Sharing presentations increases engagement

by Kit Seeborg on November 29, 2012

Here at SlideShare, we can clearly see the influence that popular presentations have on the greater SlideShare audience to further explore ideas and concepts. Taking an existing presentation to the next level, either creatively or intellectually, inspires interaction and gives new momentum to the original content.

Bruce Gabrielle recently uploaded this presentation which he embedded in his very popular blog post, 5 Tips For Presenting to Executives. Bruce’s slideshow caught the attention of Dirk Hannemann of Berlin, Germany who then built upon the presentation’s salient points and created a video of his own.

Dirk Hannemann

Thankfully, the days of closely guarded content are nearly gone. Bruce was flattered that his slideshow provided inspiration for continued exploration. So much so that he posted a follow-up article on his own blog, sharing Dirk’s video with his audience.

Bruce Gabrielle - Speaking PPT

Dirk Hannemann

Are you inspired by the presentations of other SlideShare community members? Make sure you’re following them so their new uploads and favorites appear in your SlideShare newsfeed. Reach out to those who inspire you, share and build upon the ideas that have an impact on your thinking and actions.

If you’d like to use someone else’s existing content, be sure to contact the originator for permission, or follow the Creative Commons Licensing guidelines.

It’s exciting to be swimming and sharing together in this rising tide as it lifts all boats. Jump in, the water’s warm.

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KISSmetrics shares SlideShare tips for marketers

by Kit Seeborg on November 27, 2012

KISSmetricsWe’re big fans of our friends at KISSmetrics. So when a guest post about SlideShare by Mauro D’Andrea appeared on the KISSmetrics blog, we noticed right away! In his article The Marketer’s Guide To SlideShare, Mauro presents a well thought out summary of his observations and experience using SlideShare as a marketer.

Mauro has embedded no fewer than 8 presentations in his post. He also includes many screenshots of SlideShare community favorites as great examples to illustrate his points.

“Your presentations have to be magnets. They have to grab people’s attention from the start to the end…Think of your presentation like an engine: if one piece is broken, the engine won’t work properly…or won’t work at all!”

Mauro lists what he considers are the 3 most effective types of (marketing) content in SlideShare presentations: 1) Show something shocking 2) Explain useful information 3) Evoke emotions.

You can add Timeliness and Relevance to this list. If there is a current event, product launch or news story that the world is watching, traffic for presentations about that topic will go through the roof, ie. London Summer Olympics, US presidential election, South by Southwest, the passing of Steve Jobs.

Mauro’s article is full of tips like this:

“Let’s say that you want a high ranking for the keyword “landing page optimization.” It’s pretty tough to rank at first place for that keyword. If you make a presentation on SlideShare that is called “10 Easy Steps to Landing Page Optimization,” you will have an easier task.”

We’d like to correct an assumption made in another recent blog post and referenced by Mauro. The “Hot On” sections reflect the traffic and activity of presentations on the various social platforms. But the “Featured” and “Presentation of the Day” presentations are hand-curated every day by the SlideShare editorial team. In order to be featured on the SlideShare home page, keep creating well-designed, useful, relevant presentations. Your content and design will catch the team’s attention.

Mauro also dives into the importance of social sharing. How to build brand awareness, grow your followers, and other how-to topics are included in the article.

What a treat to see so many successful presentations embedded in the KISSmetrics blog post with terrific tips for getting the most out of SlideShare. Do you have any tips to share? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

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Giving thanks and giving back – inspiring organizations that make the world a better place

by Kit Seeborg on November 21, 2012

This week Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day. It’s a time to pause, reflect and be thankful. It’s also a time to share and give back to the community, friends and family that nurture us throughout the year.

Here at SlideShare, we focus a lot of attention on the community that shares so much information, creativity and inspiration. This Thanksgiving we’d like to call attention to a few folks who have recently shared presentations with the goal of empowering people to have an impact in making the world a better place.

Planeta protects communities through responsible tourism
Planeta founder Ron Mader is a communication catalyst, working toward conscious, local responsible, eco travel on the ground and online via Planeta.com. Ron regularly uploads presentations that give visibility to the positive and negative effects of tourism in developing countries.

Ron tirelessly demonstrates that one person can ignite worldwide action to make a difference in people’s lives and their environments. Search SlideShare for “responsible tourism” to find presentations from people and organizations who are working to make tourism a positive experience for communities.

Rally for Impact mobilizes citizen engineers
Entrepreneur Ryan Martens believes that engineers have the ability to change the world. Ryan is the co-founder and CTO of Rally Software, known globally for its leadership in application lifecycle management tools, specifically for agile/lean development teams.

This Fall saw the launch of Rally For Impact, a worldwide effort to mobilize engineers to solve the world toughest problems. Ryan explains how Rally For Impact works, and the need for Citizen Engineers:

Rally for Impact recognizes these “citizen engineers” as

“the connection point between science and society—between pure knowledge and how it is used. Citizen engineers are techno-responsible, environmentally responsible, economically responsible, socially responsible participants in the engineering community.”

Through its partnerships with organizations like Google.org, B Lab, and SalesForce Foundation, Rally For Impact is connecting citizen engineers with experts, product solutions, and educational materials to speed the rate of change in our global society.

frog Design shares its Collective Action Toolkit
frog Design has recently launched the Collective Action Toolkit (CAT), a package of resources and activities that enable groups of people anywhere to collaboratively create solutions for problems impacting their community. Designed to be a “resource for change makers”, the toolkit provides a dynamic framework that integrates knowledge and action. The toolkit emerged from frog’s collaboration with Nike Foundation/Girl Effect.

Inspired by the Girl Effect project, frog went on to create the Collective Action Toolkit to empower groups of change-makers everywhere. The toolkit is downloadable for free.

These are three of the many organizations and initiatives that are making an impact on people’s lives. If your company or organization is doing something to make the world a better place, upload a presentation about it so we can help you spread the word.

Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at SlideShare!

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The eBook is the Stud in Your Content Marketing Stable

by Barry Feldman on November 12, 2012

Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs collaborate annually to produce a heap of research findings they call “B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends.” This year’s report just came out. (Presented on SlideShare here.)

In a section that probes respondents about what they perceive to be their biggest challenges, the top three results were: (1) producing enough content (2) producing content that engages, and (3) lack of budget.

Repurposing quality content helps overcome all these challenges.
If you don’t repurpose your best content, it’s time to start. And if you merely dabble in the practice, you’d be wise to step it up. The top three reasons why align with the challenges above in a big way.

  • More pages, more impressions = more content marketing power.
    Well-planned, well-executed content begs to be repurposed. Examples are plentiful. Here, I’ll offer one super simple one. You published a how-to list. Readers appreciated it. Put it in presentation format—on SlideShare—and it becomes available to millions.

  • More plays.
    The example above includes two popular formats. Care to make it three? Present the content as a webinar. It was a list. Why not publish it on List.ly? Squidoo?

    • Interview someone about your list to record a podcast. You could even get more articles out of it by simply putting some twists on your list…

    Repurpose the do’s into don’ts. Make ‘em questions. Drill down on just one. Construct a top three. Highlight the uncommon ideas as “secrets.” Expand on the best question or comment the article invoked. Storify makes it a snap to gather the social media feedback you received into a story of its own. Did it feature a cool visual? Cha-ching… Pinterest, Facebook, etc. Press release? Infographic?

  • More productivity.
    That was a pretty substantial pile of ideas I just tossed your way and I could go on and on. Even though I’m writing this article to help you understand the power of repurposing content, I can’t stop my mind a-straying into the many things I should probably do to repurpose this article.

    The ideas are already there. If the piece required research or photography or whatever, it’s already been done. This cloning approach leverages the time you’ve invested and makes it incredibly more productive.

Is an eBook a free book?
“eBook” no longer translates strictly to the digital form of a “real” book you buy online.

eBooks are electronic and can really grandfather your content.

Content marketers now commonly offer eBooks (usually for free) and the deliverable might be a collection of articles, a portfolio of some sort, an industry roundup, a collection of stories, or a whitepaper-like tutorial (usually with a more pictorial style).

There are no rigid rules regarding length, presentation, or even content type. For the purpose of this article, an eBook is a free book, a collection of informative and entertaining pages created with the goal of engaging readers seeking to gather expertise in your field.

eBooks make beautiful babies.
Your eBook has reproductive powers. A “stud” is an animal whose job it is to breed great offspring. eBooks are unquestionably studs in your content marketing stable. If you prefer a tamer metaphor, think of the eBook as “cornerstone” content. “Launch” author, Michael Stelzer (founder of Social Media Examiner) dubs eBooks and the like, “nuclear content.” They can—and should—be just that.

If you’re like me and don’t have the resources to create eBooks frequently, the goal is to offer them occasionally. That said, you should plan the eBook to: (1) cover big, wide, important territory that traces to your strengths, and (2) foster a series of “children”—meaning the eBook becomes the father of all kinds of magnetic content.

After creating an eBook that covers a wide swath of an important subject, you can mine sections of it to spawn content, content and more content. Think articles, presentations, webinars, podcasts, videos, infographics, etc. The list is long. Strategic content marketers create eBooks knowing one purpose is to continuously repurpose the content it contains.

Case in point.
If you’ll indulge me, I’ll tell share with you how I’m executing this strategy in my website copywriting business.
My big beast of 2012, my stud, if you will, is an eBook called “21 Pointers to Sharpen Your Website.” I researched, wrote and labored over every detail of the publication for week, okay, months. Why? (1) I wanted it to be a seriously useful guide to optimizing your website and (2) I envisioned leveraging its themes for an entire year.

I succeeded, I think.

The eBook itself has been downloaded and shared thousands of times. It’s my website’s most popular asset. And being that it also presents 21 carefully planned, thematically related subthemes, it’s gradually (er, slowly) becoming 21 blog posts on my site. Many of the posts have been rewritten for other sites and online publications.

One chapter, “Create Magnetic Content,” gave birth to its own family tree with variations including guest posts, a popular SlideShare presentation, a BigMarker webinar, a You Tube video, a List.ly feature, and a Squidoo lens. I might have left a few off this list. And I may not be done expanding it.

You get the idea. “21 Pointers” is my content stud. “Magnetic Content” has made for studly offspring. I haven’t even mentioned the Twitter, LinkedIn and social media implications.

That eBook has made the rounds, inspired readers/viewers to hire and refer me. One of its sires, the “magnetic content” presentation I put together, inspired your SlideShare editor to ask me to write for you here. That’s been a remarkable opportunity to expand my audience, collect new leads, and land new clients.

This is how content marketing is supposed to work.
I suggest you try it. Gather your thoughts. Create and publish an eBook. See what happens. If you want to gather ideas for your eBook, may I suggest SlideShare? If you want some guidance, I’m happy to help. And if you have questions or comments, this SlideShare blog post is meant to be interactive, so type to us.

Barry FeldmanAbout Barry Feldman: After making the rounds in the ad agency business for about a decade, Barry established a freelance copywriting business in 1995. Ever since, he’s partnered with corporate marketing groups, small businesses, ad agencies, and design firms. For over 20 years Barry has worked across a spectrum of product categories for hundreds of companies big and small. Follow Barry on Twitter and SlideShare.

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Kinvey presentation shows the use of mobile during Sandy, one story at a time

by Kit Seeborg on November 9, 2012

Last week, the east cost of the United States experienced the worst storm in its recorded history. As Superstorm Sandy made landfall in one of the world’s most populated areas, a new kind of communication took place. In a slidedeck (embedded below) and accompanying blog post, the team at Kinvey paint a picture of what Kinvey VP of Marketing Joe Chernov calls “the first disaster of the mobile era.”

When the mobile infrastructure didn’t go down, Superstorm Sandy became the first major storm to have a mobile platform for communication. Joe, along with researcher Lauren Pedigo and designer Jake McKibben wanted to find out the role that mobile technology played during the storm. They pulled together their findings into a slide presentation.

The classic question: Where to begin?
An event as huge and destructive as Sandy was sure to contain hundreds if not thousands of stories and scenarios. Where should they start?

Joe recalls, “We had a perspective going in, and we were open to changing that perspective as we researched. We consciously decided to not do a deck about “wow” stats. So we eliminated the stories that weren’t about people. Even ATT and Mobile coming together was about people coming together. So Jake designed the cell towers to look like they’re dancing.“

AT&T and TMobile collaborate during Sandy
As the team researched and compiled information, they needed to be organized while at the same time staying open to the unexpected perspectives that surfaced.

Joe explains, “We decided on categories or else it wouldn’t make it any sense. Then this theme continued to come up: battery life. Some of the most emotional stories were the ones around how people came together to charge their phones. We stayed flexible about the stories that surfaced – that’s how we saw the battery life as a recurring theme.”

Joe goes on to say that the world would never know these more intimate stories if people weren’t “moment sharing” with mobile phones throughout the storm.

The presentation comes together
Jake is an in-house designer at Kinvey, and was given a wide berth for designing the presentation with information and images. His direction was to shed a light on what made the storm an event in time, while visually telling the stories in a way that would stay interesting to the audience.

References to the news media appear as citations. It wasn’t a conscious decision to leave out news media in the slide deck. As the story became more about people’s use of handheld phones, the view became a look from the inside, not from outside observers. In the end the team wanted the deck to be an impressionistic view of the storm.

Joe summarizes, “We want viewers to feel like they’re watching a timeline – to view the whole deck and realize it’s a story about people. Going in like it’s about technology, but at the end find out it’s about people.”

Have you had an interesting or unusual situation that affected your presentation design process? We’d love to hear about it. Please share it in the comments below.

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7 secrets to becoming a SlideShare power user

October 29, 2012

In this article, originally published on LinkedIn Today, Ross Mayfield describes the tactics that help SlideShare power users get that extra edge (and more views.) Using SlideShare to share slides is pretty easy. Being a SlideShare ninja is another thing entirely. In this post (and deck), let me share seven secrets to using SlideShare that [...]

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Transform Your Website Into a Customer Attraction Force Field with Magnetic Content

October 18, 2012

Guest post by Barry Feldman Attention advertising professionals: You won’t be needed any longer. Get your resumes together and get out. We’re web-centric now. You never really fit in that well online and you’re kind of annoying. When I’m online I know what I’m looking for and advertising ain’t it. Harsh. I am (was) an [...]

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