Unless you just graduated from business school, chances are that you have heard of SlideShare.

SlideShare is a slide-hosting service where members can upload presentations, infographics, and videos, follow other members, and interact with content and one another. While it has been a fairly underused platform, B2B firms and marketers seem to realize its potential. It is a great place to promote visual content and bring the conversation to where it matters — your own website.

In today’s article, I would like to show you why your company needs to use SlideShare. I will also share some tips to help you get started on the right track.

But first, some numbers.

SlideShare Stats

• Founded in October 2006
• Acquired by LinkedIn in May 2012
• One of the top 120 sites on the Internet
• 60 million unique users
• 215 million monthly pageviews
• 15 million uploaded documents to date
• 20 percent of traffic comes from Google alone

Major features 

1. a) Homepage

The aim of the homepage is to make content discovery easy. You will find trending and featured presentations from the accounts and topics you follow.

Click the “More Topics” tab at the top to bring will the Explore page. The page has a similar feel to LinkedIn’s Discover. It is where you select your topics of interest. The more you tell SlideShare what you like, the more relevant content you will see on your homepage. 

b) Profile

Unlike a majority of social platforms, SlideShare offers a wide array of profile types. There are eight to choose from:

• Default – For individuals
• Ad /PR /marketing agency
• Company
• Event Organizer
• Non-Profit/Government
• Presentation design firm
• Professional Speaker
• University School

Selecting the type that best represents your company or brand will increase the discoverability of your profile. Note that you can always change it by clicking the “Edit Profile” button right under your name.

Then, fill out all as many options as possible:

• location
• name
• professional picture or logo
• industry
• profile tags
• phone number and mailing address – You can hide this information
• about section (700 characters)
• website URL
• social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+)

(HubSpot on SlideShare)

A complete and optimized profile will increase your visibility on SlideShare and in search engines. It will also give prospects and customers a good idea of what your brand stands for.

c) Search

SlideShare has a powerful search engine that you can use to find members, competitors, and presentations. It is located at the top of any page.

Content results can be filtered by upload dates, file type, and language. For users, options include relevance, country, industry, and account type.

d) Analytics

Analytics give you important insights into the performance of your uploads: 

• Geographical distribution (countries and cities)
• Traffic sources and referrers
• Top content
• Actions taken (e.g., outbound clicks, favorites, comments, downloads, and email shares)

You can choose to view the data over a specific period of time, like a month, quarter, six months, etc. Such data is very helpful if you need to figure out which day of the week performs better than the rest or what kind of content resonates most with your clients.

f) Account settings

The settings will play an important part in your SlideShare experience. Give them a try: 

• Email preferences – Get notifications for comments, new followers, new uploads from the accounts you follow, new leads, etc. You can also receive analytics directly in your Inbox.
• Social – Link your SlideShare account to your social profiles (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+) to share your activity with your networks.
• Privacy – Decide who can contact you privately or share presentations with you.
• Content – Do you reserve all rights to the files you upload? Or do you want to apply a Creative Commons licence to your work?g) SlideShare mobile

If you work from a mobile device, SlideShare is accessible via the Android / iPhone app and  mobile web. You can only view, save and share content, though. To upload presentations, though, you will need a desktop.

Uploading a presentation

Uploading a presentation, video, or infographic on SlideShare is very easy. Click the Upload button at the top of any page and select your file. Then, add a title, category, description, and tags, and choose the visibility level (private or public).

If you click the Advanced Settings link on the next page, you will be able to edit your privacy settings, allow embeds and downloads, and more. 

All your uploaded SlideShares are available from your Uploads page. Click the Edit button under each item to edit, re-upload, or delete it.

Note: For the list of supported formats and file size limit, click here.

Interested in creating a presentation directly from SlideShare? You can if you have a Haiku Deck account. Haiku Deck is a useful platform and app to create engaging presentations and slides, especially pitches, lessons, storytelling, and quotes.

Here is an example below:

 How to leverage SlideShare

• Use search to keep an eye on competition and relevant trends in your industry.

• YouTube is not the only place for videos. Upload yours on SlideShare too!

• Optimizing your profile is not enough. Do it for your uploads as well. For example, use  relevant tags and write clear and valuable descriptions. Further, pay attention to the keywords of your filenames. Once uploaded, they will become part of your Slideshares’ permalinks.

• Subscribe to specific accounts via RSS. This option, which is located at the bottom of a profile’s page, allows you to “spy” on others without having to click the Follow button.

• Include URLs and calls to action in your presentations. Note, though, that links are only clickable after the third slide.

• Don’t neglect e visual content. Why not turn an old, evergreen article into a presentation or infographic, and give it renewed life? It also works if your company releases reports, ebooks, or white papers. Highlight important facts that entice signups. Here is an example below:

• Embed presentations and infographics in blog posts and promote those links on social networks. You want traffic to end on your digital property.

• Curate interesting SlideShares on your blog. Sharing relevant content that may not be yours is another way to serve the needs of your customers.

• Do you know that you can add SlideShares to your LinkedIn profile? Encourage your employees to do so, especially with the presentations or infographics they create. You could also do the same with your own profile.

A note on promoting SlideShare presentations

I shared a few ways to spread the word about your presentations above. Here is another strategy: guest posting.

With guest posting, you tap into a new audience — the audience of an established blogger or publication. It is an easy and very inexpensive way to increase exposure of your firm.

A quick search into blogs in your industry will probably reveal hundreds, if not thousands, of possibilities. Many of news site or blog editors receive many pitches daily. As such, you have to implement a tactful approach.

• Get familiar with those publishers. Read their posts and pay attention to the following: author styles, post formats, and visual aids.
• Establish a connection via blog comments and/or social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Google+.
• Find and read guest posting / contribution guidelines. If there is none, ask the blogger or journalist directly, either on social media or by email.
• Send an email that is personalized, concise, and descriptive.
• Avoid the press release route. Releases just glaze over an editor’s eyes
• Introduce your presentation and accompanying post from the point of view of your recipient. What’s in it for them and their readers? How could they benefit from featuring you and your company?
• Proofread your pitches and guest posts. Mistakes can make you look like an amateur
• Promotion of your presentations on multiple blogs is a good idea. However, for better impact, adapt the content of your guest post to the blog or publication.

Some B2B-centric companies and marketers to follow

SlideShare is helpful to monitor industry-specific trends and competition. You can also use it to learn about your market. Some of the most prominent leaders and experts in the B2B segment are there.

Here is a short list:

• Michael Brenner – The Head of Strategy for the leading content marketing platform, NewsCred, is also the author of B2B Marketing Insider. He contributes to Forbes and frequently speaks at industry events on marketing strategy, social business, content marketing, digital marketing, social media, and personal branding.

• Uberflip – “Uberflip lets you bring all of your content (social, blogs, video and more) together, creating a killer content experience that increases engagement and generates leads – no IT required!”

• Atomic Reach – “Atomic Reach is a SaaS platform that helps brands, publishers and bloggers optimize their digital content for their audience before they hit publish, to drive greater engagement.”

For more inspiring leaders and experts to follow, check out SlideShare’s list here.

Ready to leverage SlideShare? Got any other tips to share with our readers?

Related posts:

Why B2B marketers should be worried about ‘negative SEO’ The B2BNN guide to IFTTT Infographic: How the B2B digital landscape is changing How are CMOs using Twitter?