Do you Slideshare?

There are many new tools and content sources out there.  Often, I’m asked, “how do I know which ones to invest time?” or “how do I keep up” and ” is it worth it?”  Here’s what I do.  I wait it out–let the dust settle a little and then determine how best to interact so that I can determine the website, app or resources value to me and by extension to my clients.  More times than not I’m surprised by peers who recommend tools within the content or social media space and they haven’t spent any quantifiable time to provide context.

One tool that I have been using more often is Slideshare.net.  The tap on my shoulder was when Linkedin purchased the community presentation sharing site for $118.9 million dollars in early May.

What

Community based presentation tool to share and upload your presentation.

Who/When

Founded in 2006, “SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations. With 60 million monthly visitors and 130 million pageviews, it is amongst the most visited 200 websites in the world. Besides presentations, SlideShare also supports documents, PDFs, videos and webinars.”  (Hmmm, maybe I should have paid attention sooner?)

Where

www.slideshare.net

Why

Community-based.  Always insightful to learn from colleagues but also it helps in discovering new content that you might not otherwise unearth.  A trusted content filter is always welcomed in my busy day.

Shareable content.  Post it once and share it on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and Blogger. Plus after uploading you can  embed the presentation into a blog or website.  All time savers.  Also the site over time has become a valuable resource for many of us looking for information or presentations on a wide variety of topics.  I often use it to brainstorm content angles, to get up to speed on topics I have only slight knowledge on such as quantifying ROI for UX.

Great tool for sharing content across audiences for building thought leadership with your brand, extending industry credibility and also, with the advanced paid service, in generating leads.  It’s a great audience if you are in the B2B space as  a recent DemandGen Report article, stated SlideShare gets 40% more traffic from C-level executives than LinkedIn. So with the acquisition it’s a great way to extend your Linkedin B2B programs. Also, for your personal brand marketing why not integrate Slideshare and your related presentations into Linkedin.

One aspect to take note of is that there is no quality gatekeeper. As we all know from the office, some of the presentations seem to be missing something as they are devoid of a presenter. So if you are going to be leveraging Slideshare as a content distribution channel keep this in mind as you build your presentation.  The key here is to tell a great story.

Often called the “You Tube for presentations” the site depending on your goals, could be a  strong alternative to video and at a lower cost. You probably have existing content, repurpose a white paper, a conference presentation, past webinars and more.  Consider re-purposing this content.

And because you’ve read this far and may be curious but time-crunched.  So here is a link to Slideshare’s Most Favorited of All Time presentations or take a tour here.

5 Questions to Ask to Inform Your Content Strategy

Ok, so you’ve decided to test the waters.  You have a bread crumb trail for the makings of a social media meal–a Twitter account, a Facebook profile page even a Google+ account and a YouTube account.  Now, what you need is a strategy.  In the “old” days SEO was about keywords.  Today it’s not about how many keywords but providing relevant and valuable content to your audience.  This is even so much as stated in the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

What content strategists know today is that the search engines love relevant content which leads to website referrals and traffic.  So spending just a bit of time up front will make a difference in the content development stage.  Think of it this way, you wouldn’t show up to give a presentation with thinking through what you wanted to say. You wouldn’t, right?

1.  What is your brand narrative?

What’s your story? Every company and organization has one and more often than not it is unique. Well, it certainly should be. Keep in mind that every good story has a protagonist and an antagonist.  What does your brand stand for? Who or what is your nemesis?

2.  Why are you doing this? Why now?

If you are just jumping in to be on the bandwagon things probably won’t work out the way you think. Gone are the days where social media can be used to increase site traffic.  Consumers are savvy and require an exchange of value (in the form of content) in order to start a relationship with your brand. Remember, this new inbound marketing game is not about you, at least not initially.

3.  What is the goal? What does success look like?

Think about goals, some examples are–more customers, increase retention/acquisition, build your advocacy voice, establish thought leadership in your expertise area? By thinking about goals and giving shape to them, it’ll make the building of audience messages that much simpler.  This task will in turn lead to content ideas.

4.  Who is the go-to content team? 

Who is responsible for what? What are the individual roles? Consider, if you haven’t already, looping in an executive leadership champion. This is someone who understands the value of content and social media marketing.  This role will serve to educate, maybe take a few punches from their peers when the need arises to honor the commitment.

5.  How are we going to manage this effort?

Who are your content producers–your writers, bloggers, podcasters, photographers? Yes, it seems overwhelming but deciding the right size team and the proper ship will make all the difference. One guarantee is that the best tool will be the editorial calendar.  Another solution is identifying and aligning internal and external content creators to help in sustaining the momentum.  Yes, it often takes more than one but with the right pieces in place the content and social media equation can be solved.

Remember, there is a perfect fit for your business.  We can help answer these questions and partner with you to provide the right strategy and content in many forms.