Quality content is a work of art; it deserves a good frame, as the saying goes.
A fairly neglected tool in today’s social world, SlideShare can make quite an impact on your business, if you allow it. It can provide you with a decent power boost by making your content more available to the audience, and in the long run it can push your brand forward by extending your reach more easily.
It’s a fun tool as it allows a piece of you to remain in the content you create. It’s much more than simply slapping information on a sequence of slides.
In other news: Only 29% of marketers plan on increasing their SlideShare activities, according to the 2015 social media report (PDF).
1. What SlideShare can do for you
Capture leads for you. For a convincing start, let’s analyze the reach SlideShare can provide you with. As one of the stronger platform.
SlideShare has over 70 million professional users. Speaking of professional, including the fact that the majority of SlideShare traffic comes from users who are specifically looking for your content, it explains why SlideShare has more professional users than any other social platform in the social world.
A very useful option for SaaS providers, you can generate leads more easily directly from your documents by using lead forms. To begin generating leads on SlideShare, you should start with a lead form. Displaying information about your leads is just the start, and you can also easily track information like shares on other social media sites, views, embeds and other statistics which can give you a better insight into your traffic.
Give you exposure. Its professional appearance and use aside, SlideShare still remains a social media site and carries features similar to Twitter, Facebook or Myspace (R.I.P). Your content has the potential to spread like wildfire, as with any other social media platform, if handled properly.
Presentations can contain all sorts of data, and whilst we’re focusing on the professional side and content which primarily has a clear purpose, many presentations exist as a social tool for self-expression. This feature bleeds through the barriers of professionalism and, I’d say, that’s what makes presentations so effective and interesting.
A SlideShare presentation is more than a simple summary of data.
It’s an extension of you and a platform where your unique personality creates educational content. Think of your position as a teacher in school. If your task were to simply share information without any personality, your job would probably get snatched by a tape recorder.
Great at SEO! Excellent for exposure, SlideShare automatically transcribes your document and puts the text below the presentation. This is great for SEO and keyword optimization, ensuring easier access to your file.
SlideShare has many additional benefits you’d want to see:
- An easy setup ensures your focus remains on creating content, and not so much getting irritated at its complexity.
- Simple management and low costs are always a plus. There is also a free option and an option to upgrade to a paid account.
- Quickly deliver content to your audience using appropriate tags and listing your content within appropriate directories. Remember, your audience is already searching for your content. You merely have to make it accessible.
“Learn from the many corporations, nonprofits, colleges and governmental organizations are already actively posting and using SlideShare. Dive in by reviewing profiles and content,” one of several tips by Christina Milanowski, a social media pro.
2. Good presentations are easy to create!
For a great source of presentation material and a sense of presentation logic, Google Steve Jobs. Granted, he never used a single bullet point in his presentations, but then again his presentations were live where one would provide a personal touch and engage the audience. SlideShare may be different but there are a lot of methods which apply to it as well.
A presentation in front of a live audience is a very unique type of presentation. In a sense, it is easier if you have a unique personality which will attract and educate an audience. With SlideShare, you are cut off from this asset and you must rely on images to educate and inspire. Your personality must shine through your slides as well.
Keep your slides simple and don’t allow the viewer to get bored. The flow should be easy and spark curiosity about the next slide. Interact with the viewer by asking questions. No, they can’t answer you directly, but inquiries of any kind provoke the mind to think.
3. Bad presentations are even easier
Don’t get cocky. If you ever witnessed a classroom full of presenters in high school or college, you’ll easily relate to this. The only thing worse than a badly executed presentation is a creator who actually believes it’s the best one in the world.
SlideShare presentations are a lot different than presentations in front of a loud audience; however, they do share different (dis)advantages you can examine to create better presentations altogether.
Research and brainstorm to truly try to get into the viewpoint of your audience. As we’ve said, in an online presentation you don’t have the chance to personally explain each slide. Thus, each slide should be easily understandable. If you use a slide like the one below, it should be easily understandable in a given context.
Slides with merely a pair of words will mostly fit as titles. Otherwise, they’re somewhat of a gamble as the viewer may get confused and leave. Don’t worry though, avoiding bad content is not that difficult, as long as you keep your eyes and mind open.
_SlideShare meets you halfway, as _it already has many useful tools you can use.
The designing challenge is taken off your hands! If you prefer designing everything in an extremely unique fashion, slide by slide, your ambitions are well placed. However, you may also use features SlideShare provides and, for instance,rely on the Haiku deck to easily reach your visual goal.
4. Ideas for helpful content.
Infographics are the embodiment of information and beauty united. You can choose to use already completed infographics which carry the data you require, or you can make them yourself. However, as any presentation, it must have an appealing and educational structure, and there are many sources online which can help you do that.
In other news__: According to a statistic collection from 2015, infographics are five times more liked than presentations.
White papers can also be a good piece to the SlideShare puzzle and it’s advisable to create a slide deck version of your white papers, if you choose to invest in them.
Blog posts are a great source for your content. Of course, you shouldn’t try to include a blog post within your presentation, but simply use it as a source and provide vital information in your SlideShare presentation. Much like we’ve done here. The presentation showcases the vital pieces a reader may be interested in, whilst the blog below the presentation elaborates them in additional detail.
Think of your presentations as a menu, and your blog post an elaborate meal.
Each slide has less viewers than the previous one. Clearly, the headline and the first slide are the most important.
When creating more elaborate content, you always have a part which appears weaker and duller than the rest. This is normal as long as it’s not the first. If you find yourself questioning the start of your presentation, edit! Immediately!
Pack the most powerful data in your intro slides. A short summary of the content and the goals you’re trying to reach are a good choice. You can also scatter interesting facts and data throughout your presentation to maintain a level of interest or any other mood you’re trying to provide.
Reach out! SlideShare does an amazing job at putting your content in your audience’s reach, however, you can greatly enhance this effort by sharing your presentations with influential users. It’s a great plus if you connect with influencers and they share your content, expanding your reach even further.
5. How to make great slides
Headlines should attract attention and convince the reader to take a look at the content. Naturally, each headline carries a unique tune; however, there are very effective guidelines in creating a convincing and appealing headline:
Online tools are one option, and there are quite a few of them to be found on the web.Portent.com is one example. It provides somewhat rough samples, but it’s a great start to spark some ideas.
Another example is CoSchedule.com which helps you analyze your headlines and fine tune each word perfectly. If you’re anything like me, you don’t like relying too much on such tools, but they do provide a sense for words and word combinations, which is always a plus.
Unique content, especially headlines, is what draws the most attention, which confirms the theory of today’s time that controversy sells.
Information about the presentation at the start is a good way to set expectations. Many blogs tell you how long it will take for you to read each post. You can provide your viewers with the number of slides and a short summary of what the presentation contains.
Final summation:
- SlideShare can extend your reach and make you easier to find for your target audience. It does a great deal to push your brand forward.
- Despite its amazing results and statistics, it still remains beneficial to all users and is primarily dominated by professionals: the very people you want your content to be noticed by.
- Good presentations demand an open mind and personality. Don’t be afraid to experiment! Find a way to put a hamster in there and make it seem natural.
- Bad presentations are a breeze because they’re mostly made by arrogance, and as we all know, arrogant people have no flaws.
- Use infographics, blog posts or white papers as a strong foundation for your slides.
And the most important matter of all, don’t expect SlideShare to do all the work for you. Do whatever you can to get your presentations noticed. Share your content through other social media and interact with people through Twitter, Facebook or even, MySpace! (Don’t expect much from that last one.)
Images by Yuko Honda, Denise Krebs, Stefano Chiarelli, Andrea
Balzano
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