What is Linkbait?

For those who are familiar with ProspectMX and linkbait, it’s no surprise that link bait and link baiting is a strong marketing tool used to attract new website visitors and more importantly, backlinks for greater rankings on search engines. But the more important question is, what is a successful piece of linkbait?

The good news is that there are several types of linkbait that can be deemed successful. First, like any marketing campaign, you have to know your target audience for the company, product or service you wish to promote. Any marketer or link baiter knows this is a critical element for the overall success of the campaign being put into action. Once you have your target audience down to a science, you can then determine which type or piece of link bait is most relevant to your audience.

Once you decide who to target, the fun part begins. It is now time to decide which form of linkbait is best for your website. Listed below are some of the most modern forms of linkbait flowing through the internet today.

• Useful Web Based Tools/Software
• Lists of Valuable Resources
• Interesting Infographics
• WordPress Themes/Plug-ins
• Widgets
• Just About Anything Funny (Videos, blog post, etc.)
• Press Releases
• Contests

Once you have created your linkbait master piece it is time to market it through the right channels. Remember when we found our target audience, well here is where it makes life a bit easier. Most linkbait ideas are always Digg and StumbleUpon worthy especially if it is funny or controversial. These sites allow you to display your linkbait in front of millions of viewers where it either goes viral or just gets a few hits. You can also market the piece on your social media outlets, broadcasting it to all your Fans and Followers. Other types of linkbait such as blog posts and press releases are useful as well to help with web traffic, rankings and online presence. If submitting press releases online, a few well noted ones are:

• I-newswire
• PRLog.com
• Pressreleasepoint.com
• PRWeb.com (Paid)

How do you tell if your linkbait is working?

If you are using Digg and StumbleUpon to market your linkbait, they provide a system that tallies up how many viewers were interested in your linkbait. The more Diggs or Thumbs Up you receive the more interesting your viewers find your linkbait. If you are using blog posts and press releases to announce your linkbait, your best bet is to use a web tracking service. Google provides this for free, it is called Google Analytics. Within this tracking system you can tell exactly where your website visitors are coming from. You can also track individual URLs (the exact URL that your blog post or press release was listed on) and view how many people are coming from those sites.

Example of a Successful Linkbait Campaign

One example of a successful linkbait campaign was performed by Red Bull, a company well known throughout the Western and European countries for their energy drinks. The company has built their website upon a strong foundation of linkbait. Their target audience is adrenaline junkies who thrive on high risk sports.

One of their most popular contests was the Flúgtag, or in English, Airshow. It was an event where a bunch of idiots decide to launch something off of a pier 30ft over a reservoir of water. What makes this contest so fun to watch is the fact that most participants create flying contraptions that rarely fly at all, and plummet the moment they are pushed off the pier. Once these flights are filmed they immediately become linkbait on the internet and are posted everywhere.

Contests are just a scratch in the selection of linkbait ideas available out there, as you saw when reviewing the “Types of Linkbait” above. But, since Redbull has such a well known brand there may not always need a backlink. All they need to do is advertise their logo, which encourages viewers to go to the website to see more.

Conclusion

So, the result? Any piece of linkbait can be successful as long as you know your target audience, gear the piece to them, and market it well. If you want a jump start with your linkbait piece, check out StumbleUpon for some starter ideas to get the juices flowing. Also, more brains are better than one, so call in some friends or co-workers to discuss creative ideas. It is important to remember that linkbait can be implemented into a project at any time during your products life cycle. It just depends on the form of linkbait you wish to implement.

In the spirit of Halloween, I would like to take this time to talk about a potential trick that was pulled on all of us recently.

As anyone in the internet world will tell you, it is difficult to make something ‘viral’ in today’s online media world. The one thing required to make something viral is that it needs to be something that, when viewed, inspires the viewer to pass it along to everyone they know, invite people around their desk to watch it, or tweet/retweet it.

And that’s not an easy task.

Today’s savvy internet user is fairly unshockable.  There is little you can do (and keep it PG-rated) that will create ANY kind of shock, interest, or humor.  That makes it relatively hard for a big company like Microsoft (who already has a perceived image) to create a promotional campaign/video.  What can they possibly do, then?

Let’s fast forward to right before the launch of Microsoft’s newest OS, Windows 7.  They of course needed to market it after the dismal Windows Vista release, so they decided on a (let’s sarcastically say) brilliant ad campaign where users would host Windows 7 launch parties.

Essentially, a person could decide that they liked Windows enough that they would go online, sign tons of paperwork and become an official launch party host.  They could then recruit all their friends to come (using an overly complicated invitation system that discouraged people from actually using the official way) and sit around and… install Windows 7.

But that’s not all.  If you had enough people you could potentially get a Windows 7 box signed by Steve Ballmer.  Don’t even check eBay, because I’m sure no one would want to part with that gem.

I realize that I may not be explaining this process very clearly. So Microsoft, in their eternal wisdom, made a video that explains the whole process.  Please enjoy below.

Now… I’m going to assume you watched it and that you have the sensibilities and intelligence of a moderately intelligent human being.  What the heck was that?!?!  Awful, awful, awful.  I mean really… it’s embarrassing.  On every single front.  Acting, video, writing, sound quality… was this really produced by a multi billion dollar company?Why, this video is so BAD that I am inspired to forward it to all my friends and laugh at it…

Oh wait.  They got me.  Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but this one has to make you wonder. Did Microsoft intentionally make one of the worst, lamest, milquetoast videos to play right into the lame-o image that Apple created for them?  My gut says no, they aren’t that smart.  But at the same time, it makes me wonder.

If the goal of the video was exposure and publicity, it worked.  The video has been viewed millions of times.  It has been laughed at and mocked, it has been spoofed and goofed.  It’s an embarrassment.  Again, I don’t think they meant to, but Microsoft made one of the most talked about viral videos of the year by making themselves the brunt of the joke.  Congrats.  They did it.

But at what cost?

So, today the boys had a “Jammie Day”. These are days when my wife, Jodi let’s the boys stay in their jammies all day while they play games and stuff. They had a pretty healthy lunch and Jodi was away for dinner.

Well, my boys are rather picky and they weren’t in the mood for anything for dinner. So, I decided to get their attention and tell them that we were going to make the best sandwich EVER.

They got all excited about what it was going to be and will remember it forever. Here’s the video.

The “Toasted Triple Decker Peanut Butter, Jelly and Fruitloop Sandwich” is a remarkable thing for my boys.

What are you going to do with your website that’s remarkable enough to get your potential customers and/or link partners excited about what you have to offer and remember it forever?

I received in the mail one of the most remarkable direct mail pieces ever (Photo thanks to BruceClay.com – Virginia Nussey talked about it here) via FedEx this week. I opened the package and pulled out a very professional package of chocolate covered grasshoppers.

The first thing I said to myself was, “Are these SERIOUSLY chocolate covered grasshoppers?”

And then I read in fine print at the bottom of the package:

*Yes, these are real grasshoppers. They are even approved by the FDA of Thailand.

Brilliant. I didn’t have any idea what it was… but that alone made me look into it further.

A tag attached to the grasshoppers said, “Entrepreneurs can change the world. Join the movement now!”

Now I’m intrigued.

So, I went to their site and it looks like they are compiling entrepreneurs together and offering some discounts on services… but in the end, they are promoting telecommunication services of some type.

Here’s the lesson… To start something viral… it needs to be worthy of being viral. Business owners talk to us everyday about how they want to do these viral campaigns, but they often want to do things so lame, that nobody really cares. So, take a lesson from the grasshopper guys (and possibly gals, too)… and do something worth talking about in your next viral marketing campaign.

Oh… I brought the package home and had my kids eat them. That’s what the video above’s all about. I know it’s a bit long… sorry.

Jodi (my wife) asked me tonight if there were any new pictures from the breeder we’re purchasing our dog from. The dog was born on New Years Eve and we are picking him up in February, so we like to get photo updates.

So, to be funny, I googled “world’s ugliest dog“… and BAM!

The reaction was great.

There are just SO MANY ways to build links… I just may have to do a “World’s Ugliest [whatever]” contest…

What “worlds ugliest” ideas do you have that could generate links for your site?