SlideShare Can Help You Develop Thought Leadership
SlideShare is a tool users can adopt to put information in a format similar to PowerPoint. Virtually any content–from video, PowerPoint, documents and graphics–can be easily imported into it.
SlideShare has been around since 2006 and was acquired by LinkedIn in 2012. Globally, it’s ranked at 146 but visitors tend to spend a fair amount of time on the site, averaging well over three minutes and view 2.75 pages, according to the website ranking firm Alexa. 41.6% of visitors come from India and the US. It is the 22nd-most popular site in Mexico.
SlideShare Attracts a Well-Educated Audience
SlideShare can be a great platform to present your expertise because it attracts people who are more likely to seek and understand this information. Its visitors are more likely to hold graduate degrees than the average Internet audience, according to Alexa statistics. Someone looking for more complex information, such as investing in hedge funds or different kinds of specialty accounting, will discover a SlideShare presentation.
This is good news for financial services providers and professionals in medicine, accounting, and law who are looking for a forum to showcase their specific expertise while developing thought leadership.
Social marketing experts love SlideShare because, as you know, visual content is so much easier to absorb. Social Media Examiner says it’s the most overlooked and underutilized social sharing platform, which pretty much guarantees those who are motivated to distribute content on a (relatively) more cutting-edge platform are turning to it.
SlideShare Offers Google-Worthy Searchability
SlideShare has all the features Google likes, including tags, content, graphics, video—anything you want to put on it. Be sure to put tags on visual content so Google can index it. Because users click through the content, potential clients tend to spend more time on SlideShare than they would scrolling through your LinkedIn profile.
Another thing I like about SlideShare is it helps you establish authority in your field, which Google has been emphasizing more in its recent algorithm updates. Alexa’s research shows more than one-quarter of visitors to a SlideShare presentation—26.4%–came via Google. Interestingly, just 2.8% come through LinkedIn and only 4% from Facebook.
SlideShare is Free and Very Easy to Use with LinkedIn
Joining SlideShare is free and when you link your account with your LinkedIn profile, it automatically presents you with a template which serves as your own personal infographic based on what you list on LinkedIn:
- Location
- Years of experience
- Number of positions held
- Number of skills
Pyramid graphics show if there is information about your education, experience, skills, and recommendations for your work. The slides themselves list where you worked but does not incorporate the descriptions you put in LinkedIn.
You can go ahead and publish, but I’d say hold off to add more content. Click on the button at the top right to do this. If you don’t like the default template, click on the wand to bypass it altogether and build your own presentation with SlideShare’s partner HaikuDeck.
HaikuDeck is an alternative to PowerPoint and offers several very attractive templates. Like PowerPoint, it’s wizard-driven. Everything is automated with the assumption that the user probably does not have a degree in graphic arts, a relief for many who just want to put out great content in striking themes—and HaikuDeck has plenty of those.
If you go this route, an account in your name will be automatically created on the HaikuDeck site as well as SlideShare’s.
You can also add your SlideShare content to your LinkedIn profile’s Summary page. Just click Edit on your profile, then click the box with a plus sign beside it and add a link to your slides. Once you add the link to your presentation, you have an attractive way to stand out from other profiles and encourage people to click through for your content.
Anytime you upload a presentation to your LinkedIn profile, share it as a status update in both your personal profile and company page. Use SlideShare strategically to provide your connections with value-add information while building trust, credibility and establishing you as a thought leader.
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