SlideShare unites the need-to-know of the Internet with the intuitiveness of PowerPoint to attract 60 million visitors each month — many of them high-level business decision-makers. If your company’s marketing goals involve using social media for more than just “likes” and connections, SlideShare is an effective, low-cost method for potential customers to find your business and sell themselves on your solutions. 

SlideShare’s been called the Quiet Giant of Content Marketing and the World’s Largest Professional Content Sharing Community. And for good reason. Consider how these SlideShare benefits might apply to your business goals: 

Reach and Target Audience

• Among the 200 most visited websites in the world
• The audience is professional (made up of a wide variety of business people)
• C-level executives are 2.3 times more likely to use SlideShare than Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, and 1.4 times more likely to use SlideShare than LinkedIn* 

Benefits for Marketers

• Business-first focus is great for B2B marketers
• Good platform for visually appealing content
• Audience is familiar with PowerPoint, navigates intuitively, and controls own pace
• SlideShare is a social community, so people will naturally share worthy content
• SlideShare presentations easily embed in LinkedIn and other social networking tools 

Lead Generation

• More traffic to your website because of opportunities to direct users to relevant content
• SEO boost via linking due to search-engine algorithms that assign higher rankings to websites with incoming links from credible sources
• Increased media coverage as industry journalists identify your content specialization and staff expertise
• New partners and business contacts via social conversation and ongoing interaction
• Options for pop-up forms (with paid subscription) to collect contact information from users interested in receiving additional content or contact from a sales representative 

Measurement

• Great analytics 

While writing this post, I typed “estimated number of PowerPoint sales presentations” into Google and in the top-three results I found a SlideShare presentation titled Death by PowerPoint, a reminder of the power of Slideshare and the challenges of this marketing medium. Because of the brain’s ability to suppress unwanted memories, you may not even realize how many bad PowerPoint presentations you’ve had to sit through; however, on SlideShare, your audience of one can “walk” at any moment without any social repercussions. So, it’s critical to keep a few things in mind: 

1)    Bring your SlideShare presentation “to life.” Avoid the “death-inducing” problems associated with many PowerPoint presentations. There’s plenty of advice worthy of a separate post on this subject, but relevance to the user is paramount. With each slide and every message, from the viewpoint of your prospect, tirelessly ask yourself, “Why should I care?”

2)    Key-in on keywords. As in the example above, search results drive targeted traffic, which in the mathematics of Google equals more qualified sales leads.

3)    Hyper-focus your message. As a business professional, your SlideShare viewer may be interested in what you have to say, but they are also busy. Your presentation is a self-education platform that needs to stand on its own, be engaging enough to draw your prospect in more deeply and stay within the limits of their attention span. Weigh the benefits of breaking your content into smaller pieces or a series of presentations.

4)    Emphasize the visual. It is essential that your presentation is attractive and professionally designed. Think of each SlideShare presentation as a member of your sales team: clip art is a clip-on tie.

5)    Give it away up front. In general, it is better to give away at least some of your content — advice, solutions and proof points — rather than “gating” information with required sign-up forms.

6)    Refine and improve strategies. Use analytics and user feedback to hone effective approaches for specific audiences and information needs. Experiment to find the optimal location in your presentation for sign-ups and to gain insights into the types of high-impact, value-added and ongoing content that increases sign-up rates. And don’t forget to use links to your company website as digital breadcrumbs.

7)    Participate in the conversation. SlideShare’s social roots present opportunities to respond to questions, comments and concerns, in addition to providing useful links, promoting internal subject matter experts and thought leaders, and offering infinite ways to enhance your company’s image of being approachable.

If you’re ready to jump on to SlideShare, make sure you have a solid plan. The award-winning digital marketing and design team at TMA+Peritus is ready to assist. We’re delighted to share our SlideShare know-how and to collaborate with your marketing and business development leaders to increase your company’s share of qualified sales leads.

*Source: SlideShare: The Most Undervalued Social Platform for B2B Marketers, Explorics