How to Make Slideshows: Everything You Should Know

What are slideshows?

Slideshows are digital photo galleries whereby several pictures or graphics are strung together to form a presentation. If music or an audio commentary is added, the presentation is referred to as an audio slideshow. Slideshows allow users to combine multiple pictures or images and present them online in a digital format.

Popular uses for slideshows

The importance of making slideshow presentations cannot be stressed enough. Here are some of the common uses of slideshows:

Marketing

Using slideshows is an excellent way to organize your work, especially in a world with tons of information. With just a few slides, you can advertise your product in a simple and easy-to-follow format to a broad audience.

People use slideshows to combine many elements in a presentation. A slideshow allows you to add images, video clips, audio clips, and contact forms. Such simple additions make sharing more information about your products or services easier.

Slideshows allow you to embed SEO, making it easier for your audience to get the message you want to pass on to them. You can use your slideshow as an advertising landing space or a call-to-action page. The marketing possibilities are endless with slideshows.

Education

Slideshows are used for educational purposes. Whenever you have a class presentation, a seminar, or you want to educate your followers on social media, a slideshow always comes to the rescue.

Entertainment

You can use slide shows at family reunions, weddings, birthday parties, anniversaries, and other important celebrations to share memories. Just a simple slideshow of videos and pictures can bring about moments of joy.

Online presence

You can use slideshows to boost your presence on social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, to mention a few.

Tips for creating effective slideshows

It is often said that "A picture is worth a thousand words." However, when it comes to slideshows, it is quite the opposite, as "A thousand words are worth a picture." A well-designed slideshow can help you deliver the right message to the right audience. This is why we have put together slideshow design tips to steer your slideshow in the right direction.

Keep your presentation short and straight to the point

This is one of the most important things to remember. Do not fill your slideshow with a ton of text. Use short bullets and keep your information straight to the point.

Select the right font

Always go for a classic font as opposed to a creative one. Selecting the wrong font can make it hard for your audience to read your text. You can never go wrong with Calibri, Helvetica, and Verdana.

Be keen on size

Selecting the correct font size can be one of the most challenging parts of making your slideshow. On the one hand, you want to make sure that your text is readable. On the other hand, you do not want your text to dominate your presentation. Use 20pt for headers and 18pt for the body to be on the safe side.

Visualize your data

If your slideshow contains a lot of data, it may be easier to display this data using graphs instead of using plain text.

Use high-quality photos

This is one of the most important tips for creating a fantastic slideshow. Do not just download the first Google photo you come across. Take your time to look for high-quality images. People will take you more seriously if your presentation has a visual appeal.

Basics for slideshows

When to use photo slideshows

You can use a slideshow under the following circumstances:

• When designing a portfolio, to show different images of your project
• You can use slideshows on the homepage of your website to show clients different products
• You can include slider galleries in your blog posts
• You can use slideshows on your social media pages to post numerous photos simultaneously.

Effectively using music in a slideshow

Slideshows allow your images to speak for you. The way you share your presentation will determine whether you are heard or not. If you want to make a statement with your photos and reach a broad audience, adding music to your presentation can help amplify your work. Here are tips for using music in your slideshows:

Select royalty-free music

Understanding copyright law can be challenging, and paying to use songs can be expensive. Luckily, you can have unlimited access to royalty-free music by using special music hubs. By doing this, you will not have to worry about whether or not you can share your slideshows online. Subscriptions to specialized music hubs are as low as $11, which is way cheaper than paying to license a song through a music label.

Use staff picks

We get it, the thought of going through thousands of songs to select the best one may seem daunting, and rightfully so. However, helpful tools like curated staff picks can help streamline this process. To make the work easy for you, the playlists are often arranged by genres, saving you a lot of time if you already have a particular style in mind.

Match the mood

The pictures and music in your slideshow should work in tandem to achieve the same goal—telling a story that leaves a memorable impression on your audience. When selecting songs for your slideshows, make sure you find songs that are compatible with the mood of your images.

Test

After selecting the songs you intend to use for your slideshow, test them over the images to see how well they work. Depending on the length of your presentation, you may not need more than one song.

When to use slideshows on Facebook

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth millions. If you are an active social media user, you know exactly what we mean. When it comes to videos, one can never have enough. Facebook Slideshow is a feature that allows users to create short videos using photos. The following are the common uses of Facebook slideshows:

• To share memories. Instead of sharing multiple photos that crowd your homepage, you can use Facebook Slideshows to share some of your best memories with close family members and friends.
• Making product videos. You can use slideshows for marketing your products and services. While a picture of a mouth-watering meal can be appealing to your audience, a slideshow of delicious meals would work even better.
• Making instructional videos. Have you always wanted to create videos that help people out? If your answer is yes, there is no better way of doing this than using slideshows to make instructional videos. All you have to do is choose 3-10 pictures that explain every step of your tutorial.
• Making product teasers. If you have a new product in the pipeline that you want to share with your users, you can use a slideshow to create a product trailer. All you have to do is select several pictures of your product to make a product video.

When to use slideshows on Instagram

From fashion to beauty to travel, Instagram slideshows have introduced a world of possibilities for people and businesses to share engaging content. Here are creative ways you can use Instagram slideshows:

• Telling a complex story. You can use Instagram slideshows to tell an emotional story. Instead of posting long captions to give depth to your story or give a backstory to your posts, you can let your visuals do the talking for you.
• Share a surprise reveal. Everyone loves surprise reveals, and Instagram offers a great platform to share them. You can use Instagram slideshows to tease your audience about what's to come. To achieve the best outcome, ensure that your last post is a cliff-hanger, so your followers come back for the final release.
• Sharing before and after sequences. The fact that users can combine up to 10 pictures and videos into one post makes Instagram an effective tool for sharing before and after series, which is very useful for people in the fashion, make-up, and interior design industries.
• Making tutorials. Another great way of using Instagram slideshows is walking your followers through a tutorial or a demonstration. For example, food bloggers could take advantage of this feature to share their recipes.

When to use slideshows on TikTok

TikTok is used by many kinds of individuals, from ordinary users to social media influencers and even businesses. Want to know the different ways you can use TikTok slideshows? Here are practical examples:

• To make tutorials and instructional videos
• As a marketing strategy to promote your products and services
• To tell a compelling story
• To make before and after videos.

When should you make a slideshow into a video?

You should turn your slideshow presentation into a video to add more depth to your presentation. Videos can make your slideshow more instructional and help you communicate more than just pictures alone. Here are the top advantages of turning your slideshow into a video:

• Perfecting your presentation. By making your presentation into a video, you get a chance to add extra finesse and edit the video until it feels perfect for you.
• Videos make everything work. Sometimes your slides may include both pictures and audio. The media files may, at times, not work as expected. Turning your slideshow into a video makes it easy to review the presentation to ensure that it is working as it's supposed to.

What to look for when choosing slideshow creation software

If you were to do a simple Google search of slideshow presentations, you would get tons of options to choose from, ranging from the most basic software to more advanced suggestions. Trying to decide which one would work best for you may be difficult because most slideshow creation software are very similar.

Here are some factors you should consider when choosing a slideshow creation software:

• Output options. When selecting software, you should narrow your selection to what you need. Some software save slideshows as PPT, PDF, or a document file, while others give you the option to save your slideshow into a video file. Be sure about what you want.
• Audio support. Most slideshow software that allow you to create video files also allow you to add music or some form of video narration. In addition to making sure the video has audio support, look into the supported audio formats.
• User experience. Slideshows vary greatly when it comes to user experience. In many ways, this is often the differentiating factor between one slideshow software and the next. Select a software that gives you the best user experience.

By looking into each factor listed above, you should be able to find the best slideshow software that caters to all your needs. First, it would be best to determine the type of slideshows you wish to create and work backward from there. The ultimate goal is to find the best option based on your requirements.

If you do not want to rely on luck to get the right slideshow software creation software, you can select outstanding slideshow creating software, such as the kind produced by Pinnacle Studios.

Conclusion

Slideshows are very powerful tools. They offer endless creative possibilities. You can customize them any way you like to tell a beautiful and compelling story, boost your social media presence, promote your business or all of the above. For more information about Pinnacle Studio, check out our product page.