The Most Important Element To SlideShare Success
When it comes to consuming presentations and infographics online, SlideShare is one of the best platforms in the biz. It’s a place to find information on just about anything. It’s also a great place for marketers to present longer-form content for their current and potential customers to view. While it’s a great spot to have your content seen, many are missing out on a HUGE opportunity with their decks. It’s time to get the most out of your SlideShares.
Hey Kid, Wanna Know A Secret?
So what’s the big secret to getting the best benefit from your SlideShare decks? The answer is right in front of your face when you post one. Here it is:
The embed option. This little guy is available to you on every item you upload and yet, most don’t realize that it can mean the difference between mild-success and wild-success.
Why is the embed feature so critical to SlideShare fame? Embedding your SlideShare means it lives on your own website, not on the SlideShare site (well, it still lives there too but you’ll be displaying it on your own). Putting your presentation on your own site does a number of things to improve success. Lets take a look 3 important reasons you should be embedding.
1) Traffic Time
Embedded presentations mean more traffic. Decks that live on the SlideShare site alone generally see little organic traffic. Even the more popular SlideShare accounts see a small level of viewership. While you can search for topics on SlideShare, how many people are honestly spending their time going to the site to kill time searching for random presentations on a subject? Not many. Your website or blog on the other hand likely already has good constant traffic. By posting it there, your deck gets the benefit of the traffic already coming to your site and increases visibility significantly.
Additionally, while SlideShare is a great tool and we’re happy they provide us something so useful at no cost, if you’re going to put the effort into promoting your content piece, wouldn’t you rather have your own website benefit from the added traffic rather than driving to someone else’s site instead?
Keep in mind that no SlideShare presentation sees optimal achievement just by uploading it. They require promotion through other means such as social, email, and other traffic-driving methods. Be sure to make a plan to promote.
2) Do Away With Distractions
Embedding your content is best for success because it removes unwanted distractions from your presentation. Look at the example below. See all of the other stuff going on there. On the SlideShare site, your content has all kinds of competition. Presentations from others and yourself, comments, and much more, all taking the attention away from your message. By living on your site, you control what the user sees. It can be just your presentation and nothing else or it can select other elements you choose such as a blog post built around supporting the deck. Whatever elements you choose to accompany the SlideShare embedded on your site, you get to control the distractions and what they see.
3) Next Steps
By embedding the deck you get viewers on your site. This is the most important reason. This means they’re just were you want them when you’re looking to move them into next steps after viewing the deck.
While SlideShare offers the ability to add a lead-gen form to your deck, they’re largely ignored and far from idea. When they’re done with your deck they generally just move on and leave you. With the deck on your site, you can add the next-steps right there on the page it resides. It doesn’t have to be limited to just a lead-generation form like SlideShare offers. It could be related content pieces you’d like them to read, an offer, additional commentary, or anything else you like. You’ve got full control. Take advantage of it.
Time To Shine
Now you know the most important element for bringing SlideShare success. Embed you presentations for the big benefits doing so offers. Drive more traffic to your decks and your site, squash the distractions, and gain greater control over what your viewers do next. By taking this simple step after uploading, you can bring far greater benefit to your SlideShares and your marketing efforts.
