SlideShare, We Love You
Over the years I’ve posted several presentations to SlideShare, the kind of marketing collateral that is there to share after a conference or speech, the stuff we all do. But about a year ago I changed tactics, creating content specifically for the platform; one that needed no voiceover or live presentation to bring to life, one that combined words and imagery in a compelling way.
Then something amazing happened.
The HB team produced “Congratulations Graduate: 11 Reasons I Will Never Hire You.” Now at 1.5 million views and counting, it stands as an example of how to imagine or re-purpose content in a way that has mass appeal, and is shareable and memorable. So, how do you do it yourself?
Create for the Medium
How many times do we share our tweets through Facebook? Or simply post a blog headline on LinkedIn? All the social networks require content that fits each specific medium to be truly effective. Simply taking a presentation that was created with the intent to present live or in person, and posting that to SlideShare does not cut it. SlideShare content needs to exist so that readers can get the point, understand the information and enjoy the experience without the need for someone speaking to it or about it to bring it to life.
When creating content specifically for Slideshare, keep these three ideas top-of-mind for greater success: make your title provocative, contrarian, tweetable, head-scratching – make it memorable; invest in design – Slideshare is visual, respect that; and ensure your content is one hundred percent understandable content and can stand on its own – if it does not, keep working.
Goals, Message First
As we know, when starting anything, it’s critical to figure out your goals. For first-timers on Slideshare, read a bunch of the successful submissions. While the most popular or most liked presentations may be wildly different, it’s easy to see that they have compelling content, design that supports the content and a message that’s easily grasped.
Like any other aspect of your communications program, a SlideShare can only be successful if you have goals established up front. I specifically wanted to reach college students entering the job market. The first bit of success came when the likes and shares started. But those weren’t the end goal, just a means to an end. I considered it truly successful when college career centers began emailing asking if they could incorporate it into their educational materials, then again when blogs and HR-focused sites had raging debates in their comments sections regarding everything from the content to the design of the SlideShare.
I wanted a reaction. I got one.
Design Rules SlideShare
Design! Great design rules on SlideShare. Sometimes that design is no design at all, black words on a white background to evoke starkness. When the images support the content, readers respond. My original SlideShare posts, lightly “designed” by me, were read a few hundred or few thousand times each. Good content, weak design. For my most recent SlideShare, professional designers (at HB Agency where I work) brought my words to life. The result? This newest SlideShare has been shared more than 100,000 times on social media.
Share, and Share Some More
I’m in PR and content marketing so I see each piece of content as something that must be maximized, adapted and shared though as many places as are relevant.
The “Congratulations Graduate” piece actually started two years ago as a contributed article on a site that targets the innovation community in Boston. From there it became a series of tweets and, ultimately, the SlideShare itself. Certainly having strong social networks helps with sharing. LinkedIn and SlideShare themselves are very good about sharing content with their audiences. That certainly gave my presentation a boost. In the end, it comes down to great content. Without that, no presentation will be compelling.
The Power of the Slide
PandoDaily discusses slide shows in a different light, sharing the not-so-deep, dark secret that publishers use slide shows as page view generators. As a form of “native digital storytelling,” slide shows present ways to tell a story more richly then we’ve been able to in the past.
Hamish McKenzie writes: “The Web has certain qualities that facilitate a novel approach to storytelling. That is part of the beauty of online media. The Web is interactive, social, dynamic, hypertextual, mobile, and not bound by arbitrary limitations such as word-counts or page sizes. It provides a rich environment for high-definition imagery and film. Thanks to the Web, we can broadcast content asynchronously, nimbly, and at a low cost, and we can blend a panoply of multimedia elements – video, audio, maps, graphics, tweets, status updates, 3D art, animations, gifs, real-time posts – into story experiences that transcend what is offered by print, TV, or radio.”
As a business, you are less constrained by editorial conventions (though an ethical approach to content creation is mandatory in our opinion), and must consider and activate your news and information in new ways.
Take a look at your company content, stories, news, presentations, white papers. And then imagine how any of those could be transformed for the SlideShare community.