HOW TO USE SLIDESHARE TO GET MORE FROM YOUR CONTENT

Why SlideShare?

• More than 238 million SlideShare users • More than 1,140 slides viewed per second• Easy to share across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn• Easy to embed on a web page or within a blog post

It’s considered the most professional content sharing platform on the web. If you weren’t curious about SlideShare before, I bet you are now.

Source.

Use images to add some punch to your words.

When chosen correctly, images are an integral piece of your content.

• In fact, content with compelling visuals average 94% more views than content without images

• SlideShare gives you an avenue to take your existing content and make it more visually appealing

• It gives more legs to what you already have, allowing you to reach a new audience on a new platform, all without having to create something from scratch

Don’t kick your feet up and take the rest of the day off—there’s still work to do.

Repurpose, but rework it first.

• Edit it down and tweak it for a presentation-style format

• Find intriguing visuals to go along with that great copy

• Consider hiring a graphic designer to make it more professional

• Set up Google Authorship for SlideShare-- an important step for all the content you create around the web (see easy step-by-step instructions here, and note that you need at least three followers in order to set up Authorship).

Before you get started, browse other SlideShare presentations.

What made you want to click on them? What made others not so appealing?

Finding your answers to these questions will help you discover how you want to design your own presentation.

What often works best?

• White space• Clean, modern look• Bullet points• Minimal words per slide

Then, consider the visual approach you’ll take. Is there a visual theme you can use that ties in with your content? What type of images best represent your topic?

There are many high-quality stock photo libraries out there that won’t break your budget, and there are free photo libraries (like this and this) where you might be able to find images.

Finding the best images is where a lot of your time creating a SlideShare presentation will be spent– but it’s critical to your success, so know that the time spent is valuable.

Keep it professional.• Steer clear of overused stock images and outdated,

unprofessional design approaches (like Comic Sans and Word Art—yuck).

• As with everything you create, stick to brand standards and aim to achieve a consistency across all your SlideShare presentations.

Analyze data, capture leads.

Measure success.

SlideShare offers free or paid accounts, and neatly outlines all of the differences here, but the benefits of the paid accounts include lead capture and analytics along with the ability to add video and brand your page. If you really want to use SlideShare to help grow your business, a Pro account is the best option.  If you’re unsure and just starting out, the free version is still worthwhile. It also gives you time to prove to your boss (or yourself) that the engagement you get on SlideShare will be worth a financial investment.

Ready to take the leap?

Get those gears turning.

Revisit past blog posts, e-books, brochures and videos to see what existing content you might be able to further leverage with SlideShare.

As with all of your content marketing efforts, you get out what you put in. There’s a lot to learn about this platform, so explore what’s out there, create your own presentations and continue to learn as you go.

Learn more about SlideShare and other components of a great content marketing strategy over at our blog.