You may not look at you or your business this way, but you're a content creator.

Think about it: it's likely that your company produces a variety of customer stories, product tutorials, decks and white papers. Your employees are creating presentations and sales pitches. Today this content may be shared in meetings, at conferences, via email, or posted to your website, but are you casting a wider net to get this content in the hands of prospects who may not know about your business or services?

One way to extend the reach of your content is by using a presentation-sharing website such as Slideshare. Slideshare allows businesses to create a custom page where they can upload, tag and drive traffic to their content.  While traditional channels like email and in-person events still play a big role, placing your content on social channels will provide a few advantages:

• Gives your content an extended life and increases its discoverability. Tweet this!
• Encourages comments and discussion about your content. This lets your brand engage in a conversation and connect with customers and prospects. Tweet this!
• Your content will be easily shareable via sites like Twitter, Facebook, email and embeddable on blogs. Tweet this!
• Creates a new avenue to collect leads from your content (available to Pro customers).

Here's what you need to think about when posting content to Slideshare:

• Make sure the author has given you the rights to the content, all images and logos in the deck.
• Clean up the slides to remove complex fonts which may slow down the slideshow loading time. Tweet this! 
• Think about adding a simple graphical intro slide to an otherwise traditional white paper- it will make it much more appealing and increase clicks. Tweet this!
• Include a link to your company's website in the description and footer to drive traffic back to your business. Tweet this!

For more tips and an in-depth look at how we use Slideshare at Salesforce.com as part of our social and content strategy, read this recent case study. 

The recent news that Slideshare intends to join the LinkedIn family came as welcome news. After all, what makes better sense than connecting content creators-- businesses, as well as experts -- to professionals who are looking to stay up to date on trends and information? We're excited about the potential.

Stay tuned for the next installment on Slideshare For Professionals.