothing to lose by downloading this free plug-in.

Use Social Share to work on your slides anytime, anywhere, and share your deck while opening up more opportunities to gain instant feedback online.

 

References

“Microsoft Social Share Makes It Easier To Share Your PowerPoint Presentations To Social Networks.” Microsoft News. November 5, 2015. Accessed December 2, 2015. www.mspoweruser.com/microsoft-social-share-makes-it-easier-to-share-your-powerpoint-presentations-to-social-networks
“Share from PowerPoint to Facebook and Twitter.” Social Share. Accessed December 2, 2015. www.officesocialshare.azurewebsites.net/help.html
Social Share, A Microsoft Garage Project. Office Wildfire. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPD4a2eXEgc

 

Featured Image: “freeuse.io”

Twitter: Lessons from Social Media

Posted on by Rick E
If there is one social media platform that has changed the way we connect with the world around us, in only 140 characters or less, only one network comes to mind.

Twitter was founded all the way back in 2006, when social media started to take the tech world by storm. Like many young startups, Twitter’s popularity didn’t start growing until a few years later. It’s now one of the ten most visited sites on the Internet.

With over 500 million users and with over 400 million tweets sent daily, the platform has been noted as the “SMS” of the Internet. The application is simply designed to engage and connect users with hashtags and trending topics that spike during notable world events such as The Olympics. 
twitter follow me logo

Social media strategists now use Twitter to reinforce their client’s (or own brands) marketing efforts. They take advantage of the platform to boost their presence on the Internet. To successfully use Twitter there are a few rules and regulations one must follow. Some of these guidelines are also applicable in creating an effective PowerPoint presentation. 

If you pay attention, there are a few similarities between creating a well-rounded “tweet” and a successful presentation.

Step 1: Simplify Your Thoughts

A tweet can only be 140 characters or less. This means your information has to be condensed and minimized to fit this requirement. A great presentation is one that is simplified. It only has minimal bullets, text, images, and animation.

Overloading your audience with too much of these will distract them from understanding your content. Before you go ahead and add extreme fonts or a fancy template, think about how less is more and how this can positively affect your presentation.

Step 2: Get With What’s Trending

Twitter is known for staying on top of prominent world topics with phrases or words that are “trending” or being tweeted by many users. Try to apply this concept to your presentation ideas. Utilize culturally in tune twitter trendsgraphics, stories or videos within your presentation to better speak to your audience. Stay on top of the news and understand what’s going on in your audience’s culture. What do they know? What do they believe in? Knowing this ahead of time will allow you to connect with your audience at a higher level.

Step 3: Get Your Audience to Follow

Within the Twitter world, your “followers” are the equivalent to your friends on Facebook or connections on LinkedIn. You have to constantly engage and entertain your audience or followers if you want them to keep following. The same can be said for presentations.

You want to be constantly interacting with your audience the entire time. Ask them questions. Pause at the end of presentations to get feedback from them. You have to appeal to your audience over everything, if not you are basically speaking to an empty room.

 

References

“Keeping Your Audience in Mind : The 4 Essential Questions.” SlideGenius, Inc. December 11, 2013. Accessed January 23, 2014.
“Study Shows Simplicity Is Key When Creating a PowerPoint Presentation.” SlideGenius, Inc. July 24, 2013. Accessed January 23, 2014.
Twitter. Accessed January 23, 2014.

Lessons from Social Media: Instagram

Posted on by Rick E

Whether it be taking picture of plane wings, an appetizing dinner or an artsy photo of your latte, Instagram has become one of the most prominent forms of social media to date. The application became so popular that it  was acquired by Facebook this past year in a hefty billion dollar deal. It may be the pure simplicity of photo sharing that draws so many users to the app, but there are certain steps one must partake in to get the perfect “Insta”. We’ve created a comparison between the steps of taking the perfect picture and creating the perfect powerpoint presentation. 

Step 1 : Picking the Perfect Angle 

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The first step of taking any Instagram is getting a unique angle, just like picking a perfect (and direct) angle for your audience when creating a presentation idea. Your ideas and thoughts presented (simply) within your powerpoint should be original and one of a kind, the better the ideas the more these will resonate with your audience.

 

Step 2: Picking the Perfect Filter

instagram-filter-options

No Instagram is complete without a perfect filter to give it a spruce of color and the same is said for sparking up your presentation. You can add character to any powerpoint slides with eye-opening graphics, videos and images, the more colorful and put together- the better!

Step 3: Picking the Appropriate Hashtag

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After you’ve snapped your picture and added the perfect filer, tagging hashtags is necessary to make the Instagram complete.  The same step should be used in your final completion of your PowerPoints you should always review your finished slides to make sure all your ideas connect with each other and most importantly- make sense!

5 Characteristics of Ideas That Spread

Posted on by Rick E

Your success as a business professional doesn’t stop at coming up with an idea, but only when you can convince others to use it.

In other words, to quote the timeless saying “Ideas are a dime-a-dozen, execution is all that matters.” With that, a resulting logical question would be “How do you execute successfully?”

In order to answer that, we need to first look at another question, which is “how do you improve your chances of getting your idea adopted by others?” If you’re measuring your success on the influence you have on others, the latter question is where to start, and with the idea of improving your odds of adoption you need to think of the medium through which you convey the idea itself: your corporate presentation, investor pitch presentation, or really any professional PowerPoint presentation.

In 1962 a sociology professor at Ohio State University named Everett Rodgers published a book called “Diffusion of Innovation,” which was ultimately a large-scale research project on why ideas spread. The study gathered the results of over 500 case studies showing why some ideas are adopted among people and organizations and why others aren’t. The study’s results outlined a set of five factors that direct and influence our decision to adopt or reject ideas:

Relative Advantage

This is basically the higher degree to which an idea is perceived as relative to the existing standard. Just how much of an improvement is it over the previous generation? Relative Advantage is what most people think of when they hear your company’s name; its the brand, or collective cognitive understanding of a concept.

Observability

This relates to the same concept as Trialability: the more users are able to observe, listen, taste, or use your product or service, the more noticeable it will be. At its core, this means that you need to set your idea up in not only an extreme variety of avenues, but avenues that are popular and showcase to the most amount of people. Sometimes this won’t even mean the obvious ones like Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube, but might mean your local park, school, or grocery store. Think creatively and explain your plan for observability in your PowerPoint presentations, investor pitches, etc.

Compatibility

How easily can I use past ideas, experiences or businesses to understand how your new idea functions or benefits me? It’s essentially the ability to connect past success to your new venture. Take Apple, for example, their more recent products at some level are more improved versions of the old ones.  Whether talking about the laptops, iPads, iPhones; they are each better versions of the old, but the old proved to be successful, so the updated version should too. Show how your venture is compatible through your presentations and pitches and you’ll see an increase in not only adoption, but also sales!

Complexity

Oddly enough, complexity is actually about simplicity, or how easy it is for people to understand your idea. What’s the logic? What’s the system? What’s the benefit? My benefit? An idea that is too difficult for most to understand is scary and, therefore, ineffective when it comes to persuasion. The simple ideas like Steve Jobs’ “a thousand songs in my pocket” for the iPod that stick, and stick well!

Trial Ability

This is measuring how easily your targeted audience can try it out? The more testers you get to try your idea out, the more feedback you’ll get, and the more users you will open yourself to adopt. Most musicians nowadays start off by sharing their music for free on YouTube. Why? It’s an easy way to have users try their material, and if it’s worthwhile, it’ll spread like wildfire! The more they can try it, the more certainty there is about committing to it.

Circling back to our original question, “How do you execute successfully?” we see that one needs to not only make their ideas fit each of these characteristics, but convey them through the avenues in which they are judged, namely corporate or executive presentations.

 

References:

Burkus, David. “The 5 Common Characteristics of Ideas That Spread.” 99u. October 7, 2013.

“Our Best PowerPoint Recommendations of 2013.” SlideGenius. December 10, 2013.

Rogers, Everett M. Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition. 5th ed. New York: Free Press, 2014. 576.

Analyzing the Attention Span of Your Audience

Posted on by Rick E

Now that our lives have been swallowed whole by the constantly updating online world, keeping anyone’s constant, undivided attention can be a near-impossible task. Turning one’s phone off is an extreme measure reserved only for plane rides and funerals. Email, Facebook, and Twitter accounts demand more nurturing and attention than a 3-month old child. So when you’re tasked with keeping an audience’s undivided attention in a professional setting for over ten minutes, it’s no exaggeration when we say, you’ll have to work hard at it.

yl-short-attention-span

British bank Lloyds TSB did a study earlier this year on the cause of careless household accidents, and they discovered something that has some broad implications that reach far beyond house chores. According to the study, the average adult attention span has plunged from 12 minutes in 1998 to a measly 5 minutes in 2008. Participants attributed this mostly to stress and decision overload, but I suspect that our rapid-fire, Internet-driven society has exacerbated this trend.

Whatever the cause may be, it undoubtedly poses a new challenge to presenters.

Television commercials rapidly shrunk over the last decade, the average commercial condensing from 1 minute to between 15 and 30 seconds. This is something those of us giving presentations shouldn’t ignore, but the subject matter we’re presenting only allows us to condense so far, and sometimes we may not have a way around giving a 30+ minute presentation. In that case, here are a few strategies that must be used in order to retain the dwindled attention span of your audience.

Condense your slides

This doesn’t mean you should cut out information, but try to present more information orally, and reduce overloading your slides with information. Spend more time articulating your information aloud and less time forcing your audience to read slide after slide packed with information.

Break Up Your Presentation

Especially for a presentation that passes the 30-minute mark, a short break can make the all the difference between life and death by PowerPoint. The most natural way to go about this is often by posing a question to the audience or incorporating them in some other way, but if the setting allows for it, think of a creative activity that can illustrate your point while mixing things up for your audience. If possible, get your audience up and moving around a bit.

Lastly, and this is requires a bit of work on your part, so I won’t classify it as a “quick tip”–your presentation needs to be a story. It needs to have an arch.

Sure, the visual capabilities in Hollywood movies help encapsulate us, but there's another reason why movies hold our attention so easily.
Sure, the visual capabilities in Hollywood movies help encapsulate us, but there’s another reason why movies hold our attention so easily.

There’s a reason why we can sit motionless in a dark movie theater for two hours and our eyes are never tempted to waver from the movie screen, but when we’re in a dull corporate presentation for more than 10 minutes we feel like our brains are melting. These movies have a great story arch. They build suspense and anticipation then release it, and this keeps us looking forward to what comes next.

Craft your presentation in a way that presents a problem (or, “what is”) then shows them the solution (“what could be”), then keep building and releasing tension this way. In this manner, you can have the audience eagerly awaiting for you to move to the next slide, not because it means you’re one slide closer to the presentation’s end, but because they are genuinely eager in what information you will present next.

References:

“How To Incorporate Your Audience Into Your Presentation.” SlideGenius. July 26, 2013.

Turning Your PowerPoint into a Video (Part II): Marketing Your Video

Posted on by Rick E

In the previous post, I talked about the benefits of turning your PowerPoint presentation into a video and how SlideGenius can do this in the most professional, financially viable way. This post will cover what happens after you get said video into your virtual hands.

As mentioned before, the greatest benefit of having your PowerPoint presentation in a stand-alone, video format is the ability to leverage it by vastly increasing its exposure. The only trick is, how do you reach these new online audiences?

Most of these mediums we recommend pushing your video through will hopefully sound familiar, but having an all-encompassing social media strategy is imperative in order to be effective.

YouTube and Vimeo

Uploading your video to both of these sites is a good first step to ensure your video is easily viewable. Not only does this make your video accessible with an easily sharable link, YouTube and Vimeo have become surprisingly socially active sites.

Especially if you’re new to video sharing, and your YouTube and Vimeo channels don’t have a lot of activity, your videos won’t get many (if any) organic hits from these sites, but like almost any social medium, staying active with these channels will have a rolling effect of attracting audiences to your content over time.

Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn

I lump these three commonly used social mediums together because, from a business standpoint, content on each is pushed in a very similar manner. The goal here, with all three of these, is to be mindful of how you present the content, since you’ll be more than likely posting the content as a general status to all your fans, followers, connections, etc., and not to anyone in particular.

Being proactive with social media will help draw traffic to your video presentation.
Being proactive with social media will help draw traffic to your video presentation.

Not to start a lecture on the basics of social media, but sites like Hubspot and Hootsuite are great for synchronizing your content across these sites. Coordinating and scheduling consistent content across your different social mediums can help to avoid redundancy when pushing your video presentation.

Email Outreach

Plug your video at every chance you get. Interaction with potential or existing clients through email presents a lot of opportunities for you to tag on the video near the bottom of your message. And if you have an automatic reply programmed to go out for potential leads on your website, a link to your professionally made video can’t hurt!

Get Creative

Whatever you do, don’t spend resources on a top-of-the-line video presentation, use it once, then leave it in the corner to collect digital dust. Keep it in the back of your mind, look for openings in online conversations with clients to work it in, post it on an appropriate landing page on your website, or incorporate parts of it into your next presentation.

Using Images to Control Your Audience

Posted on by Rick E

It’s safe to say that most people that went through elementary school have heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” What most people don’t know is exactly what those thousand words can make people do or think.

Some of the world’s most famous CEO’s are adopting an image-rich style when it comes to their corporate presentations. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, and even Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer all jumped on the bandwagon. If these global business leaders are doing it, it must be effective.

Here’s an overused fact: the brain processes information more effectively when the information is expressed in both pictures and words in place of words alone. The process is called Picture Superiority Effect, and as overused as it may be, most people don’t genuinely understand the value in the statement and consequently don’t act on it.

Each of the aforementioned business leaders have continued to prove that image-rich presentations are powerful forces for helping audiences retain the information being presented. Here is a list of ways they use the Picture Superiority Effect to shape the way their audiences react to their presentations.

Use Images…

  • to spark some confusion that you will resolve. 

Show a weird scenario that attracts the eye, but doesn’t fully explain itself. Then go on to explain it yourself.

  • to highlight a point through silliness. 

Laughter is always a great component of keeping your audience in an interested and open-minded state.

  • to tease your audience for your next slide. 

Always keep your audience guessing what is next. As soon as they think they found some predictability aspect to your sequence, they will zone out and think they already know what you are saying.

  • to visualize the abstract. 

Many business related concepts, more commonly financial ones, are difficult to grasp. Use images to clarify.

  • as a play on words.

Hearing and seeing an explanation of a certain concept will make it much more relatable. 

  • as a rhetorical ploy. 

Metaphors and analogies shown through images.

Gregory Berns said it best, “A person can have the greatest idea in the world— completely different and novel—but if that person can’t convince enough other people, it doesn’t matter.” Using images is a vital component of convincing your audience during you presentation. It really doesn’t matter what you are talking about. Images, like colors, music, and food, are universally understood and valued. Use them to your advantage!

Ill leave you with Jonathan Klein’s AMAZING TED talk about the power of images.

References:

Gallo, Carmine. “Jeff Bezos And The End of PowerPoint As We Know It.” Forbes. September 7, 2012.

“Pictures in PowerPoint.” Microsoft MVP Award Program Blog. April 23, 2012.

Stenberg, Georg. “Conceptual and Perceptual Factors in the Picture Superiority Effect.” 2006.

If You Don’t Want To Spend Money On Yourself, Why Would Others?

Posted on by Rick E

In early 2004, when I was 19 or 20, I came up with this crazy idea to create a website where people would essentially log in to a virtual version of their real lives. People would’ve uploaded their own profiles with their own bio and interests. They’d choose to connect or not connect with other users in the network. They’d upload pictures they took on their recent trips or parties and then tag their friends. People would have been able to play games, watch videos, or read articles and then share them with the world with one simple click! I honestly think that idea could’ve changed the world like never before. The problem was that the cost to incorporate my idea was around $1000. As a student I really didn’t have much to live off of, so I decided not to go through with it.

Imagine if that was Mark Zuckerberg’s story. Imagine if he decided not to spend that initial $1000 in Facebook (or “thefacebook” as it was called back then). Zuckerberg knew that $1000 wasn’t a cost, but an investment. Knowing the difference between the two is one of the most useful tools in any business.

Investing in the way your company presents itself is one of the most tactical ploys of investment as a whole. Whether you are pitching to a client, raising capital or presenting to a group of your peers and employees, a well-crafted presentation will make your message more memorable. When people remember your name or company, they will reference you when they need expertise in your field. It really comes down to simple math: Better presentation = Increase in sales.

At SlideGenius, our presentation experts see on average over 200 PRESENTATIONS PER MONTH and have years of professional experience creating captivating PowerPoint presentations for a wide variety of clients. We can update an existing presentation or build one from scratch, leveraging your brand. We work with you to ensure that the message you want to get across to your audience is communicated as effectively as possible.

If you do’t have a professionally designed PowerPoint Presentation you’re undeniably leaving business on the table. Many sales people have reported an increase of up to 25-50% in closed sales simply by providing a highly visual presentation.

With SlideGenius custom PowerPoint development services you will immediately:

  • Enhance your reputation.
  • Increase the customer’s confidence and trust.
  • Maximize your conversion ratio.
  • Increase your sales leads.
  • Raise Capital.
  • Increase your sales volume.
  • Decrease your operating costs.
  • Get the right message across.

According to a survey by Accenture, nearly 90 percent of sales executives said that they are not as good at PowerPoint as they should be and that they would sell more products if their message was more effectively conveyed. Stop looking at enhancing your presentations as a cost, and start investing in yourself. If you don’t want to spend money on yourself, why would others?


Quick Office HD Pro for Android and iPad

Posted on by Rick E

Quick Office HD Pro is an iPhone and iPad application that recently was also available in the Android Market. With iPad Presentation Application like Quick Office you can get full control of creating and editing PowerPoint presentations. Also you can format presentations and share documents online including spreadsheets, text documents and presentations.

 

With this application it is also possible to connect to other services and share presentations online for example using DropBox and Mobile Me. There is also possible to use Huddle or SugarSync, EverNote, Catch and Google Docs to share the presentations online.

Latest version also added a feature to share the presentations in social networks like Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and Slideshare. You can download a free version in the market but there is a full paid version with lot of other functionalities.

 

Scribd and Docstoc integration is also supported and you can also share with Microsoft Office files. If you ware looking for iPad applications to run your presentations this Quick Office application is an essential tool that you can download for productivity. This is a good alternative to PowerPoint in your smartphone device or tablet.

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