Slideshare gets a lot of play for being a powerful tool and very useful resource and rightly so. I have found some tremendous information there and it has served as a nice feather in my cap.
But it is important to remember as a producer and consumer of content that you need to vet what you leave up because it can bite you.
The LinkedIn slideshow I embedded has some useful and interesting information in it but if you look at it from an outsider’s perspective some of those slides are almost useless without narration.
I can guess what the presenter was using them for but I can’t promise that I am coming away with the message they want me to and it is possible that because I am guessing I am coming away with a perspective they prefer I don’t have.
That is why you want to take a hard look at what you publish and leave lying around the net to being discovered because sometimes the best presentation doesn’t translate into other formats as well as you might like.
Thoughts?
Joshua Wilner/A Writer Writes Yeah, I think it just means extra work, creating a separate presentation that can stand alone. Unless Slideshare allows you to narrate a presentation. That’s been on my list to check out, though even if it did, i’d question how many would want to listen on that platform, as opposed to just watch and get the message.
Joshua Wilner/A Writer Writes ilumatechllc A person or entity will not generate revenue now or down the line if the content is junk but the expectation of something of quality having to be free isn’t realistic either.
ilumatechllc I suppose it is a philosophical question. Should you have to pay for the best content? Hard to say sometimes.
DonnaPapacosta Hi Donna. That sounds like it worked out quite nicely. It is had to predict these things and it is often a pleasant surprise to see how some pieces perform.
I think it is important to have some representation in the places our prospects frequent so I see the benefit in having something that we can use, repurposed works well for that.
RobBiesenbach In concept I like that very much. It reminds of a ventriloquist’s dummy, without the man/woman that dummy is just a pile of wood in a box.
But the other side of me says that since we can’t be present all the places we want to be it is important to find a way to provide that presence and something that adds a CTA so that those who need our services will call upon us and not our competition.
Content should always be created in terms of the question, “am I presenting my desired takeaways in a reasonable manner?” But from the other POV, how much can I truly expect to receive when I am not paying?
I sometimes re-purpose slides for use solely on Slideshare. That being said, two years ago I posted a deck for the purpose of sharing it with conference attendees. To my shock, the presentation garnered 18K views in a few months. This didn’t make sense to me, because I knew the slides wouldn’t be that useful without my presence and narration. Go figure!
I subscribe to what Mitch Joel recently said on this topic. If he’s done his job right, people should have no idea what his speech was about just based on the slides. They’re an essential component of the live presentation, but without the presenter they’re meaningless. On the other hand, if they tell the whole story, why should the presenter even show up?
This is why I don’t have anything up on Slideshare. I know I should, but I would have to completely re-do my slide decks to make them meaningful to readers.