SlideShare Review: The Key to Engaging Presentations      

In today’s digital world, businesses constantly seek new ways to stand out from the crowd and reach their target audience. While many marketers focus on social media and blogging, there is one tool that is often overlooked but can be highly effective for content marketing – SlideShare.

This platform allows users to create and share visually appealing presentations, making it ideal for engaging with potential customers and generating leads.

In this article, we’ll discuss how SlideShare can be the key to creating engaging presentations and providing tips on making the most of its features to deliver a powerful and memorable talk.

SlideShare is a platform that provides a hosting service for various types of professional content, including but not limited to presentations, infographics, videos, and documents.

It is owned by Scribd, an American company. Users can upload files in various formats, including PowerPoint, Word, PDF, and OpenDocument, and choose whether to make them public or private.

The content can be viewed on SlideShare itself or mobile devices, and can also be embedded on other websites. Users can rate, comment on, and share uploaded content. Launched in 2006, the service was designed to be similar to YouTube, but for presentations. LinkedIn acquired the company in 2012 and it was later acquired by Scribd in 2020.

According to estimates in 2018, SlideShare has around 80 million unique visitors every month. The website’s main competitors are Powershow.com, Dropbox.com, Prezi.com .

History of SlideShare

SlideShare was founded on October 4, 2006, and its CEO and co-founder, Rashmi Sinha, was recognized as one of the Top 10 Women Influencers in Web 2.0 by FastCompany.

The CTO of SlideShare, Jonathan Boutelle, came up with the initial idea for the website and wrote its first version.

Although originally intended for businesses to share slides, SlideShare has since become a platform for various types of content, including entertainment-focused uploads.

In May 2012, LinkedIn acquired SlideShare for a reported $118.75 million. However, in August 2020, it was announced that Scribd, Inc. had taken over the operations of SlideShare from LinkedIn for an undisclosed amount, with the transition taking place on September 24, 2020.

Slidecast

In July 2007, SlideShare introduced a new feature called “SlideCast,” which allowed users to create web multimedia content using only a ppt file and an mp3.

The name “SlideCast” was coined by Jonathan Boutelle, the CTO of SlideShare, by combining “slide show” and “podcasting.” With SlideCast, users could synchronize PowerPoint, Keynote, or PDF presentations with mp3 audio.

This synchronization process could be initiated by clicking on the “Edit slidecast” link in the editor.

Nonetheless, on February 7, 2014, SlideShare announced its decision to discontinue SlideCast, a feature that allowed users to sync audio recordings with their presentations, effective April 30, 2014. This announcement came less than a year after LinkedIn Corporation acquired SlideShare.

Zipcasts

SlideShare introduced Zipcasts in February 2011, which is a feature that enables presenters to deliver their presentations over the Internet using a social web conferencing system.

With Zipcasts, presenters can broadcast their audio and video feed while driving the presentation, and users can communicate during the presentation using an inbuilt chat function.

What is a SlideShare Presentation?

When we refer to a SlideShare presentation, we are talking about a presentation that is stored on SlideShare.net, a web hosting service for infographics and presentations.

As the world’s largest content-sharing community, SlideShare.net provides an opportunity for presenters to showcase their content to a vast audience of over 80 million monthly visitors.

While PowerPoint may have been a source of frustration in the past, creating a SlideShare presentation doesn’t have to be daunting.

Although the idea of creating a presentation that can effectively engage SlideShare’s vast audience might seem daunting, there are resources such as templates and tools that can aid in developing an appealing presentation without requiring expensive design software or outside contractors.

How is SlideShare Better than its Competitors?

SlideShare offers several advantages over its competitors:

• SlideShare provides an efficient way to acquire knowledge quickly and easily. Its concise and well-presented content, curated by top experts, allows you to learn more effectively by flipping through a SlideShare deck, rather than scrolling through pages of text.

• SlideShare covers a vast range of topics and categories, offering content from experts in diverse fields, such as Google’s Eric Schmidt and the White House.
• With over 18 million uploads in more than 35 categories, SlideShare caters to a wide variety of interests.
• Users can also share their insights through various visual formats such as presentations, infographics, documents, and videos.
• By uploading content on SlideShare, users can reach a targeted audience that is interested in their content.
• Over 80% of SlideShare’s 80 million visitors come through targeted search, which provides creators with opportunities to build their reputation and network with like-minded professionals.

Final Thoughts

SlideShare offers a wealth of features and benefits that make it an indispensable tool for anyone looking to create engaging and impactful presentations. Whether you’re a student, a business professional, or an entrepreneur, SlideShare provides a platform to showcase your ideas and expertise to a vast audience.

With its user-friendly interface, expert-curated content, and powerful analytics and tracking tools, SlideShare makes it easy to create presentations that not only inform but also entertain and inspire. So why settle for dull and uninspiring presentations when you can use SlideShare to create engaging and memorable ones? Start exploring SlideShare today and take your presentations to the next level!