Brand publishers are always on the lookout for new ways to create and share content. While Facebook and Twitter have captured everyone’s attention, the silent-but-steady SlideShare is turning heads.
If you’re new to the SlideShare party, think of it as a marriage between a souped-up PowerPoint presentation and a social media site. It’s souped-up because you can add video and all sorts of visual elements to enhance your text. Plus, viewers can like and comment on your presentations.
A lot of big brands are using it these days. IBM, for example, asks employees to use SlideShare presentations to teach consumers about hot topics like cloud computing. Oracle, the massive computer hardware company, uses SlideShare to educate consumers on topics like data management. Hotels and resorts showcase picturesque slideshows of their accommodations, marketing companies create how-to presentations for small businesses and investment bankers use the site to teach finance lessons.
Investment banker and financial writer John Slater, for example, uses SlideShare to market his services in the B2B world
“We have found that the best way to market to this audience is through thought leadership,” he says. “SlideShare gives me access to a wide audience and offers an easy platform to educate people who can benefit from investment advice.”
He created a SlideShare presentation to help small businesses find financing they require to expand. Using a combination of a video and a slideshow, Slater was able to teach small business owners about a particular kind of expansion financing. It gained more than 50,000 views. Not bad, right?
To help you create a killer SlideShare presentation of your own, we asked Slater to offer a few tips:
1. Create a relevant title
When you’re coming up with a title for your project, you want something that’s informative, yet creative. Think about how your audience will search for your presentation and try to use those keywords in your title. Also, remember a title that’s too long or too vague may not bring you the attention you’re looking for.
2. Don’t skimp on the content
According to recent market research, longer SlideShare projects tend to get more views, so make sure you offer an insightful presentation that’s chock-full of useful information. Many of the presentations that are featured on SlideShare’s main page feature somewhere between 25-50 slides.
3. Use eye-candy
You want to captivate your audience. To do so, use vivid images to grab attention and make your text match that image. For instance, take a look at the first slide in the IBM presentation. The images on the bottom are eye-catching and the text matches the artwork, making the entire slide look clean, sharp and professional.
Video is another good way to grab a viewer’s attention. Slater used a webcam to record himself talking through his SlideShare presentation.
4. Add contact information
In Slater’s presentation, his name and contact information is on each one of the slides. Whether you follow Slater’s format or include your name and contact information at the beginning and the end, it’s up to you. Just make sure a viewer can get in touch with you. Remember, this is fantastic opportunity to market your services, so make sure it’s easy to find you!
5. Add links
Don’t forget to include links in your presentation. SlideShare is a great cross-marketing tool. Include a link to a relevant blog post that covers a similar topic or a link to an in-house case study that supports statistics used in your slides. Likewise, if you need additional video or other content, just link to it.
6. Don’t forget a call to action
After someone checks out your presentation, what do you want them to do? Do you want them to visit your website? Check out a product-specific landing page? Sign up for a free trial? Use a call to action to get people to follow through with the desired action.
7. Tag it
To make your presentation pop up in search results, you need to tag it with relevant keywords. Slater tagged his presentation with nine keywords including both general search terms like “business finance” and more specific finance-related phrases like “mezzanine debt.” Use a variety of keywords to help people find your presentation.
Does your company use SlideShare? Tell us how your company leverages this marketing tool in the comment section below. Feel free to add to our list of tips as well.
