6 Tips for Creating Captivating SlideShares

While you might think your current slate of social media channels is sufficient, you may be missing out on an incredible opportunity if you don’t have SlideShare in the mix.Since its 2012 acquisition by LinkedIn, the platform has grown consistently year-over-year and now boasts over 70 million active users per month and more than 18 million uploads. With SlideShare dubbed the â€Å"quiet giant of content marketing† by Forbes magazine, it’s worth considering whether you can harness its substantial power to take your own content marketing to the next level. Why Use SlideShare? There are quite a few reasons SlideShare has become so popular: It’s easy to get started: Just add some information about yourself or your business. You can also connect your SlideShare with your existing Facebook or LinkedIn accounts for an even faster set up. Unique medium:Slide presentations can help you demonstrate your expertise in a visually compelling and easy-to-navigate format. You can even recycle some of your existing content into a slide presentation, reducing the amount of work you need to do. Improves SEO:Google indexes each and every presentation on the platform and the vast majority of SlideShare’s traffic comes from organic search.So, having a number of presentations on SlideShare can give your brand’s SEO a nice boost. Getting the Most Out of SlideShare While the potential benefits are there, you won’t get any if your slide presentations themselves are poor. They need to grab readers’ attention and keep it. With that in mind, here are a few tips for slide presentations so that they are effective on SlideShare: Make sure your presentation can stand alone: Some SlideShare presentations are ineffective because they were obviously meant to go along with spoken dialogue.Be sure that your presentation is clear and easy to follow on its own. Create an incredible cover slide: The cover slide is what lures people to start viewing the rest of your presentation, so it needs to be as powerful and compelling as possible. Use links to your advantage:Add links to drive people to your website or to a contact form – it’s a great way to gain new subscribers to your email list and boost your website’s traffic. Don’t skimp on the description and keywords: Make sure you fill in all the fields when you upload a presentation.The description is particularly important – you have 3,000 characters to work with, so there’s plenty of room to create a detailed description that grabs attention.It’s also important to tag your presentation with the right keywords.This will increase its visibility and help it rank better in search results. Include a clear call-to-action: SlideShare isn’t the place to be subtle. If you want users to click through and take the next step, you need to provide a clear, visual call-to-action. If you’re looking for a new addition to your content marketing mix, slide presentations on SlideShare may be a perfect fit.With a large user base and an easy-to-follow format for your audience, the potential to grow your reach and boost your visibility is tremendous.