Professional presenters, salespeople, developers, designers, teachers, event spokespersons – we all have the problem of sharing PPT slides with a wider audience. Live presentations are cool, but they impose evident limitations. Those 10 – 100 listeners in the room will definitely enjoy the good vibes and a proper joke that come in a package with a nice presentation. Yet there are thousands of people out there who didn’t attend your class or event, but could make good use of your findings.
So the question is: what’s the best way to share your presentation online so more people could see it? Out of a dozen or more ways to solve the issue, let’s get down to the five that seem to make the most sense.
There’s a bunch of web-based slide hosting services out there that can help you upload and share a presentation without quality losses or security implications, for example, SlideShare, MyPlick, and Slideboom.
The good news is, this scenario makes a remote presentation easy since it’s browser-based and there’s no need to employ your own proprietary server or deal with bandwidth issues. What’s more, most hosting providers include administrative tools so you can keep track of your presentations if you have only a few uploaded.
On the downside, some services do make your presentation look different from the original PowerPoint. You can’t really expect the service to emulate all the effects, so you’d want to get familiar with the limitations beforehand.
Here’s another nifty option that helps reach a wider audience. Convert your presentation to video and place it on YouTube to start gathering coveted views, likes, and comments. Just pick your custom converter like iSpring Converter Pro and get started. It acts as an add-in to your PowerPoint, creating a separate tab or command on the menu.
All you have to do is click “Publish,” and your video is right on YouTube without a hitch. As a rule, you can manage video quality and resolution before publishing. After the file has been uploaded, you can share the video just by dropping a link on various sites. Use Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, or any other social network and receive views, comments, likes, and shares. Since YouTube is on every Internet-enabled gadget these days, you are likely to get the most out of your message by uploading it there.
Use cases in this scenario are innumerable, yet it seems particularly good for explainer videos. It’s a great example in which video definitely beats slides. Video presentations and video tutorials run smoothly, with no need to click for a next slide or a pop-up.
Download iSpring Converter Pro free trial →
Feel like using more flexible formats? Then it’s worth trying HTML5, a format that helps you create a cross-platform copy of your project ready for viewing on desktop and mobile devices.
To transform your PowerPoint presentation into an HMTL5 file you can also use iSpring Converter Pro. When you get your slides converted, feel free to upload the file to a hosting service of choice or embed the outcome on any website. Once converted to HTML5, your presentation keeps its exact original look and feel – animations, transition effects, triggers, audio, and video don’t go missing.
Try iSpring Converter Pro for free →
Those in the educational sphere may opt for a Learning Management System (LMS). An LMS is basically a service for administration and delivery of education courses, online classes or training programs. Most LMSs include features for online collaboration to encourage regular feedback and knowledge transfer.
Aside from slide demonstration, all LMSs collect statistics of viewer’s activity, such as passing tests or resolving certain tasks, as befits the educational process. As a rule, you need an account or contact details to access an LMS, thus your session remains personalized and secure. Some enterprises have jumped on the same bandwagon, using LMSs for employee training and registration.
Check out iSpring Learn LMS to get a better feeling of how it works →
Least sophisticated therefore highly popular, this method has its pros and cons. Indeed, you might be well off uploading your presentation on DropBox or Google Drive and sharing a link with a buddy. However, your buddies might not have PowerPoint installed. Or, chances are, they are using an older version, so turns out the slides just won’t open, and the visual frills you sweated over three nights in a row will get lost. Also make sure you always indicate file size, as a download may result in a very lengthy process for some people.
Besides, there are security risks to consider. The presentation might get copied, modified and distributed across the web before you even know it. If your content is sensitive and better kept from prying eyes, it makes sense to consider the safer options described above. To learn more about how to protect PowerPoint slides, also read this article.
Here are our Top 5 ways of sharing PowerPoint presentations online. Hopefully, we managed to convey the feeling of how cool it is to broadcast your materials to a bigger audience yet stay in control of things. Whatever option you choose, make sure you get the most out of PowerPoint, which is a tremendously powerful tool, indeed.
Good luck with your presentations, and stay tuned for more tech notes!