One of the biggest differences between a blog that has some success and a professional blog is a willingness to use various channels to market the material and to branch out into different media. Slideshare is an extremely powerful channel that most people are completely unaware of. The site hosts presentations in a searchable directly. It’s similar to YouTube, but for PowerPoint presentations.
Presentations allow you to share information in a more visually stimulating format than a typical blog post. They are easy to consume and fun to share…if they’re done right. Here are 10 tips to promote your site using these presentations. 1. Transform Your Posts into PowerPoint Presentations
Sift through your site for the absolute best posts, and transform them into presentations. Try to break it up into bite size, actionable chunks of data. Include only the most important takeaways. If you have a series of posts that are related, consider turning each post into a single slide.
2. Include a Powerful Headline
Write an eye-catching headline that sparks curiosity and tells the reader something about the content of the presentation. Create a title that convinces your readers the presentation will solve a problem for them. Include the title both in the Title area of the submission and within the presentation itself.
3. Take Time on Your Keyword Tags
Choose keyword tags that people are likely to search for if they are looking for what you have to offer them. Spend some time researching which keywords are most commonly searched for.
4. Post it on Twitter and Facebook
Promote your presentation through Twitter the same way you would a blog post. Try to do so in a way that demands action from your followers, such as posing a question. Do the same on Facebook. Respond as much as possible to any Facebook comments or @ replies. Keep your audience engaged by asking them to comment on the presentation, share their input, and share examples of things you mentioned in your slides.
5. Make the Presentation Downloadable
You want as many people as possible to see the presentation, so there is absolutely no harm in making it downloadable. Encourage your readers to share the content at the end of the presentation and make it easy for them to do so. For the very same reason, use a Creative Commons license that allows readers to use the slide however they see fit as long as they attribute it to your blog.
6. Be Visual
Presentations offer little advantage over blog posts if they consist only of text. It’s standard practice to use less than seven lines of text per slide in a normal presentation, but things are different on the internet. In a traditional presentation, it would be rude for people to pick up there things and walk off before the presentation is finished. On the internet, this is par for the course. Use an image to convey most of the information, and compliment it with a sentence or brief paragraph of text.
7. Incite Action
The final slide should always include a link or a button to convince the reader to do something else. While might not necessarily have warmed the reader up enough to convince them to buy something, you can certainly convince many of them to visit your blog. Better yet, send them to a landing page that will gently nudge them to subscribe to your blog and receive regular updates.
8. Consider LeadShare
Depending on your industry and whether you are selling your own products, Slideshare’s lead generation service could make you a lot of money. It allows you to include a lead generation form directly inside the presentation. You’ll need to sign up for a pro account. The account comes with 30 free leads, but you’ll need to choose to pay for each lead in order to customize the form. If you already know the ROI on each lead you have, this strategy could prove profitable.
9. Get to the Point
Your presentation should be short and easy to consume before attention starts wandering.
10. Be Keyword Rich
Titles, tags, and descriptions should be reach in keywords that users in your industry search for.