How To Present Your Boring Information In Interesting Ways

Unless you are posting regular videos of cats or pictures of unicorns, the majority of the people who will see your posts will find them as boring information.

This is especially the case when you are in a very specialized niche that doesn’t normally capture the attention of the average internet user.

You may find the information interesting, but unless you make it interesting to your readers, you won’t have any readers. Let’s face it, the internet has lowered the attention span of the population to the point where you need to get your information across as quickly as possible.

Luckily, we are here to explore a variety of ways to present your boring information in interesting ways and hopefully catch the attention of a larger group of readers.

1. SLIDESHARE

What is Slideshare?

Slideshare takes the old idea of slide presentations and makes it possible to share on the internet. It combines a number of slides, both text and graphic, that are typed or hand-drawn and creates a presentation to share with others. Think of it as a modern-day form of the old slideshows that required your teachers to place information they had written on a plastic sheet onto a machine that had a light underneath and a projector to send the image to a screen.

Why you should use Slideshare?

What information does this work well with?

Information that is more heavily based on text works best here. It is best if you can break the information down into bullet points or lists that speak for themselves. Online classes lend themselves to Slideshare, as do corporate meetings and brainstorming sessions.

How do I make a Slideshare?

• Outline your subject – Decide on what points you absolutely must include and decide how you want these points arranged.
• Decide on color scheme and fonts – Pick a color scheme and font style that is appealing and easy to read. You want to keep these as simple as possible as the content is where you want the focus.
• Create Main header slides and then fill-in information – Use Powerpoint to create the topic slides and the details.
• Add intro and conclusion slides – Create an introduction indicating what information you plan to cover and a conclusion slide that recaps the main points.
• Create a call-to-action if applicable – If you want the viewer to do something, such as visit your website, include a slide asking for this after the conclusion.
• Edit and proofread – This is a must. Make sure spelling, grammar, and content are all accurate and edit if necessary.
• Create a PDF and upload – Save your slide show in PDF format for easy access by viewers and upload to the site you are sharing on.

How to create presentations that are out of this world

2. VIDEO

What is video?

In the quest to present boring information in interesting ways, video ranks among the best. We live in a visual society.

Video doesn’t really need much of an explanation. It is a visual presentation that allows viewers to watch and learn or be entertained. It can be set up with you talking to your audience, presenting instructions or including things like photos or film clips.

What can I share with video?

While the possibilities for video are almost endless, certain kinds of content seem to lend itself perfectly to this format. Interviews can do well, as they make your humanness more apparent to the audience. How-to videos are extremely popular. People often learn best by watching and doing at the same time and a how-to video provides that opportunity.

Another popular avenue is to create a behind-the-scenes video that allows your viewers a view of things they normally don’t see. The main idea is to keep the action informative and quick.

How do I do it?

• Decide on a topic – Pick only one topic per video to make it interesting. The more passionate you are about the subject, the greater the amount of enthusiasm you will be able to create in the viewer.
• Brainstorm – Write down all your ideas and decide what you want in your video, what you can save for the future and what might not work. Get a good idea of what information you want to get across and exactly how you want to do this.
• Write a script – While some people can record without a pre-written script, the majority of us do best when we know exactly what we want to say. Practice this script until it sounds natural and not like you are reading it as you record.
• Record – To start, the camera on your desktop or laptop should be fine. As time goes on, you may want to include specialized software for recording, but the camera on your computer will serve well, especially in the beginning.
• Gather additional footage – You will probably want to include pictures and additional video clips in your presentation. This will help enhance your content and hold the interest of viewers better than simply watching you talk.
• Edit – This is the part that takes some learning. There are a multitude of video editing programs available that can help you edit your video, inserting the additional content, deleting any errors, and basically polishing the video.
• Upload – Now all that is necessary is to upload your video to a host, such as YouTube or Twitch. Make sure to choose a venue that caters to the audience you are trying to reach.

3. INFOGRAPHIC

What is an infographic?

Infographics are the new kids on the block. They are excellent when it comes time to present boring information in interesting ways.

An infographic is a visual presentation that takes a topic and present it in bite-sized pieces. It normally includes simple graphics that help convey the information.

These graphics can take the form of graphs or charts or even simple cartoon-like graphics. These can be found on blogs, as photos on social media and in any other area where photos are acceptable.



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What information works best?

Infographics work best with information that can be broken down into bite-sized facts. Statistics, trivia and lists all work. The best infographics combine a variety of facts, statistics, and trivia.

Infographics are made to provide enough information to peak the reader’s interest, but not so much as to bore them. When it comes to this form of content, the possibilities regarding content are endless.

How do I make one?

• Decide on topic – Keep the topic short. You will want one that can provide information in less than a dozen facts or statistics if possible.
• Gather information – Determine what information you want to include in the infographic. Pick
  out the pictures, charts and other graphics.
• Decide on program to work with – If you have designing knowledge, you can put the information together in an appealing format using a program such as Photoshop or Illustrator. If your talents are outside design, however, there are tools such as Picktochart, Infogram and Canva that can walk you through the whole process.
• Post – Determine where you want to share your creation and post it.

4. PODCAST

What is a podcast?

A podcast is an audio file that is created for listeners to download onto things like MP3 players, computers and other listening devices.

They provide information or entertainment to the listener in a short, fun way. Most podcasts are done as a regular series. This allows listeners the opportunity to subscribe to the podcast and be informed when new episodes are ready for download.

The majority of successful podcasts are updated weekly, or even twice a week.

What kind of content can I use?

Podcasts work best for material that doesn’t need to be shown. For example, a how-to subject wouldn’t fare well as a podcast because people prefer visual instructions. Comedy, top-ten lists, news bites and interviews all do well as podcast content. Inspirational messages and serialized books are also popular content.

The main idea is to keep your information short and memorable. If you can make a listener laugh or think, then you will keep them returning. This is becoming very popular in regards to the attempt to present boring information in interesting ways.

How do I create a podcast?

• Choose a topic – Podcasts that focus on one topic over time are more successful than ones that skip all over the place. Find a subject you are passionate and well-versed in and make that your subject matter.
• Choose a format – Are you going to conduct interviews each time or present a list of facts? Deciding on one main format will help your listeners know what to expect each week and make it easier for you to create content.
• Write a script – Consider any background music and write the parts of the podcast that you can predict. If the podcast involves an interview, at least have the questions ready, as well as the opening and closing remarks and introduction.
• Gather necessary equipment – You will need a microphone, sound recording software, a mixer and a pop filter. The first two item are an absolute necessity. Both the mixer and pop filter are optional, but are great to have if you want to increase the professional quality of your broadcast.
• Record – This is the fun part. Say what you want to say.
• Convert file to podcast file – You now have an audio file. The recording software you have should be able to convert it to the type required on your host site.
• Upload to host site – Upload your audio file and let people know it exists.

Conclusion

By choosing the right format to present your information, you maximize the potential of your content and will see an increase in readership as well as engagement.

If you do not have any new content that fits into any of these formats, you can even go through your old content and pick one to be repurposed into these formats. Repurposing your old content into a new format is as good as creating a whole new content. You might even see a spike in your search engine rankings and traffic.

So do spend some time and craft your boring information in the right format because otherwise nobody will read it.

Which formats are your favorite and how did they worked for you? Let us know in the comment section below!

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Updated: 14/7/15

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