Slideshare Your Way to Content Marketing Success 

  

Did you know that Slideshare is predicted to be the fastest growing social network in 2013? 

Launched in 2006, originally as an online platform for teams to share documents within an organisation, Slideshare has seen rapid growth to become the world’s largest professional content sharing community. Recent figures indicate that Slideshare receives approximately 58 million unique visitors per month. 

What portion of the Slideshare pie will you make yours?

Slideshare is all about sharing new and captivating business content, from Powerpoint, Keynote and Open Office presentations, to PDF’s, webinars and video. 

It’s a new way of promoting your message to a wider audience. It’s an additional technique you can integrate into your digital marketing strategy. According to Joe Pulizzi, the founder of the Content Marketing Institute, Slideshare is ‘the most underutilised content distribution tool – and it’s not even close!’

Even as an ‘underutilised’ tool, does Slideshare present the latest content marketing challenge for business owners? 

For many business owners with limited marketing knowledge, the primary challenge they face is to create a bespoke marketing strategy, let alone consider the development of a digital content strategy. Therefore Slideshare, as a new realm of marketing, is one area that business owners need to focus on and start to utilise across a range of social media platforms. 

How do you create interesting and exciting content to share? 

Michael Arrington, TechCrunch founder and former co-editor calls Slideshare ‘The YouTube of Powerpoint presentation’. Focus on what You Tube says to you and then consider what content you can create to visually showcase your business, your unique offering, or ways to build your community, who can become your customers and clients.

One of the most successful ways to create content is to tell your story. 

Think about your business - who are you, what is your background, what is your vision, what makes you stand out from the crowd?

Use this simple four step approach to build your story:

1. Create/Plan – what is your strategy – test your ideas

2. Content/Write – share teasers to inspire interest

3. Campaign/Promote – make use of other social media platforms – spread the word

4. Collect/Profit – keep promoting and update content for success

To best make use of Slideshare your content should:

1. Be exciting – your story needs to have value, and spark interest and action

2. Solve problems – create How-to stories using your experience and expertise

3. Be concise – K.I.S.S – remember your competition is fierce however your message needs to be unique to the needs of your audience

4. Deliver a clear call to action – make it easy for people to connect with and contact you

5. Be innovative – how can you breathe new life into old content for a new generation of customers?

So, when will you share the hidden gems of your business story and grab a tasty slice of the Slideshare pie?