SlideShare Best Practices: Content Marketing Tips from Top SlideShare Marketers

At TopRank Online Marketing, we�ve been singing SlideShare�s praises for years. With over 50 pieces of content shared through the platform, some closing in on 100,000 views, we�re well aware of its power and potential.

Forbes calls SlideShare the �Quiet Giant of Content Marketing� with good reason; with 60 million monthly visitors, it�s one of the top 200 most visited sites in the world. Yet Joe Pulizzi says Slideshare is the �most underutilized content distribution tool� in content marketing today and he�s right. How can marketers make best use of this incredible resource?

Take a page from these SlideShare marketers, who have put out some of the most popular and useful pieces of content in their niche on the platform. Along with each example, you’ll find out just what it was they did to get it so very right; use these tips to improve your own SlideShare content marketing strategy. As a bonus, these are helpful resources in and of themselves, as each offers tips and advice on marketing.

10 Ways to be a Marketing Genius Like Lady Gaga

10 Ways to be a Marketing Genius Like Lady Gaga from Jesse Desjardins – @jessedee

This genius SlideShare is from Jesse Desjardins, Head of Social for Tourism Australia.

Love or hate her music, Lady Gaga is a powerful new age marketer, whose prowess in integrating event marketing with social and other web efforts is legendary. Desjardins was able to capitalize on both Gaga’s popularity and her marketing skills in his SlideShare, which has been viewed 144,000 times and embedded on other properties close to 400 times.

How to SlideShare Like @JesseDee

Follow Desjardins’ SlideShare marketing lead by:

Starting out with an interesting topic. If it seems dry or boring before you even begin, you need a new angle.Capitalizing on the popularity or fame of others by featuring them in your content.Teaching or otherwise offering something your target audience will find useful.

If you want a free lesson in presentations that don’t suck, check out Desjardin’s entire SlideShare portfolio, especially the amazing�You Suck at PowerPoint!

B2B Marketing Innovation eBook from MarketingProfs & TopRank Online Marketing

B2B Marketing Innovation eBook – MarketingProfs B2B Forum from TopRank Online Marketing

This eBook, developed in partnership with MarketingProfs and the speakers of the B2B Forum conference, features innovative tips from some of the brightest minds in digital marketing today.�We polled some of the top B2B brands including IBM, Cisco, Salesforce, Silverpop and Eloqua as well as industry influencers Ann Handley, Joe Pulizzi, CC Chapman, Amber Naslund, Amanda Maksymiw and many others for their best tips on how to bring innovation into the B2B marketing mix.

In the six months since it launched, this SlideShare has been viewed over 60,000 times and was also the subject of a blog post and much social content.

How to SlideShare Like MarketingProfs & TopRank Online Marketing

Take a page from our marketing book by:

Getting maximum mileage out of your SlideShare by making it the basis for other content, such as images, blog posts, social content, etc.Tying your presentation to an event or partnering with another organization to increase your reach.Keeping a consistent theme throughout the SlideShare in order to deliver exactly what was promised in promotional material and the description.

Check out another innovative SlideShare idea from MarketingProfs, who combined their best articles from 2012 into an original presentation that earned them thousands more views.

2012 KPCB Internet Trends Year-End Update SlideShare

2012 KPCB Internet Trends Year-End Update from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers released their annual year-end update in December and already, it’s been viewed 1,183,000 times. Why? Simply because it’s a fabulous resource for marketers, media and other businesspeople in need of original research and analysis. KPCB became the news; releasing their report on SlideShare in this format made it simple for others to embed their presentation (1300 people or companies did) and share the news socially. All told, the SlideShare itself had over 15,000 social shares or endorsements.

This is a great example of a SlideShare that doesn’t play on humor, thought leaders or a sleek design, but offers valuable, original information for a wide business audience.

How to SlideShare Like KPCB

The average company probably can’t commit the time and resources to produce an 80+ page SlideShare packed with original research. However, you can:

Use the data at your disposal to uncover trends or insights others may find valuable.Explore a topic relevant to your industry in a way it hasn’t yet been covered and summarize your findings.Create a series of pieces to build audience anticipation.Honorable Mentions for SlideShare Content Marketing Greatness

Check out these other popular marketing SlideShares for more tips and tricks to help you improve your own.

HubSpot�s 101 Awesome Marketing Quotes SlideShare

HubSpot got it right on with this marketing SlideShare, which has earned more than a quarter of a million views and been marked a favorite by over 1,300 people. This is a fantastic example of the type of evergreen, quality content that can live on for years – here we are, discussing it almost two years after it was released.

As a curated piece consisting of quotes, HubSpot’s SlideShare is a prime example of two clever content marketing tactics. Keep costs and time investment lower by framing existing information in a new and interesting way. Then, bake social promotion into your content plan by featuring industry heavyweights and thought leaders in your content. Learn from HubSpot’s example and:

Use high quality images, either original or with attribution, and keep text to a minimum.Choose one theme and stay true to it throughout the piece.Consider how your slides can be repurposed; each on its own can become a standalone image for use in social channels or elsewhere. These images with short quotes are perfect for repurposing.

HubSpot has also shown marketers can be provocative on SlideShare, but it works so long as you keep it classy. See their October 2012 SlideShare�Social Media is a Lot Like Sex�as an example; it has already been viewed over 125,000 times.

2013 Social Media Predictions eBook by Dell

In the two weeks (give or take) since its release, Dell’s�Social Media Predictions for 2013�has closed in on nearly 90,000 views and was featured on the SlideShare homepage just after it launched. This resource featured predictions, advice and quotes from industry leading marketers and thought leaders including TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden. At just 18 pages, this piece proves SlideShares needn’t be lengthy to succeed.

Unlike our other examples, this SlideShare is heavy on written content and flies in the face of traditional advice that presentations must only be highly visual to meet the needs of their audience. Follow best practices like Dell for high quality, effective SlideShares:

Invest in good design and ensure consistency throughout the SlideShare.When using text, ensure sufficient white space and use bold or colored subheadings to break up blocks of text.Explain up front, in the first few slides, what its pages contain and why people should read on for more. It’s not a guessing game.

Again, this SlideShare was socially relevant and had promotion worked into its design, by including thought leaders from across the social web as their cast of experts.

I hope you’ve been inspired to get started on SlideShare, or further develop your content marketing strategy using this incredible tool. Are you using SlideShare as a marketing tool? Share your tips, tricks or questions in the comments!