PowerPoints have been around in the marketing world forever as a way for companies to creatively share information with partners, customers and prospects, as well as the media and analyst community. Problem is, when people head into a meeting where a PowerPoint is involved, they might be thinking “nap time” because many presentations either turn into information free-for-alls or regurgitation of the presenter’s speech.
So when I saw my first really good SlideShare a few years ago, I immediately wondered why more B2B marketers aren’t using this amazing—and cheap!—tool to showcase their content and show thought leadership.
It is, after all, the perfect intersection of PowerPoint and YouTube. It turns out that an increasing number of companies actually are using SlideShare, some more robustly than others. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 40 percent of B2B marketers have used SlideShare as a social media tool to help them share information with their audiences, up from 23 percent in 2012. The question is, are they doing it right?
Like all social media, SlideShare is only as good as the content behind it. That means you can’t just dump your CEO’s latest presentation into a SlideShare and expect the masses to come. Yes, SlideShare has great SEO capabilities, but the form factor means you need to be very clever to maximize your presence. Here are six tips on how you can get the most from SlideShare:
- Reduce: That CEO presentation? It’s likely 100 percent too wordy. A good rule of thumb for SlideShare is never use more when less will do. In other words, if you need a table of contents or an appendix to organize your data, you’re probably trying to do too much. With SlideShare, less is usually more. Less telling, more showing, that is. When in doubt, leave it out.
- Reuse and Recycle: The funny thing about companies is that many create really good content, then leave it out there in one form to sit on their site. They might create a few email campaigns soon after it’s released, but then leave it to fend for itself. But a lot of content out there is evergreen, and SlideShares (yes, I’m talking multiples here) are great ways to reuse that content, pulling out key thoughts and reusing them in a new format.
- Focus on the Greater Good: If your marketing strategy is all about you, you, you, then SlideShare probably isn’t the place for your materials. Companies that see the most success on SlideShare tend to be more about industry trends, tips and strategies for success, and other helpful (and searchable) topics—not those that only talk about their solutions.
- Make Your Point (and Do it Quickly): Whatcha trying to say? On SlideShare, it’s best to make your point quickly, then back it up with each additional point. While there’s plenty of room for creativity, there’s no room in SlideShare for dawdlers. Get in, make your points, and get out.
- Remember the Audience: You know who they are….the people who may (or may not) buy your products and/or services. Every word in your SlideShare should be focused squarely on them. If you have several audiences, and they have different messages, create multiple SlideShares just for them.
- Give Them More: If you’ve followed the advice in #2 above, your SlideShare may be part of a bigger piece of content, such as a white paper or an article. The SlideShare is the tease to get them hooked; follow through with a call to action that captures their contact information for further follow-up by offering access to the larger piece….or different, but related, content.
Many companies found YouTube an incredibly effective channel for brand building, and SlideShare is the “new” kid on the block offering the same blank canvas for businesses to utilize. How effectively they use SlideShare is up to them.
Want to check out the SlideShare we created by repurposing content from this blog post? Check it out!
[Photo courtesy authorstream.com]