In the never-ending search to find more ways to promote your business online, there are more opportunities than simply using social media and your website / blog. One of the most overlooked options is SlideShare. Here are the top 10 reasons why you should use SlideShare to market your business now.
1. An excellent source of traffic
In a word: distribution. Sure, there are millions of people who go online every day and head straight to Facebook … but there are also millions of them looking for quality content on topics of interest and a good majority of them end up on SlideShare. In fact, SlideShare receives more than 60 million unique visitors each month. That’s a lot of potential viewers for your presentation, and possibly your website.
2. Qualified traffic of entrepreneurs
SlideShare’s main demographic is entrepreneurs. These are users looking for high-quality content, especially for B2B purposes (a recent visit to Alexa.com showed that most of the site’s top searches were business-related). With the right labels, you can easily attract the customers you are looking for.
3. Lead generation
All small business owners are looking for sales opportunities, right? Did you know that you can add a lead generation form to your SlideShare presentation? Just select the option that adds a short form where viewers can leave their information to download your presentation and request more information (it is up to you where it is inserted, at the beginning, in the middle or at the end). These leads can even be integrated into third-party CRM software programs, such as Salesforce.
4. Ability to incorporate complex designs
A really nice feature of SlideShare presentations is the ability to enhance them with audio, video, lots of images, and a complex layout that makes them eye-catching. You can upload presentations on everything from your yearly profit and loss to a full e-book, infographic, or how-to video.
5. Analytics
When you opt for an entry-level paid account, you also get access to analytics of your content. You can find out who is accessing your submissions, where they are being referred from, and which ones are the most popular in your target market.
6. Simple optimization
It is no less difficult to upload any type of content here than uploading a video to YouTube. SlideShare intuitively finds out what type of content it is (video, audio, etc.), automatically formats it horizontally or vertically, and even extracts text from your presentation to use as meta tags. There is nothing easier than that to optimize content online!
7. Quality inbound links
Because SlideShare is a highly rated site, the site’s inbound links are great for SEO. All you have to do is link your SlideShare presentations to your website for a quality inbound link.
8. Get a loyal following
Similar to YouTube, users can subscribe to your SlideShare content to receive notifications every time you post new presentations. These are the people who are already interested in your content and should easily become customers. Plus, you can find and connect with people you already know through social networking sites and email contacts on SlideShare.
9. Connect to social networks
When LinkedIn recently bought SlideShare, the move allowed LinkedIn users to add presentations to their profile. This is another great way to build highly ranked cross-site links and allow your social media followers to easily access the content.
10. Presentations become a digital marketing kit
Can you quickly tell prospects where to find information about your business in a visual format (which most people prefer)? Put together a SlideShare presentation that works like a digital marketing kit and you can provide a one-click link to your request for more information. Don’t forget to add a lead capture form!
SlideShare is a very inexpensive way for a small business to create professional presentations that reach a wide audience while building high-quality links. Create a presentation in almost any software, upload your content, and you will have new leads flowing into your office in no time!