A few years ago, we had one of our staff collect facts and figures about mobile marketing in preparation for the publication of Go Mobile, the book I co-authored with Jeanne Hopkins, who was Vice President of Marketing at HubSpot at the time.
My intent was to have a collection of facts that Jeanne and I could have at our fingertips when we were interviewed for podcasts, blogs, radio programs and CNN, which was calling me on a regular basis at the time.
A few weeks after collecting the facts and figures, we realized we could use them in a SlideShare deck that could be uploaded to promote the book. So, we set about designing the deck so that it stood out and grabbed people’s attention.
Here’s an example of one of the SlideShare slides:
It didn’t take long before we realized that we had something on our hands. Within a few days, we had over 10,000 views. A few days after that, we had over 20,000 views. And a few days after that, we were up past 50,000 views.
But that was just the beginning. Within a few weeks, the deck had been shared over 100,000 times, promoting both the book and HubSpot to an increasingly large audience.
After about a month, we figured we had reached our peak and were very happy with the results. But the results kept pouring in. So much so that after about 6 months we had over 100,000 views. (Ultimately, the deck had over 180,000 views.)
You’d think that I would have been happy with 182,000 views and would leave well-enough alone. But then, about 9 months ago, I decided to upload the deck again on my own SlideShare page. It was one of those simple, little random thoughts I had one day — “I wonder what would happen if I uploaded that same deck to SlideShare again?”
Much to my surprise, when I uploaded the deck to my own SlideShare page, I saw the same kind of results. After a few days, I was up to 10,000 views. A few days after that, I was up to 20,000 views. And a few days after that, I was past 50,000 views.
I know, I know. It’s crazy, but by the end, I had 99,072 views from the same deck on a different SlideShare page. The total number of views was 281,447.
For comparison purposes, if I were to send a direct mail postcard out to 281,447 people with information about Go Mobile, it might cost between $40,000 to $60,000 to do so (when you include printing, creative, postage and the list).
In other words, by leveraging the power of SlideShare, I (arguably) saved myself $40,000 to $60,000 in promotion costs. Pretty amazing, eh?
All this got me to thinking — what are the elements of a successful SlideShare deck? In other words, what were the things that made our SlideShare deck go viral — twice. Here’s what my analysis told me.
The 5 Qualities of a Successful SlideShare Deck.
- They’re Topical: Our deck caught the mobile craze right at the beginning and then again after mobile had lifted off but was still going haywire.
- They’re Definitive: I see plenty of decks that have titles like “5 Tips for SEO” and “7 Ways to Improve Email Marketing Results” but they only get a few hundred views. If you’re going to spend the time doing this, go big — come up with 50 ways to do something, not 5 or 7.
- They’re Useful: There are two things people are looking for in a SlideShare deck — information and action steps. Our deck was big on information. Other successful decks provide step-by-step action steps on how to do something. Make sure yours fall into one of the two categories.
- They’re Promotable: When you’ve created a topical, definitive, useful deck, you can execute the fourth quality of a successful SlideShare deck — it’s promotable. And by that, I mean that you can feel safe and comfortable blogging about it (like I’m doing here), sending it to clients via email (which I’ve done for 60 Second Communications, my agency), and promoting it on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest.
- They’re Visual: Graphics are growing more and more important when it comes to marketing. After all, nobody has time to read anymore, they simply scan, just like you probably did with this post. If you spend some time designing your SlideShare deck to be graphically enticing, you’ll increase the odds of it going viral.
Those are my thoughts on how to make a SlideShare deck go viral. I’d be interested in your thoughts, too. What are your tips and techniques? Let us know in the comments section below.
Oh, and in case you’re curious, here’s the SlideShare deck referenced in this post.
Jamie Turner is the CEO of the 60 Second Marketer and 60 Second Communications, a marketing communications agency that works with national and international brands. He is the co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile” and is a popular marketing speaker at events, trade shows and corporations around the globe.