Why Microsoft Couldn't Make the LinkedIn-SlideShare Merger Work Out and What It Says About Its Advertising Business

It’s news time! Come December 1, 2020, SlideShare, the leading online presentation and business document sharing platform, will be run by Scribd, the world’s leading open publishing platform with a repository of millions of e-books, audiobooks, magazines and documents. The merger comes as leading online professional networking service LinkedIn sold SlideShare to Scribd at an undisclosed amount.

 

 

Now, it may not be the hush-hush financial terms of the deal that have set the business world abuzz, but the why of the move, since LinkedIn had acquired SlideShare with much fanfare and tech media attention in May 2012 for a decent $119 million. And at that time, business gurus had hailed the move to be of tremendous benefit to LinkedIn community. And why wouldn’t they? SlideShare, a presentation slides hosting website with over 80 million users, would be a goldmine of traffic. In fact, the monthly user base of over 50 million and engagement running in a billion views, would have only meant an upward trajectory for the alliance. And after Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in 2016, the notion gathered more weight.

 

Yet, something didn’t work for the recipe. And now SlideShare, a curious case of untapped potential with LinkedIn, is going to be a part of Scribd, the world’s premier digital library that aims to change the way the modern human reads books, articles and magazines. In this blog, we take a glance at the key aspects of each merger for SlideShare, what went wrong, what could go right and what will. Read on.

 

Where LinkedIn missed the mark

 

From a merger that made headlines to selling SlideShare after a span of eight years, LinkedIn seems to have perfectly struck an imperfect chord. Both platforms had a common goal, to bring professionals around the world from over 200 countries together to connect and share resources. Pretty fair that the deal would have made sense to the social media presence of LinkedIn looking at the expansive community network at SlideShare! Over 7 million presentations, videos and business documents to explore, no wonder tech circles were quoting it as a match made in heaven. And why wouldn’t they? The SlideShare platform had followers from huge names in tech businesses too. So how did the deal not last long? Here are some possibilities.

 

#1 Metrics didn’t get a boost

Inherently, SlideShare is a business content sharing platform. But functionally, it is also a brilliant marketing tool as well. For instance, when Framebench, an online collaborative platform for teams to share and discuss digital business content like presentations and documents, was in two minds about how to market the business, they turned to the simplest option — SlideShare. The website, having more outreach for business than Facebook and YouTube, gave the Chennai and California based startup the traction that got them 500 signups in three days. Now, that may be miniscule against the current metrics standards, but it set the ball rolling for Framebench, which has featured as a SlideShare success story.

 

But the reason why this example is worth mentioning here is because SlideShare took care of content distribution for Framebench. And evidently, the website is used by professionals and experts to get that wider audience and visibility. However, for LinkedIn, acquiring SlideShare, a standalone free service where the content creators and viewers just did the basic thing: viewing and leaving, may not have led to a significant number of signups. The loads and loads of traffic that SlideShare had garnered throughout its operation did well on its own. LinkedIn hosting the website while growing on its own may not have been a fair deal.

 

#2 Ad revenue failed to move much

Another primary motive for acquiring SlideShare was to generate revenue from placing advertisements alongside the content. It would make sense, given that recent statistics put online traffic figures for the website at close to 100 million monthly visitors, which, considering 2 page views per visitor, translates to 200 million page views a month. But as process would have it, such huge traffic failed to translate into considerable ad revenue for Microsoft (revenue with ad placement barely garnering cents per click). Moreover, even targeted ads seemed to have failed to materialize into something that a user on SlideShare would click on to buy something when the sole purpose for them got fulfilled by just viewing the slides they wanted to. Where isn’t profit, there isn’t much to work with, is there?

 

 

#3 True integration stayed MIA

Another reason why the association might have tanked is because LinkedIn never went above and beyond the hosting of SlideShare (and putting the logo as ‘LinkedIn SlideShare’, which is back to its original format). LinkedIn failed to give its 700 million plus users a chance to enhance their skillset with the way of integrating SlideShare content. The amalgam would have worked for the professional networks if there had been some innovation with which SlideShare had figured into the peer-to-peer content sharing and discussion on LinkedIn.

 

There wasn’t much that LinkedIn did with SlideShare, except for branding and initiating the extra signup option for its site. There wasn’t much marketing to be done with SlideShare to begin with, as the user intent stayed on their queries and what they wanted to view on a presentation prepared by experts with insights.

 

#4 Presentation content vertical performed well independently

As of a recent observation on website ranking and analytics platform Alexa, one can find SlideShare to be in the top 100-200 websites. The rank means SlideShare gets pretty chunky website traffic due to authentic and organic networking of content creators and consumers. In fact, such is the pull of the platform that it is the first choice of marketing enthusiasts and professionals alike, more so than Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn put together. By those comparisons, one can easily see that the content sharing vertical from SlideShare would have done little for LinkedIn growth altogether.

 

Around 20% of organic searches from Google land you on SlideShare for professional content. So if we are putting that against what LinkedIn has been able to attract, SlideShare let people get in touch with the right audience through professional content. With over 18 million visual content and infographics, SlideShare grabbed more eyeballs and, thus, performed well on its own. There was little that LinkedIn could “tap into” when SlideShare, the silent giant, was already at work.

 

What could LinkedIn have done differently

 

With SlideShare onboard for over eight years, LinkedIn may have missed out on a good opportunity to do something revolutionary with the platform. In fact, both companies were claiming to share a common vision for connecting professionals. However, the difference remained that LinkedIn’s focus primarily stayed on networking and sharing of ideas, while SlideShare drove users and researchers with content crafted by experts.  The opportunity before LinkedIn was enormous. Here’s what it could have done with it.

 

• Creating a presentation for portfolio: This one may have been tricky but it does align perfectly with the professional skill building that job seekers look for while signing up to LinkedIn. LinkedIn could have used a “create portfolio presentation” utility and let the users post it to SlideShare community. A digital walkthrough guide to creating a presentation (with facts about how one can grab more eyeballs with it) would have been an engaging way to seal the deal. Number of views and interest metrics could also be indicated to keep SlideShare’s gears in motion.

 

• Let users stream presentations on their profile: Visibility is a key factor in getting more traction. The fact that online users find their questions answered on a niche platform like SlideShare means a good opportunity to get things moving for a business. LinkedIn could have used SlideShare to stream presentations by a particular profile on a specific topic. Besides, the website could also have used the feature to highlight the “streams of the day” to enhance user engagement with business profiles.

 

• Skill generation through popular presentations: Not discounting LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com), a subsidiary of LinkedIn focused on skill development through online video tutorials, the professional networking website could have used feature methodologies to put SlideShare presentations in focus. The company could have used the website content and make it more engaging with the help of labels like “trending” or “most popular”.

 

• Useful presentations in news feed: Since much of the traffic to SlideShare content is through the search feature, LinkedIn could have targeted user queries and devised a diverse news feed for its users tailored as per their interests. This way, the basic notion of connecting professionals will become more conducive as the suggestions will be according to what LinkedIn users want to learn.

 

What’s in it for Scribd?

 

The pivotal question! Scribd, the online publishing platform hosting over 60 million documents including audiobooks, e-books, comics and magazines, aims to transform the way digital reading works. In fact, Scribd founder and CEO Trip Adler has quoted it as a step towards creating the world’s largest digital library. And while Scribd works on a subscription-based business model allowing users to access content at up to $12.99 fee, one must wonder how the deal for SlideShare, a free service, adds to the mix. Here’s why we called it a merger with possibilities.

 

 

• Content: With SlideShare, Scribd will be adding another facet to its already rich and assorted library — presentations, over 40 million of them actually! The fact that both platforms have professional user-generated content as the driving force can be hoped to escalate the utility and diversification of user base. Although as per the information available till now, Scribd will take over the site and user accounts, but SlideShare will continue with its free presentation and video hosting service for the users on the website and the app.

 

• Audience: We have covered how massive the website traffic to SlideShare is, thanks to backlinking, sharing and embedding, so for Scribd, which in Alexa terms ranks just a few spots below it, has an opportunity to leverage the audience that will come its way. The challenge will be to successfully integrate SlideShare functionalities with Scribd way of making content (both premium and user-generated) accessible to its users.

 

• Tools: Besides the content and massive audience, Scribd is also set to gain from the tools used by SlideShare, which may pave the way to better content viewing and management options. Though Scribd CEO Trip Adler has been quoted saying that for the time being SlideShare will stay integrated with LinkedIn due to technological confluences, the transition phase (and thereafter) will be handled by existing Scribd employees.

 

• Business intelligence: Acquiring SlideShare will make better sense for Scribd as it will lead to better integration between content and users. We are talking specific features for Scribd subscribers like voiceover capabilities for presentations, personalized recommendations of related documents, website APIs (application programming interface) and so on and so forth. Besides, those looking for tools to research and gain insights into a specific industry topic can also check out these resources on Scribd.

 

So in conclusion, one can see how SlideShare has been a remarkable online ecosystem, though anything revolutionary may not have come up from its long association with Microsoft-LinkedIn. As for its new beginnings, we will always be on the edge of our seats, listening with intent to what harmonies will keep professionals, students and researchers hooked to the Scribd-SlideShare duet.