The Marketer’s Guide to SlideShare

Visualization can become a big difference between the internet and the physical world. We don’t have body language and social cues on the internet. One relies on visual content to communicate with an audience.

And when you add the fact that most of the content is text, its importance increases. You also have to consider audiences’ behaviors now. Not all people like to read an article like you’re doing now. They want visual content.

Now and then, you’ll come across a new platform that has great potential for marketing your services using visual content. SlideShare is one of them. Although SlideShare is not new, it can play a huge role in showcasing your visual content on the internet.

You share your presentations on this platform. Through a simple, seamless process, it promotes visual content and encourages user interaction.

In this article, I’ll discuss what this platform is, why it matters to marketers, and how you can use it to your advantage.

Let’s get into it.

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What Is SlideShare?

Using this content-sharing platform, you can upload media presentations and share them on your website or social media profile. Presentations, infographics, and videos are a few types of content that are compatible with this platform.

Don’t mistake it as a content-building tool. Instead, it works with other existing content formats such as Google Slides, Adobe PDF, OpenDocument, and Microsoft PowerPoint.

Most people know it as a comprehensive educational resource that helps display presentations and webinars online.

You can use this platform for the following purposes:

Sharing course materials or online webinars
Sharing presentation for visual marketing
Promoting Products or Services
Growing your email list
Showcasing guides and brochures

LinkedIn acquired it in 2012. Later, it was bought by Scribd, the famous audiobook platform.

To this day, it is free to use. That means anyone can use it to create and share presentations privately or publicly.

Why Should You Use SlideShare for Marketing?

Marketers look for new ways to promote their products or services. Slideshare is a great tool because it shows your brand when people are looking for quick solutions to their problems.

Using this platform, you can display content in a unique and engaging way. If you add presentations to other content such as blog posts, it engages your audience in a new way.

Using this tool, you can visually market complex content in a simple way. It gives you the option to upload webinars which can be clicked by users on their own schedule. Think of these presentations as infographic; just with more engagement.

I haven’t mentioned the user base of Slideshare. It has a user base of 80 million. That’s a big number, especially if you consider that its users are professionals. That gives it a competitive advantage similar to LinkedIn.

The community is serious about business. Don’t believe it? Just look at its most searched tags:

#market
#business
#statistics
#socialmedia

Not only that, but it gets 5 times more traffic from business owners than Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. So if you are a B2B marketer, hop on this platform because it will help you connect with relevant audiences.

5 Strategies to Use SlideShare for Marketing

Now that you know what this platform is and how it can help you reach business audiences, let’s talk about how to use it for marketing.

Use Visual Content

You probably know that a presentation should not contain a lot of text. Obviously, it’s a visual communication tool so make it more visual. People lose focus if there’s too much text, so hook them using different techniques.

You can follow the 5/5/5 rule when creating presentations:

5 words per line of text
Five lines of text per slide
5 text-heavy slides in a row

Again, you want to keep people engaged. Use short and succinct text and add more visual content. You want to keep the audience interested till the last slide.

You can also add visual metaphors. For example, if you are talking about growth in sales, you can add images of plants (having dollar signs on them) that are growing.

Add a Call-to-Action (CTA)

Remind people to take an action. Use your desired action. Speak with conviction.

It can be anything ranging from signing up for your newsletter to clicking on a link to start a free trial.

Place these calls to action thoughtfully. Remember to place them where the user will see them and is more likely to take an action. Use language that shows your customer how they’ll see value from their click.

If you are using SlideShare presentations as a part of your sales funnel, you are ahead of your game. But remember that you need calls to action if you want people to move through this funnel.

Keep Your Presentation Short and Sweet

It’s not a 50-page e-book. In some formats, you can go as long as it can be. Presentations are not included in them.

Keep in mind that readers have a lot shorter attention span. So keep them engaged. Even Slideshare has noted that shorter visual content is most effective on its platform.

Use Customer Pain Points to Inform Content Decisions

What do people want to see in the presentation and your brand? What does the engaging content look like to them? How can you create and strengthen relationships with them?

You are doing marketing using Slideshare, so understand what your leads are looking for and why. Then, make your content accordingly.