LinkedIn to acquire SlideShare

Acquisitions seem to be on the minds of social media companies these days. Facebook’s billion-dollar purchase of Instagram caused the sector’s spectators to erupt, and now speculation is swirling around other young, photo-driven social media platforms, including Pinterest.

The buzz around ‘visual’ companies has extended into business social media, too: LinkedIn announced late last week that it is acquiring chart and presentation-sharing service SlideShare, a move IROs should pay attention to. 

SlideShare has been something of a darling in the IR community, as it’s one of the few social media platforms directly relevant to this market. IROs can share presentations by posting them to SlideShare and then embedding them on their IR pages, blogs and other sites.

The lack of relevant tools has been an impediment to the use of social media for IR, with SlideShare joining Seeking Alpha and StockTwits as the few that are useful for shareholder communications. LinkedIn, historically, has had some perceived value, and the addition of SlideShare to its portfolio of features should boost the platform’s usefulness to IROs.

What’s the deal?

According to an announcement by LinkedIn, it is acquiring SlideShare for $118.75 mn, 45 percent in cash and the rest in LinkedIn stock. The deal is expected by to close by the end of this quarter. 

SlideShare was founded three years after LinkedIn, in 2006, and has grown to 29 mn monthly users with 9 mn content uploads, according to a SlideShare presentation embedded on both the LinkedIn blog and the SlideShare blog. Of these, 7.4 mn presentations have been embedded from SlideShare onto other websites on 1.4 mn unique domains. 

LinkedIn, meanwhile, boasts 161 mn registered users with 107 mn monthly unique visitors, but this is bound to be inaccurate by the time you read it: two people join LinkedIn every second.

The result of the acquisition is a powerful combination, as LinkedIn users will have access to a broader suite of business social media tools, and SlideShare brings the sort of visual impact that LinkedIn has long lacked. The rise of Pinterest and Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram show that users are focusing more on images in social media use. 

How can it help you?

It seems intuitive that the addition of a favorite IRO community to LinkedIn would stimulate more overall activity on the giant business social network. At this stage, however, the full implications remain to be seen. 

‘This is a really smart deal that seems all about leveraging the network effect of social media: the more connections, the more content, the greater the network’s value to all parties,’ notes David Collins, managing director of the Catalyst Group.

Before the acquisition, he says, LinkedIn was ‘a great source for networking with people, but not an effective tool for marketing or exposing IR stories.’

With SlideShare now in its portfolio, ‘it seems that may change,’ Collins adds. Depending on how the integration of SlideShare goes, the move ‘should make LinkedIn a more viable platform for investor relations, as it will allow enterprises to beef up their profiles with SlideShare content.’ 

Yet the acquisition and integration of SlideShare isn’t a ‘sure thing’ for increased use. Neil Glassman, principal marketing strategist at WhizBangPowWow, says the acquisition doesn’t make him more likely to use the product, although it could have this effect on other users.

What would get him hooked, though, is better audio functionality in SlideShare. ‘I would love to have SlideShare make it easier to integrate audio commentary with the slide presentations so that they are more ‘self-service’,’ he says.

And what happens to those who like SlideShare as it is? IROs who have embraced SlideShare do not need to worry about changes to the solution, according to SlideShare CEO Rashmi Sinha in a blog post. ‘The SlideShare you have come to know and love will remain a place where you can continue to upload, share and find presentations that help you grow professionally,’ he says.