Devoting significant time over weeks to create a presentation for a single conference appearance is inefficient and represents a squandered opportunity. Your slide deck, regardless of whether it was seen by 10 or 2,000 attendees, has the potential to extend its impact beyond that initial session.

Repurposing your slides, regardless of their origin - be it an event, meeting, webinar, training, or any other context - offers numerous marketing advantages, particularly when empowered by robust tools like SlideShare.

Delving into SlideShare

My personal perspective positions SlideShare as one of the most underutilized social media platforms among marketers. Its straightforward name aptly captures its essence: a tool facilitating the sharing of slides. However, its capabilities extend far beyond this basic function.

Founded in 2006 and subsequently acquired by LinkedIn in 2012, SlideShare has evolved into one of the world’s top 100 most frequented websites, boasting over 18 million uploads spanning 40 distinct categories. Marketers have recognized the SEO advantages associated with leveraging SlideShare’s substantial and active community to share their slides, given its significant website authority. Whether the objective is to expand reach, drive website traffic, or establish thought leadership, SlideShare offers avenues to achieve these goals.

Step 1: Elevating Your Slides to Excellence

Before showcasing your slides on SlideShare, ensure their content, design, and optimization are of the highest caliber to captivate your audience. Here are some pointers to pave your path to SlideShare success.

Tip #1: Crafting a Captivating Title and Opening Slide

Given SlideShare’s partnership with LinkedIn and its exponential growth, it’s natural to be concerned about your slides getting lost in the shuffle. This underscores the critical importance of a compelling first slide (or cover) and an attention-grabbing title to attract viewers. Take, for instance, the exemplary slide cover below. The alluring title immediately commands attention, drawing the reader in. The headline is exceptionally strong - it employs numbers (statistically linked to the highest headline click-through rates), evokes emotions by promising to “change your life,” and ignites curiosity, leaving the reader eager for more. The imagery further piques interest, offering a tantalizing glimpse into what awaits.

For a deeper dive into crafting clickable headlines, I recommend exploring this informative post.

Tip #2: Infusing Your Slides with Design Distinctiveness

We’ve all encountered slide decks plagued by monotonous headlines, an overabundance of bullet points, and generic stock images of business professionals. Adhering to this uninspired template without investing effort in your slides’ design will yield no positive results for your marketing objectives. In fact, subpar slide design could even harm your brand’s reputation. So, how can you set yourself apart? If you have access to an in-house designer, leverage their expertise! Communicate your vision clearly and collaborate with them to bring it to life. Prioritize the inclusion of compelling images (ideally featuring people), minimize text (aim for one key point per slide), and maintain consistent colors and fonts to deliver an enjoyable viewing experience.

Still seeking guidance? SlideShare provides a dedicated helpful design center for creators, outlining valuable best practices, including tips on image selection, font choices, and more. Notably, the cover image used earlier originates from designer Jesse Desjardins’ presentation, which not only imparts insightful tips but also exemplifies its own advice beautifully.

Tip #3: Establishing a Crystal-Clear Agenda

Once your captivating cover and introductory slides have hooked your audience, the subsequent step involves presenting a clear and concise agenda outlining your SlideShare deck’s coverage. Why is this important? Viewers appreciate knowing what they’re getting into. If crucial aspects of your presentation are embedded within the middle or towards the end of the deck without being prominently highlighted in the agenda, users seeking that specific information might abandon your deck prematurely. Setting the stage with an agenda also helps establish a smooth flow for the presentation from the outset.

Here’s a prime example of a deck that lays out a clear agenda for the content covered in the subsequent slides.

Tip #4: Providing Actionable Insights

For your SlideShare content to genuinely resonate with readers, it must equip them with actionable takeaways that they can implement after engaging with your presentation. Whether it involves strategies to test or novel approaches to existing processes, readers derive true value only when they can extract something useful from your content. This, in turn, enhances brand memorability and could potentially nudge leads further down the funnel if the takeaways align with your product or offering.

Tip #5: Strategically Incorporating a Call-to-Action Midway

As marketers, we’re perpetually focused on driving traffic to our websites and ultimately, towards conversion points. SlideShare serves as an excellent channel for achieving this, but it necessitates a strategically placed call-to-action (CTA) within your deck to guide viewers in the right direction. SlideShare’s CTA functionality allows for the insertion of clickable links within your deck, facilitating a smoother transition for users down the funnel. While CTAs typically reside on the final slide, consider incorporating them earlier to cater to viewers who might not progress through the entire presentation.

Tip #6: The Cruciality of Triple-Checking Your Grammar

There’s nothing more disheartening than discovering spelling or grammatical errors after publishing your work. While some may overlook these mistakes, others will not, and such errors can undermine the perceived legitimacy of your brand. When viewers spot errors, they might perceive you as careless and lose trust in your authority, diminishing their likelihood of converting into leads. Therefore, prioritize meticulous proofreading and enlist the help of a copy editor to ensure impeccable grammar and spelling.

Step 2: Amplifying Your Slides Through Promotion

After perfecting your slides, don’t fall into the trap of complacency, expecting your SlideShare to magically go viral. Active promotion is crucial to maximize the reach of your hard work.

Tip #1: Optimizing Your Presentation for SEO

Dedicate time to optimizing your presentation for search engine visibility. Simple steps like crafting an optimized title incorporating targeted keywords, adding a compelling description with relevant keywords, enabling user downloads, and utilizing tags can significantly improve the searchability of your presentation. According to SlideShare, tags have the potential to boost searchability by an impressive 30%!

Tip #2: Unleashing the Power of Social Media Sharing

Spread the word about your SlideShare across all your social media channels. Pin your deck to the top of your company’s Twitter feed, create engaging posts on Facebook promoting your SlideShare (utilizing targeted audiences), and leverage the tools LinkedIn offers to maximize your SlideShare’s visibility.

Tip #3: Embedding Your SlideShare on Your Company Blog

This strategy not only drives traffic to your SlideShare but also benefits the SEO rankings of both your presentation and your blog. “By embedding your presentation within a blog post and strategically building backlinks to that post, you effectively achieve two goals simultaneously: enhancing the ranking of both your blog post and your presentation,” explains Mauro D’Andrea at kissmetrics.

Tip #4: Leveraging Email Marketing to Reach Relevant Contacts

Don’t underestimate the power of your existing leads. Share your exceptional SlideShare presentation with them through a targeted email marketing campaign. This simple act could be the catalyst that transforms a passive lead into a loyal customer.

SlideShare Analytics: Unveiling Your Slides’ Performance

SlideShare offers valuable access to free analytics, providing insights into your slide presentation’s performance. You can track views over time, identify traffic sources, analyze user actions and social shares, and delve into detailed information about each viewer.

After publishing your deck on SlideShare, take the time to analyze the data, assess the effectiveness of your strategy, and leverage these insights to continually improve future presentations.