The SlideShare integration into LinkedIn combines two of the most powerful communication tools available to the modern day professional.
Oftentimes the particular nature of services or expertise requires more explanation than a bio paragraph can provide. For situations like these, SlideShare comes to the rescue.
SlideShare is great because presentations provide a level of engagement similar to video, which tends to generate a lot more views, while being comparatively cheap and easy to produce and update. By creating a SlideShare account and linking it via your LinkedIn profile page, you can get your personal branding message across to individuals as they view your profile.
Of course, it’s not just an “upload everything you’ve got” situation we’re talking about here. You need to make sure the presentations you upload to your profile via SlideShare take into account the context of the viewers. Here are three key tips:
1. All About You—Without the You: No one is delivering this presentation, so every concept you communicate needs to carry itself. If you have a deck that you love where punchlines, takeaway points and other concepts require your explanation, then the deck needs to be reworked for this environment.
2. Educate and Inspire: From the title and cover slide (the two things that might motivate a profile viewer to actually peruse the deck) to the contents of the presentation, it has to be more than just self-promotion. This isn’t a billboard for ice cream; it’s free samples. You’re giving people a taste of all you have to offer. So make it useful, and let your credibility be implied.
3. Always Be Closing: Trite but true: even if you’re not present, you need to be driving people to the next step, whatever that may be. If the content is useful and educational enough, you can probably just close by offering a next level of interaction—webinars and websites are obvious progressions for this kind of relationship.
When you take these three tips into account, you should see a step up in the level of engagement when people visit your profile. You’re probably already checking out the “Who’s viewed my profile” link; wouldn’t be nice if you could be closing a portion of those people on taking next steps to engage with you?
Question: How to you utilize your LinkedIn profile page as a second website for yourself or your business?
