As the world’s largest community for uploading, viewing, hosting and sharing content such as presentations, documents and videos, SlideShare is the ultimate branding tool for business professionals and businesses of all sizes. There is no better proof than its recent acquisition by Linkedin – the world’s largest network of business professionals. The benefits of including SlideShare in your business toolbox are numerous. Here are five reasons why every business person should embrace it and use it.
1. Boost visibility
It’s no secret that Google and other search engines love SlideShare. SlideShare is an authoritative, trusted and established domain, and therefore enjoys high credibility with Google. SlideShare transcribes uploaded presentations and documents so search engines can easily crawl, read and index the text. Creating high quality slideshows can help you to significantly increase the visibility of your professional skills and expertise. Actually, it is more likely that a slide presentation or document uploaded to SlideShare will rank better and easier for certain keywords than a piece of content posted on a new blog or website.
To make the most of this opportunity, optimize presentations for search engines and users just like any other piece of content that you post and share online. When uploading your work, make sure to fill in all possible information about each presentation. Write relevant, keyword-rich titles and compelling descriptions which correspond to the Title and Meta Description tags. Categorize and tag presentations. The more tags you add, the more people will be able to find your slideshows. Investing the time and effort in building links to individual slide presentations will bring you even more exposure and visibility.
2. Connect and build your business network
SlideShare is a vibrant community of thought leaders, decision makers and experts in any field. You can discover and follow other presenters, and engage with their content by favoriting and commenting on slide presentations. Discovering people of interest and initiating conversations opens up the door to building advantageous business connections and networking with masterminds in your area of expertise.
3. Learn and expand your knowledge
SlideShare is an online repository of high quality content. It is a huge library with free access to published works, research, white papers and learning resources on any imaginable topic. Explore its treasures and arm yourself with more knowledge. After all, knowledge is one of the most valuable assets a professional can have.
4. Conduct research and generate ideas
In line with being a great learning resource, SlideShare is also a powerful tool for conducting research and generating content ideas. You can research and explore hot presentations in your niche and draw inspiration for your next slideshow, speaking event or blog post. SlideShare additionally allows you to download, remix and reuse content.
5. Show off your expertise and build a personal brand
Sharing your professional writing, presentations and videos is an excellent way to showcase your expertise and strengthen your personal brand. SlideShare basically gives you an opportunity to publish your work on the Internet for free. You can create public bookshelves loaded with professional white papers, presentations and other publications.
It is easy to boost visibility and extend the reach of SlideShare content with the SlideShare app for Linkedin or the SlideShare app on Facebook. Moreover, displaying presentations in your Linkedin profile is a powerful way to reinforce your professional identity and reputation.
You can also use the embed code to showcase slideshows on your blog or website. There is the SlideShare Google+ Hangout app for presenting slides live with real time video.
Simply said, branding is made easy with SlideShare.
And all this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more reasons to integrate SlideShare into your business and marketing efforts. If you are a business owner or marketer, you can use it to build awareness of your business, products and services, drive traffic to your website, generate leads, educate and inform customers, and more. Business consultants, web-designers, bloggers and other freelancers can drive more eyeballs to their blogs and online portfolios. Recent grads that are just starting their professional careers can significantly increase their chances of landing a job, and so on. Basically, the sky is the limit.
