Slideshows get social

SlideShare’s recent acquisition by LinkedIn is an indication of the increasing emphasis businesses are paying towards content creation for marketing purposes. Claire Weekes reports

In May, SlideShare, a platform that allows users to share presentations, documents and professional video, was snapped up by LinkedIn. It requires no stretch of the imagination to figure out why. Content marketing is a hot topic right now, so the emergence of a business-focused platform on which to share content that can be integrated with other channels is a lucrative option for B2B brands. LinkedIn now boasts some 161 million users, while SlideShare, since its 2006 launch, has amassed more than nine million content uploads and claims 29 million unique users per month.

The two combined could offer an exciting, enterprise-driven social platform ideal for creating further opportunities in the B2B space.

More and more brands are realising the untapped potential of slide sharing platforms and using them as a relatively effortless way of ensuring their collateral reaches multiple channels. To give an example, the London Business School (LBS) uses SlideShare to post IP protected presentations online for social sharing. Simon Nash of digital consultancy The Reading Room, which works with LBS on its content marketing strategy, says SlideShare helps LBS to spread a consistent digital presence across lots of different platforms and accounts. He explains, “SlideShare helps because it provides content that can be repurposed as tweets or posts, and users can then be directed to the full presentation.” He reveals LBS’s first SlideShare post received thousands of views in the first 24 hours.

“From a content marketing point of view it can help to deliver your content to a wider audience,” says James Crawford, managing director at PR agency One. “From an SEO point-of-view, if a piece of SlideShare content marketing is embedded into a blog, it not only looks good but can be used to acquire links and social shares, helping to drive considerable search engine visibility and traffic to a website.”

An integrated approach

An integrated approach was taken when Crawford and his team created a SlideShare campaign for Priority Exhibitions. The SlideShare presentation was based on research conducted on what the exhibition stand of the future might look like. Once the SlideShare content had been created, it was also embedded into Priority’s website and blogged about.

“We also approached journalists to promote the content and used social media to promote it,” explains Crawford. “To date the content has received nearly 2000 views and the website has benefited from double the amount of annual traffic.  As a result of the campaign, the client’s website was shared over 100 times via social media and gained a number of SEO-friendly links, which has helped the business generate interest from potential exhibitors.

“If embedded SlideShare content is good, it will also attract links from blogs, journalists and other sources, which will help improve the website’s domain authority as measured by Google’s PageRank Algorithm. There are other search benefits, such as AuthorRank, which can be beneficial too,” he adds.

Deeper engagement

In terms of meeting marketing and business objectives, SlideShare can generate deep levels of audience engagement. Many brands are using it to display case studies, infographics and whitepaper material. “If you’re going to use it to display whitepapers or other text-based content the thing to remember is you need to repurpose the content to suit the medium – for example, the average number of words on a slide on SlideShare is 24, so make sure you tailor your content to fit,” advises Nash.

Webinars are another form of communication that brands can create using SlideShare – by synching an audio track to a presentation. Be aware though, the myriad of content creation options that SlideShare presents doesn’t necessarily mean uploading as much as you can and seeing where it gets you. Putting together and delivering a dynamic presentation is a skill – and one that needs to be honed even more finely when you are delivering it to an audience that you are not stood directly in front of.

This is where a few words of advice on the art of effective presentation may come in handy.

Human behaviour expert Philip Adcock and professional trainer Ian Callow have put together a paper entitled The Science of Effective Presentation, which holds some interesting analysis on how we ‘take in’ information on a slide. The pair argue that we mentally encode visual and spoken information at the same time, but using different parts of the brain. Known as ‘dual encoding’, it is a powerful way of ensuring key messages become embedded into the brains of our audiences.

In practical terms, this means if you show a picture on the screen while verbally describing it, the audience takes more on board of what you are saying. Adcock and Callow also advise to avoid bullet points, suggesting they are not an effective way of describing an image because they too have to be processed visually, therefore nullifying the dual encoding process.

“When designing your presentation think about the questions that the audience will be thinking as your presentation progresses. By pre-empting the questions and supplying answers as part of your presentation it will maintain the level of interest for [the audience],” he adds.

How to be seen

Of course the one thing we’ve talked little about so far is precisely how you ensure your SlideShare content is seen. There are two main areas to address here. The first is that of how SlideShare itself places content. Content on the SlideShare site is categorised in a number of ways – by category, by content shared on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and also by what the site itself deems dynamic content. Giving any presentation you upload an effective title, description, tags and keyword phrases will all help it to rank well on the SlideShare site (remember that it boasts 29 million unique visitors per month). 

The second area to address is how to ensure your SlideShare content is shared to its maximum potential across the web. This is where integration with blogs, social networks and other websites needs to be considered.

“We almost always use SlideShare as part of a multichannel presence, so in a way it’s always integrated with other channels because we use it to deliver one thread of a strategy, not the whole thing,” explains Nash.

“From a purely functional perspective, there are several routes – direct integration with Facebook or LinkedIn, or as embedded media, or as a way to join up online activity with offline events. You can embed your presentation into your blog, on your company’s LinkedIn profile, or as an embedded link on Twitter, so instead of leaving the Twitter site the presentation simply pops up.
This increases the likelihood that someone will share it because SlideShare is seen as a neutral platform and therefore more trustworthy.

“SlideShare also integrates with LinkedIn and Facebook, so as an example all your employees’ profiles could display your company’s presentations, extending the reach of your content. It’s also a great way to share event collateral because everyone can see it without having to bother with transferring large files. And because it goes into LinkedIn’s event calendar, you can use it to promote your event as well,” adds Nash.

With social media integration a big part of the way in which SlideShare content can be placed across the internet, it will be interesting to see in which direction its acquisition by LinkedIn will take the platform next.
 

SlideShare etiquette
What are some do’s and don’ts of leveraging SlideShare? Ian Miller, search director at digital agency Crafted outlines tips for success

Do:
• Embed your SlideShare on your website or blog to widen its audience – this encourages sharing and link building.
• Make your presentation interactive – link to your graphs/charts to direct traffic to your website.
• Make presentations visual – use charts, graphs and images to capture attention and encourage sharing.
• Include screen grabs if you are discussing a website, this is especially helpful for ‘how to’ guides.
• Embed videos rather than including links to YouTube – this makes people stay on your SlideShare longer.
• Include a relevant and attention grabbing title – this will encourage sharing.
• Add an audio track as part of
a ‘slidecast’.

Don’t:
• Forget to check that your links work – if not, you’ll be left with a frustrated audience.
• Pack too much information onto each slide – it’s a presentation, not an essay.
• Use all of your content in one go – could you make a series of presentations to keep your audience coming back?
• Make them too long, the best presentations are short, to the point and focused on one specific topic.



 

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