SlideShare is quickly gaining notoriety in the world of content marketing. According to CMO.com, SlideShare sees 500% more B2B traffic than LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube with over 3 billion presentation views per month! Stats like these are hard to ignore and clearly illustrate the potential of this growing platform.
So what is SlideShare? It’s simply a site that “allows users to easily upload and share presentations, infographics, documents, videos, PDFs and webinars.” And there’s 60 million people who use SlideShare to share their presentations!
Now, you might be asking yourself, “with that kind of traffic and exposure, why do I need to enhance my presentation?!”
One word: impact! And competition…so I guess that’s two words. With 400,000 new presentations uploaded each month it’s difficult to have yours (and your message) stand out. The opportunity to get a share of the 3 billion presentation views can only be realized if you create content that viewers pay attention to, remember and share throughout their networks. In order to accomplish this you need to make an impact!
What’s the best way to optimize your SlideShare deck for more impact?
Ok, this time I really do only have one word: video! I know, surprise, surprise Amplomedia is recommending video. But you can’t deny the fact visual content is always more compelling than static text and has a greater chance of capturing the attention of a viewer than reading bullet after bullet. Let’s start by making this very important distinction: SlideShare is NOT old school PowerPoint, so please don’t limit yourself to creating a boring presentation filled with mind numbing bullet points. (Speaking of PowerPoint, now is a great time for you to read our post on How to Save Yourself from Certain Death.)
Studies conducted by the Wharton School of Business conclude video increases information retention by 50% on average; what does that mean? It means not only are your viewers going to be more intrigued by your content but they’re also going to remember it. If you were perusing information that was actually intriguing and compelling enough to remember you’d be more inclined to share it, wouldn’t you? Of course you would! Which is exactly how you want anyone who views your presentation to feel.
The best part of all this is how easy and user-friendly it is to add a video into SlideShare. Here are two simple ways to incorporate video:
- Upload a video directly to SlideShare – a quick visit to the SlideShare Help Center walks you through the steps:
- Click on the Upload button at the top of the home page.
- Login.
- Click on either the Upload Publicly or Upload Privately button.
- Select the video you’ll be uploading.
- Lastly, add the title, tags, category and a description.
- Add a YouTube video directly into your SlideShare deck – be sure to check out the FAQ’s for information on video file guidelines.v
- Go to My Uploads and click Edit > Settings > Edit YouTube video.
- Type or paste the YouTube video URL into the box.
- Select the position and click Insert & Publish.
Either option works well and offers a better way to provide a more in-depth explanation, illustrate a concept or even just make your audience chuckle (in the case of crazy cat videos like this one).
Combine SlideShare’s steadily growing traffic with what we know about the power of video marketing and you’ve created a killer opportunity to dramatically increase your content exposure, increase viewer engagement and grow your audience-base.
Have you ever incorporated video into your SlideShare deck? If so, we’d love to hear about the response you received!
