Why You Should Include SlideShare In Your 2019 Content Marketing Strategy

SlideShare has been called content marketing's sleeping giant. 

Owned by LinkedIn and with over 18 million uploads and 80 million users, it's the world’s largest professional content sharing community. 

Surprisingly, given how the platform is optimized for social sharing, including the ability to embed presentations, SlideShare is often overlooked and underused by marketers. 

In today's article,  I'm going to show you how I've expanded my own content marketing by tapping into the power of SlideShare.

The good news is that you don't even have to create original content to do this. Simply find some content you have already written and get ready to breathe new life into it.

1. Craft Your Message

Before you start designing your slide-deck, take a moment to consider what you want people to know after they have viewed it.  Do you want to inspire, inform, or entertain your audience? Keeping this goal in mind will help you choose the copy and design elements to craft a more compelling and memorable presentation. 

Pro Tip! Read 7 Places To Discover What Your Audience Wants To Read (So You Can Write It For Them!)

2. Re-purpose Your Content

Identify a piece of content that will convert easily to slides. Lists work really well, but with a little creativity you can also summarise and visualize key points from articles, podcasts, or infographics. Simplify the content by writing short copy (one point per slide) to communicate your message quickly and clearly. 

Pro Tip! Each slide should pass the glance test: People should be able to comprehend your slide in 3 seconds.

3. Create An Irresistible Title

If content is king, then the headline is queen. No matter how amazing your content is, few people are going to click through to read it if they’re not immediately captivated by your title.

Pro Tip! Check out my 15 tips for creating headlines that make people want to click.

4. Design Impactful Slides

Boring slides don’t get many views. Choose a design style that will attract viewers to your content. 

Here are some quick tips to guide your design.

• Pick a colour scheme to complement your message and your brand - choose colours that pop and attract the eye.
• Maintain consistency across your slides by using the same or related typography, colours and imagery.
•  Don't crowd your slides with text; make good use of white space.
• Make sure to optimise for mobile viewers with big, bold visuals and text that is readable on mobile devices. 

Pro Tip!  Avoid overused fonts (Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri) and try something new like Glode, Korolev, or Cantarell.

5. Create Visual Appeal

The best slide-decks pack a visual punch. Boring stock images just won't cut it. If you're wondering where to find visually appealing images, check out my list of 25 places to find great images. Download a selection of your favourite images from these sties to your desktop. Then get creative with the help of templates from Canva.com and edit your chosen images into something that will match the design theme and message of your slide-deck.

Pro Tip! Read How To Create Professional Graphics — Even If You’re Not a Graphic Designer

6. Optimise Your Slides With Keywords

SlideShare presentations rank well in Google (about 70% of SlideShare traffic comes from search), so it makes sense to optimise your slides with keywords so that people can find you. SlideShare automatically transcribes your presentation, so wherever possible, add your keywords to the presentation content too (without obviously spamming the text).

Pro Tip!  Include keywords in your title, tags and description of your presentation, as well as your file name. 

7. Include A Call-To-Action 

Adding a call to action (CTA) to your deck directs readers to the next step you want them to take — visit your website, sign up for your email list, etc. You can create clickable CTAs through hyperlinking (here are some easy instructions to set them up).

Pro Tip!  SlideShare disables links in the first three slides of a presentation to discourage people from spamming the site with too many links. So if you’re going to add in clickable links, do so after the third slide.

8. Promote Your Slide-Decks

One of the easiest ways to promote your presentation is to embed the slides on your blog. Twitter also embeds SlideShares in tweets so people can view your presentation without right within Twitter. You'll find an easy embed code on SlideShare. 

You should also add your SlideShare content to your LinkedIn profile’s summary page. LinkedIn makes it super-easy to do this just by copying and pasting the link to your slides.

9. Analyze And Track Metrics

SlideShare allows you to gather detailed analytics including top referral sites, number of views and the top performing slides. This information is useful for planning your SlideShare strategy. 

Want to see how all this comes together? Check out one of my most popular slide-decks below.