A colleague recently asked me for some tips on how to use SlideShare.net to promote his business process engineering presentations (check out his site). I ended up with a cool top 10 list of how to get started with SlideShare.net. I thought I’d share them with you
1) Browse! First thing to do – spend 30 minutes just browsing slide share presentations. See what you like, what works and what doesn’t. There are tons of great examples. If you need a place to start, check out my presentations – some corporate, some personal. http://www.slideshare.net/billycripe
2) Pictures! People are visual – make your slides visual too. Pictures are good.
3) Recycling is a NO NO. Your uploaded presentation SHOULD NEVER be the same one you give live. Your audience is different.
4) It’s All About The Audience. Figure out your target audience – are they immediately viewing your presentation right there or are they going to download the presentation and review it later? Downloaders are typically looking for specific information – make sure it is in the notes, appendix or slides themselves. Deliver as much information AND ‘how to follow up’ info as you can. Immediate viewers are intrigued and want to be edu-tained by your presentation. Hold their attention and tell them a story. People viewing a slide show online are more willing to read and click – so tell a story with images and pictures. More slides are OK.
5) Kill The Animation! Kill your slide transitions and then Kill your “build” slides. Any animation in your slides must go. It doesn’t work online. If you have a build slide – burst it into 3 or 4 (or 10) separate slides, each with the incremental “build” difference. That way, going to the next slide has the effect of “building” the image.
6) Remember Your 5th Grade English Teacher. Remember your literature class from Grade School? It’s important now. Your presentation is a story. It should have an intro, rising action, climax and dénouement.
7) Call To Action. Make sure you have a call to action – contact me, more information etc. Make sure that the call to action is immediately possible! People are more prone to act on a call to action as they are engaged with your presentation. Don’t make them wait to engage you. Have a facebook page with a contact form, a website with a contact form, an click to dial or click to email address set up in your SlideShare profile. MAKE IT EASY for them to reach you.
8) Webify. Make it web-ready. If you’re using Power Point, use the “save as” à “PNG image” à every slide option. Then take the exported images (which will be the exact dimension of your slides) and replace each slide’s content with the PNG image of that slide. This ensures that SlideShare or other services you might be using will render the deck exactly as you see and intend it. It can also help shrink the size of the deck which facilitates downloading.
9) Share! Allow others to download your presentation. This lets them access your content on the go.
10) Promote It! Promote your presentation! Embed it in your blog using the “embed code” that slideshare provides to you. Put it in your website and link to it on your facebook page and linkedIn groups. Tweet it. Put a key image from your deck on your Pinterest board. (what? You aren’t using pinterest for business? You should be!)
BloomThink 