As Rand mentioned in his Rewriting the Beginner's Guide post, he and I will be speaking at SMX Social Media next Tuesday and Wednesday. Once again, I will be speaking on the Linkbait panel with my buddies Brent Csutoras and Cameron Olthuis (and with Jane speaking on the Linkbait panel at SMX London in mid-November, it seems that Rand has officially passed the Linkbait panel torch to his employees).
This will be the third time I'll be speaking on a Linkbait panel. The first time I spoke on it, I provided examples of some of our more successful linkbait campaigns, whereas the last time I spoke on the panel (at SES San Jose), I gave the audience an overview of what linkbait is and why it's important. I've been assigned the same topic for this upcoming conference, but I really want to change things up a bit. I'm not a fan of recycling the same presentation, so I want to come up with something fresh and new that the audience will enjoy.
Here's where I seek out the advice of our talented and savvy SEOmoz community. What would you want to learn if you were in the audience during a Linkbait session? What sort of topics do you think I should cover/address? How can I provide both value and entertainment to the attendees? Keep in mind that I only have 15-20 minutes and that Cameron and Brent will likely cover case studies--I just get to present the 101 stuff.
Social media is definitely one of the more fun aspects of SEO and Internet marketing, so I'm really looking forward to this entirely social media-focused conference. The sessions should be novel and exciting, and I want to kick ass and take names as well so that Danny won't see me fail, impose a lifelong SMX ban, and reduce me to presenting about how no, I don't work for Google to my family members in the basement of a Budget Inn.
So yeah, any advice or suggestions are welcome. Before I go, Cam pinged me to mention the Internet Marketers of New York Charity Party, co-sponsored by Best of the Web. The event is Monday, October 15, at the Town Tavern Bar & Grill, from 7-10 pm. It costs $40 to attend the event, but there will be an open bar plus the door donations will go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Rand and I will be attending, as well as a bunch of other talented SEOs, so if you're attending SMX Social Media, I highly recommend attending the event to both donate to a great organization and to network with some of the finest folks in the industry.
By: Rebecca Kelley
What Would You Want to Learn from a Linkbait Panel?
Events
The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
I think that you should explain why a walrus with a bucket is powerful linkbait; using only the medium of interpretive dance.
You know what. Scrap my idea. That's way better.
I am an awful dancer. It all looks interpretive. :P
You and me both. Though, since I'm a dude, I get a little leeway...
We should record an SEOmoz Dance Party for WBF. It would be the most thumbed-down post yet...
NOW that would make a good WBF!!! ha ha ha ha ha.. do us geeks proud!
/puts on corporate hat:
Does the panel have any tips to share for turning a transient linkbait audience into subscribers? (eg. Graywolf turns off his AdBrite ads when a referrer comes from Digg, coz Diggers find ads a turn off)
Is there any value in incorporating a branding, traffic or conversion aspect into a linkbait campaign or should we just think links, links, links?Good luck!
Ooh. Good point.
you're right on target, shor. some questions that would help linkbaiters sell into corporate audiences could include:
1) when selling the value of linkbait to an executive level audience, how do you calculate ROI?
2) if you've done a good job of educating your client, and they're aware that not all links are created equal, how does that effect your ROI calculation?
3) how do you set expectations and communicate to your client if setbacks should occur (i.e. your beautiful linkbait meets the bury brigade)
Top ten ways to become rich as my affiliate?
Howdy Rebecca,
Real general thoughts, but I think thy are worth saying....
1) I would spend zero time on explaining what linkbait is. Zero. This conference is about social media so virtually everyone will know what link baiting is.
2) I think you should be thinking not in the direction of "how can I be informative and useful to the audience?" but rather in the direction of "How can I make Cameron and Brent look sucky and boring?" - note - Cameron and Brent should be thinking the same way.
3) You should wear the mustache
4) I would try to think of 3 concrete ways to help make your content go viral. In other words, alot of time is spent on these panels giving useless examples of things that were succesful. But what are the things that can help create a situation where future linkbait becomes sucessful? I am trying to be serious on this one... Hmmm. Okay, the people attending these events are paying money to learn things. They would likely prefer things they do not know, since there is no real way to gauge what the audience knows, and no real way to gauge what fields they are representing, then the challenge is to find what is universal to every linkbait attempt. I think what is universal to all attempts is "what do you do once you have an idea or a piece of content?" That is the info everyone in the audience can benefit from.
5) I think that everyone on the panel should communicate prior to the event and ensure there are not any majorly common elements to eachothers presentations. And that there is as little overlap as possible.
Okay those are my thoughts, back to my beer on my porch that over looks Waikiki beach :)
One more thing, thanks for asking us! That rocks.
This ones being bugging me - how about the pros and cons of "negative" link bait tactics - such as the series of people that attacked SEOmoz quiz or Rand in the past?
They did gain quite a few links....
Not sure most people want to admit it or not. Negative link baiting is a very popular tactic. Check out some of the most popular post on digg for example
From my own linkbait productions I have learned that what I think is stupid and flimsy tends to be hard core linkbait and the stuff I spend hours over and cleverly craft does not do so well.
My questions would be:
Before you press that submit button, how accurate are you in gauging what will take off and what will flop?
What content has surprised you for its ability to attract links?
What are your personal favourite linkbait productions?
What makes bad linkbait, we always talk about what is good. But what can guarantee a flop?
How far has the concept of linkbait made it into the real world and out of the seo bubble? For example, is it on the radar of a large company's marketing department?
What skills must a great linkbaiter have?
I have a whole bunch more questions or discussion starters, but will save for later.
Good to know you guys are speaking at London SMX, I will be there and will be looking forward to your session.
Agree with Pat - no intro to social... no basic stuff... been done to death.
What I'd really like to see from a social media panel is some analytical formulations on the process of going viral within each system. eg, in digg it takes on average this many diggs within this time frame to reach the sidebar for a subtopic when competition looks like this, and a further x over x time to jump to here and another x in x to go first page. Don't simplify that much mind you, but tackle the heart of the issue - you could base each number you quote on a case study, and converging validity... converges.
Nobody wants to talk this way because it's all so much speculation, and people presume if you're thinking of things algorithmically you're going to try to exploit that algorithm, but that avoidance mindset is usually what makes conference talk so damn boring in the first place.
If the services themselves, the diggs of the world, are all formulating their own algorithms of what 'becoming popular' means within its system, SEOs should be deconstructing those algorithms - that's what we do with SE algos, so of course it's what we ought to be doing with social algos. SEOs are doing this, to be sure, but behind closed doors - because it's actually valuable information. All of the conference SMO talk just seems so far removed from the SEO thought processes that, imho, are inseparable from the field, they seem really detached.
It has its own value I suppose, but I'd much rather see analytical talk about the algos behind each system.
Naoise, I think there's a panel that focuses more on Digg and the other social news sites, so I don't want to step on any toes and talk too much about how many diggs it takes to get on X with X time, etc.
yeah I shouldn't use digg as an example, but that type of talk has been sorely lacking from any social media presentations I've seen. Stumbleupons algo would be more interesting than diggs, and talking about pligg defaults would likely be valuable.
I want to know different strategies you (SEOmoz) takes developing linkbait material in "non-sexy" industries - ie. mortgages, b2b or industrial.
This is the side of linkbait that fascinates me. Someone who can successfully linkbait sites like this is very talented. And by successfully, I mean someone who can create somewhat on-topic linkbait. It's dead easy to create off-topic bait and stick it on a mortgage site. Turning mortgages into something interesting is another matter entirely.
https://www.zillow.com/feedback/MortgageSignup.htm - I think you're going to see some great, on topic, mortgage related viral stuff there.
you are shameless....
You could create an Ajax widgetys thing where you input how much beer you drink in college, what type of beer, and how often. Show how much it would amount to if you hadn't spent it. Make it controlable with sliders. Mix in pictures of houses for the result, show some hillbilly style trailers at the low end and some Donald Trump like mansion at the high end.
How about Mortgages of the rich and famous, show celeb houses, how much they are worth and compare the mortgages amount to other things like how much ity bity town in middle america spends on school book and free lunches.
pull some data on mortgage rates, the actual amount of mortgages, and some other data like population, gross income. Overlay the data in cool graphs, investigate any anomolies hiccups or other points of note. Tie it in with external factors like the depression, WWII, Celine Dion retiring, or what have you.
... next ...
Have you done this before?
I also think a talk about mavens and connectors could be valuable - a la the article on dosh dosh today.
I think it would be great to see you dive into some of the alternative sites to Digg/Reddit/StumbleUpon/Del.icio.us and talk about strategies for targeting those secondary or tertiary level properties. Not that you shouldn't cover those as well, but I think with linkbait, we spend a bit too much time focusing on the big targets and ignore other valuable options.
What sites would you recommend? And isn't this a topic for the Microcommunities session, or no...
You caught me - I'm just trying to get you to do my work for me.
Actually, good call - you should probably stick to those sites where it's most valuable - Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit, Propeller, YouTube, Y! Site of the Day, Techmeme, Slashdot, Fark, big blogs, etc.
Argh, every time I get an email from someone asking me to "Propeller" something, I think "What the hell is that?" and then I realize it's effing Netscape. Way to kill your brand, Netscape!
Maybe sphinn, it seems to be creating a new social media buzz. Yeah, maybe too early for an official comment.
I think that Sphinn is too inward-looking for anyone not working in the sector..
You make an excellent point. Can I retract my statement? haha
That would be my vote as well: Alternative (read as, "smaller niche") sites to Digg/Reddit/etc.
Some in my opinion interesting things to mention:
Types of Linkbait
Where to promote your linkbaits
Linkbait and relevance (of linkbait piece and site's content)
Potential dangers of Linkbait
Ways to calculate the shortterm and longterm ROI of a linkbait
When I first started looking into linkbait, Here are a few of the things I struggled with:
- Where to look for linkbait ideas (besides digg's home page content)
- Do we need to have completely fresh ideas, or are we allowed to re-use content, ideas, images & videos.
- What sites/news mediums help you with you linkbait creation?
- Any tools/resources that are useful on a small budget?
These are awesome questions. While I'll most likely steal them for my presentation, here's some answers I immediately thought of:
1) While linkbait ideas tend to "come to me" rather than me going to look for them, I always go to search engines after I've developed a hint of an idea. I search for the idea in any way I can think of, and if I'm still sure that I can put a new / better spin on an idea that's already been attempted, I go for it.
One recent piece of content I wrote become enormously popular: it was about bad place names. I searched for list of bad place names and I decided that I could be funnier than most of the current offerings, and that I could present my list in a more attractive manner. If I'd found the "bad place names" market to be truly saturated already, I'd probably have tried to think of something else.
You're unlikely to create something that has never been done before. You're far more likely to be able to up the ante on ideas that have been attempted in the past.
2) Most of the highly successful linkbait we've created has cost us nothing. Mental equity has gone into its production; nothing is better than a good idea and awesome presentation.
3) Nothing is worse than linkbait that tries too hard. I was interviewed on a radio show for the linkbait I cite in this comment and the DJ asked me how long it took me to come up with my list and write the comments. It took me no time at all; it was how I spent the last part of my day before going on vacation. Most of the best forms of content, while you may work hard to make them good, will come to you relatively easily.
so my idea of the top ten songs to commit suicide to is a bit of a stretch
How did I miss this comment? Frank, you know as well as I do that that would make the top of Digg in about four hours.
Supposing you (or your company) had no current profile on the big social media sites. What would you start doing - would you build and launch great linkbait first? Or would you concentrate on building profiles for a bit and then start to throw in your own linkbait? Or would you build the cool stuff but get it submitted in other ways?
I have my own opinions about the best ways to get started, but I'm interested in your experiences as you guys have no doubt seen far more people starting out across far more industries and agencies than I have.
Ditto! The thing I kept hearing at San Jose was build your profile, make friends, etc. But suppose you don't have time for that? Is it best to just submit you piece and hope for the best?
Also would like to see suggestions on ideas that wouldn't break brand. We have alot of high end hospitality clients and the idea of appealing to the 13-35 age range masses is beyond their capabilities. And to be perfectly honest, mine too. :)
This would be similar to my question, more specifically;
Where do you find the bloody time to create excellent linkbait, build up a profile via interaction and all the other tasks that make up an SEOs job?
The day really isn't long enough.
Must. Lie. Down.
How about using something like EBay as a linkbaiting tool. There are tons of stunts you can do using EBay. Just a suggestion.
I may have to talk to Neil Patel or Cameron and see if one of the raffle items at the charity event is a one-on-one lesson on linkbait strategies
Hey Rebecca,
Did you mean Tuesday and Wednesday? (first sentance of your post)
Oh, balls. Yes. Yes I did.
Haha love the way you have now edited the post (without it telling us that)...now this poor guy looks like a chump!
Well I can't say it's Monday and Tuesday if those are the wrong days! Grrrrr.... ;)
damn and I had my Monday calendar cleared all for you
Well, you should be doing that anyway!
I articulate has clarified many things to me, thanks
I'm certainly looking forward to your panel Rebecca, as well as having a chance to meet you, Rand and so many other talented SEOs.
I've never been good with gaining popular listings on the major sites (Digg, Reddit, Delicious, etc.) so having some tips on that may be good. A lot of what I've learned is through trial and error... Like, what words will kill your chance of making it popular.
Now, I wasn't able to catch your previous presentations -- but I get linkbait and why it's important. I've also seen some strong examples, so that's not critical to me either.
Last week I wrote about how tired I am of the same old schticks (top ten ways, a list of x, quizzes, contests, etc.). It'd be really cool to get some ideas as to what the next wave of successful taglines would be.
I know that's like asking to share the secret sauce -- but surely there are some things you've seen in action that have been producing under the radar... Right? :)
What I would like to hear about is what types of linkbait are more effective ie: lists, videos, satire articles etc. Also if there were any tools to gauge the effectiveness of a potential title to be successful on social sites. I know there was one called Digg-A-Meter (obviously for digg) but if there were any more, I would see that being useful.
I can't wait to see your Link Bait/Viral Marketing guide.
You should have the attendees make a collabortive link bait. You'd probably have to take the reigns on this one though and just get something simple from them like a topic (ala Whose Line Is It Anyway).
Yeah Rebecca could be the new Drew Carey. (Since Drew became the new Bob Barker) I am sure she would love to have a buzzer. (Am I still too new say that? Hope not...)
I'd like to hear in excruciating detail the "behind the linkbait" story from each of the panelists for:
1. Their first successful linkbait campaign
2. Their most succesful linkbait campaign
Here's some linkbait: You can see my version of #1 on my LocalSEOGuide blog. The post is called "How To Get To The Top of Sphinn on Your First Try".
Hi Rebecca
I will be attending the NY SMX Social Media event and looking forward to this panel. I would love you to cover the following
a. Linkbait through RSS feed aggregation.
b. Successful FaceBook/orkut and other applications or applets as a source of linkbait.
c. Location of the link on the page and its quality.
d. Acceptable paid site reviews as form of viral marketing and linkbaiting.
e. PPC as form of linkbaiting
See ya soon...
Hmm, I can try and talk about some of these (though point C doesn't really have much to do with linkbait per se), but if not then you can always ask your questions to the panelists during the Q&A. Thanks!