SlideShare is one of the more underrated tools for social media marketers. Or maybe not underrated - it's clear that many professionals are well aware of the platform's benefits and uses - but lesser discussed. While some digital leaders have trumpeted the benefits of SlideShare for some time, it's still seen as something of an add-on, rather than a network in its own right.
In an effort to change this, SlideShare has today announced a new, Pinterest-like feature called 'Clipping' which is designed to help users 'conduct and organize research and learn any topic quickly' via the SlideShare platform. Though, curiously, while building on its features and improving on-platform functionality, SlideShare has also re-branded as 'LinkedIn SlideShare', underlining its ties back to the wider LinkedIn eco-system.
Clipping essentially enables you to save your favorite slides from any LinkedIn SlideShare deck - when you're viewing a presentation, you'll see a new option in the bottom right of the slide which says "Clip Slide":
This enables you to 'clip' individual slides and save them to a 'topic based clipboard', which is essentially a Pinterest board, which you can organize by topic or author.
Once you've saved your clips, you can organize your boards and share them via your social networks - in the official post, LinkedIn SlideShare provides some examples, including Reid Hoffman's "Career Strategy" board and Ann Handley's "Content Marketing Truths" collection.
It's an interesting addition which may provide some additional functionality to the overall LinkedIn SlideShare experience, though I suspect most would prefer to see slides in the wider context of their overall presentation, as opposed to individually. Also, I don't know that I like having to write 'LinkedIn SlideShare', as opposed to just 'SlideShare'.
In an accompanying blog post, LinkedIn SlideShare (there it is again) lays out the case for why they've chosen to add new filtering options, noting that there's now 70 million professionals using the platform monthly, with over '18 million pieces of knowledge' created and share via slide.
"There's so much information at our fingertips today, but it's often hard to separate the good quality content from the noise. With Clipping, research is made easier, and Clipboards are a handy way to keep everything organized by topic."
They've also provided an infographic on the overall growth and evolution of the LinkedIn SlideShare platform, including the note that it is now among the top 100 most visited websites in the world.