I constantly hear about how wonderful social networking is for building links. So much so, many SEOs state it has become their main method. Are you serious? Really? I’m not saying these links are useless, but is it really enough to warrant this type of frenzy? I’m not so sure.
Let’s list off the types of social sites before we get too far because I don’t feel all are created equal:
Social Bookmarking Sites — Sites like Delicious, Blinklist, and Diigo.
Content Popularity/Voting Sites — These include places like Sphinn, Digg, Mixx, and Tip’d.
Sharing Sites/Communities — Facebook and MySpace are prime examples here.
Hot News Sites — Like Digg, but focuses on news items like Newsvine or Yahoo! Buzz
Microblogging – Plurk and Twitter, Tumblr, etc.
Music/Video Sharing — Last.fm, Blip.fm, YouTube, Viddler, and so on.
Blogs — SEOmoz, Mashable, TechCrunch, etc
Forums — Huomah Dojo, WebMasterWorld, etc
In short, I define social media sites as any online location that allows users to share and interact with each other while sharing or creating content.
Why You Shouldn’t Be Using Social Networking Sites For Link Building
To be really blunt, with the exception of properly managed blogs, I find them worthless for many reasons. Time and the return on the investment is the biggest thing. You’ll spend more time playing around submitting a link to all these places than you will gain in link worth. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t encourage this or submit your site yourself if it’s an important post, but it shouldn’t be a main linking method.
Why do I say this? One of the biggest determining factors of link value is the number of links on a page. The more outgoing links there are, the less link juice there is to go around and the weaker each of the links will be overall. In my opinion, this makes highly sought after ‘dofollow’ links irrelevant. After all, if there isn’t much juice to go around, it isn’t going to matter much whether it’s transferred or not. I have the same opinion of directories, article marketing, and mass press release distribution, but that’s a post all on its own.
Authority is another element. Are social sites like this considered to trustworthy and authoritative? Well, anyone can submit links to them, so I can’t see them having any sort of authoritative value. How it reflects on your or your client’s site should also be considered. If you’re spamming every available social network daily with tons of links back to your site, eventually people are going to know your site for that and those social links will lose their marketing value. Besides, these types of links show up so rarely in the SERPs, they aren’t that valuable in that regard anyway.
Lastly, consider the decomposition of the link itself. While I have no way to prove it, it makes sense that these would degrade fairly quickly because there is little content or value there to maintain it. You’d be much better using content or some other method to build links to a website.
Where the Value Of Social Networks Is Really At
I truly believe social media has a huge benefit for many businesses, but it isn’t the link building tool many people seem to think it is. It has marketing value. Social networks help:
make sales
build brands
interact with customers
improve personal connections
provide customer service
expand the site’s reach
and many more benefits not possible with any other medium.
These sites do generate links, however. It’s just not the immediate link most people associate with social networks. As I mentioned, these sites have more marketing value than actual link value. So, as the link gets seen by more and more people it creates a buzz around the content and encourages others to link to you.
This is where the value is: secondary links. And I am willing to bet these links would have more value than those added to various social media sites and not require the time spent submitting links to tons of sites.
I’ve gotten into a number of interesting conversations lately about what exactly is spam, and interestingly, it depends on who you’re talking to. Well, except when we’re talking about Monty Python, but that’s a whole different subject.
According to Wikipedia
Well, I don’t normally use Wikipedia, but considering it’s made by users, I thought it would be a good start. They say:
“Spam is the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.”
“Spam is unsolicited e-mail on the Internet. From the sender’s point-of-view, it’s a form of bulk mail, often to a list culled from subscribers to a Usenet discussion group or obtained by companies that specialize in creating e-mail distribution lists”
Well, they’re not much help are they? I mean, spam has grown to become way more than just email, and what do they mean by unsolicited anyway? I mean, if I search for a term and get a bunch of spam in the results, I *technically* am asking for it. And if I sign up for a newsletter, am I *really* asking for all of them or just some of them? What about the company Christmas message? When I signed up, I didn’t say I want X of newsletters and the company Christmas drivel!
“Sent to a person who has not specifically requested to receive communications from the sender and with whom the sender does not have a prior business or personal relationship, or to a person who has previously requested not to receive communications from the sender (ie, has opted out).”
Well, we often interact with new people and businesses all the time, and I’d like to think that’s a good thing.
Spammers are EVERYWHERE!
We all complain about it. We all hate it. We all find it a huge pain in the butt. But, there’s a lot more people out there spamming than you think. This doesn’t mean they all spam in the same manner or using the same tactics, but many of them do it in one way or another. It could be spamming Twitter, dropping links everywhere, hitting the SERPs, or blogs.
So, in short, while it annoys the heck out of everyone, we still use it! One person who works online stated they made more spamming than they did fighting it. That’s definitely telling us something!
Plain and simple: It works. People still click on the links, they still buy through it, and it still generates links and keeps sites at the top of the SERPs. Sucks doesn’t it? It’s no industry secret either. Heck, even Matt Cutts and the Spam Team know who sees the spam and who puts it there.
So, my question is this: if it’s working, people are buying through it, and Web peeps are still using it to market their sites, is it really spam?
In all honesty, as much as I hate fighting it off, I think too many of us have become overly familiar with the virtual world around us. Spam bothers us more because we’re dealing with it all day long whereas regular users see it no differently than any other advertisement out there.
Does this mean everyone should spam or that I’m recommending it as a marketing method? Absolutely not. Should we stop fighting it? Don’t be absurd. That would cause pure and utter chaos, but the current situation definitely makes me look at the current web a little differently.
I truly believe that, unless Google and the other SEs change their algos to something that’s content based rather than link based, we’ll continue to see the world of spam thrive and website owners continue to fill their pockets with the rewards.
Link building might be a necessary step, but very few of us like doing it. It’s boring. It’s monotonous. It gets aggravating, but I figure the best way to get over it and actually enjoy the work is to concentrate on two things: diversification and creativity.
Diversification is important for more than just maintaining your sanity too. It stops you from making a huge mistake. Consider, for example, if Google outright ignored links from directories. Would your site’s rankings survive? What if Google said they no longer counted links from article marketing and press releases?
I’m not saying they are or aren’t counting them right now or how much weight these types of links carry. That, my friends, is a debate for a different day. My point is to get you to consider what your link profile looks like and whatsort of audience they’re reaching.
There are several different types of links to consider:
Generic Link Building – These include the straight link generation with very little to no content involved. Directories and social profiles are a good example.
Content Link Generation – This type of link building involves mass written content and often involves distribution. Article marketing, press releases, advertorials, blogs, and reviews, for example.
Social Media Link Building – To be perfectly honest, I see these as being more about traffic than actual links, but I’ll included it here regardless. These involve social bookmarking sites, Twitter, Facebook, and other similar formats.
Alternative Media Link Generation – This is the creation of videos, podcasts, widgets, and apps, all of which link back to your main website.
Audience Generated Links – Online quizzes, contests, and link bait all fall into this category. These tactics encourage others to share your content and link back to you for various reasons.
Content and Media Placement – Instead of buying thousands of dollars worth of links, this type of link building involves a much higher investment into the actual content. This content is then placed on authority sites in an effort to gain permanent, high quality links.
Link Networking and Feeder Sites – Creating networks of different sites that all link back to your main site.
How you choose to use these methods and what ratios you choose are totally up to you and should depend specifically on your audience. After all, if you’re going to build links, you may as well generate some interest and traffic with it, right?
Ask Kalena tells Excel fanatics how to track links using a series of worksheets. While this might not be the best for everyone, I think it gives us a great starting point and the system can be easily manipulated to match your particular tastes and needs.
Again, this content is a bit older, but I think the ideas and tips covered here are worth a read, even if you’ve already seen it. BruceClay also covered this topic, but has a slightly different version than Marketing Pilgrim you might find interesting. (I’m pretty sure there was an ‘Ask the Link Builder’ session at SMX 2010, but didn’t happen to see it online. If it is around somewhere, I’d be more than happy to add the link here, and would be interested to see it.)
Over on David Naylor’s blog, Paul Carpenter left a great post on link building, but I particularly like it’s focus on quality content (surprise, surprise ). These points aren’t deep secrets of professional link builders, but I think they’re vital for good link building and helping to build your site’s authority. Definitely a huge bonus! (David also has 10 Link Building Tips that are worth checking out while you’re there.)
In this post, Link Spiel’s Debra Mastaler gives a really good example of how to come up with content that should do well in terms of encouraging linking. It also gives some good ideas on how to promote and use that content for link generation. A lot can be taken out of this article for those who are willing to apply the lessons covered here.
This time, it’s the Wordstream Team with some interesting thoughts on link generation. And while I could care less about PageRank, it does a really good job of covering the basics as well as some great links on the topic of PageRank that are worth checking out.
The link queen, Debra Mastaler, covered a number of Twitter tools and techniques you’ll be able to incorporate into your existing strategy and help you get the most bang for your buck. (Again, if you’re looking for more info on link building, her blog Link Spiel is definitely worth wandering through. Wiep Knol’s Wiep.net is another fantastic link building blog I find myself returning to rather frequently. My favorites are the ‘Link Building This Month’ posts because he usually finds some I’ve missed.)
Link Bait and Getting the Most Linking Power From Your Content
Jordan Kasteler takes a look at the finer points of link bait over at Website Magazine. This has some absolute ‘must’ do’s for good content and the social sphere. If you’re planning any sort of major link baiting strategies, you’ll definitely want to have a look.
Rand composed a post outlining a bit of his link bait strategy in this SEOmoz post. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, nor is that all there is to it, I think it’s a great post for beginners and webmasters who aren’t super familiar with the concept.
Tim Nash tackles the complex world of link worth, including a number of factors he feels determine the amount of power each one has. It will definitely get you thinking about your own link strategy and content placement programs.
Garrett French also looked at the value of links when he visited Search Engine Land, but in a slightly different manner. He has a link in this article to another link building worksheet you may find helpful.
While we’re on the topic of link quality, head over to David Harry’s blog and check out his guide to historical ranking factors. It may just inspire you to improve your linking strategy!
David Wallace took a stab at defining the value of various links over at SearchRank. Again, I’m not sure if I agree with everything he covered here, but I definitely think the ideas he brings up here are worth some consideration and thought. (David Snyder’s thoughts on link value can be found here at Search Engine Journal.)
Wiep spent some time chatting and questioning a number of the industry’s biggest and brightest on their link building beliefs. You’ll find the download link for the results of that research on the bottom of the page.
Ann Smarty put together a great list of video sharing sites over at Search Engine Journal. And while it was written over a year ago, I find it’s a really convenient page, particularly if you don’t normally focus on videos and video SEO. (By the way, if you’re interested in learning more about video SEO, you’ll want to sneak over to Reel SEO. I found them through Joseph Morin, and I’ve yet to be disappointed.)
SEO Content Inventory Worksheets — One of my favorite patent geeks, Bill Slawski released an excellent Excel sheet and article on content inventory. I loved it, and I think you will too.
Helpful Link Building Tools
Majestic SEO — Let you gather link data, backlink history, and have a bulk backlink checker, but they also have a neighborhood checker that’s pretty cool.
Raven SEO — The dark boys at Raven have put together a great set of tools that make it easy to watch and manage your website as well as identify adjustments your current campaigns may need. Their collection includes a contact and competitor manager, keyword research and manager, design and quality analyzer, link manager, website directory, content management system and a whole heap of other stuff you’re going to love.
Bad Neighborhood Tool — Created by Michael VanDeMar, it…well…scans your site and flags possible issues.
Linkbait Generator — You give it a subject, and it comes up with link bait titles. Not really sure about this one. I’ve never actually used any of the titles it’s created, but I did find it worked well for coming up with ideas. Something to try if you’re stuck.
Backlink Watch — These guys let you get a good quick look at your backlinks. I like the additional information they provide here. Of course, there is the Back Link Analyzer software from SEOBook as well.
Debra Mastaler and Wiep Knol also created some great lists of link building tools you may find helpful.
There ya go! By the time you get through this list, you’ll be a link building master. What about you? Do you have any favorite links for link building?
So many SEOs complain a set of local rankings reach a plateau. Or, they can bring in the traffic, but just can’t seem to get it converting at a half decent level. That’s because they often make one very big mistake. Oh, it’s nothing to be upset about and it certainly isn’t done on purpose, but it’s something that can really hold local businesses back if they’re not paying attention.
Are you ready for it? Ok, here it is:
We’re no longer normal. We forget how to think like a user! A real customer!
When I first got a computer after a substantial period without one, the online world had changed from the little chat room/Geocities/Yahoo world I had left a few years prior. The ‘me’ of today would have definitely been laughing at myself of yesteryear for sure.
I didn’t really use Google much, and when I did, I essentially knew nothing beyond how to type in the box and click ’search’. Paid ads and organic results didn’t look any different to me, and I didn’t use any of the fancy-pancy search functions like blog or news search. Most of the time, I found cool stuff by jumping from one site to another through links and ads. I didn’t use RSS, I didn’t use email and I definitely wasn’t using social networks.
It sounds odd, but it still happens way more than you think. My dear loving family, for example, doesn’t really use that ‘Google’ thing. This means, if they can’t type the address, it isn’t shared via email, or they don’t fall onto it through another site, they’ll never find it. They aren’t the exception to the rule either. Large portions of society don’t have or use the Internet daily. Shocking, I know!
Granted, this doesn’t hold true in every instance. If you’re working for a business that sells printers, routers, and other computer accessories, chances are your audience is going to be fairly good with computers and the Internet. If you’re working on a site for a local coffee shop, however, likely not. So, if you’re getting links and citations from directories, social networks, and other more technical means, you might want to reconsider your strategy.
First, recognize that it’s easy to forget exactly how different we are from real people (ha!). I often don’t realize just how much I’ve learned and changed since I got sucked into this business, and I’m willing to bet you’re the same.
Find out how people in the real world are finding sites. Go to an Internet cafe or library and nonchalantly watch the less familiar users. Talk to friends and family about how they discover sites. Have the business owner talk to his customers. And for cripe sakes, use your imagination!
Talk to other local websites about posting some content, going together on some type of deal, and see about getting listed on other local business websites. Don’t be afraid to offer a little space and bandwidth to local charities or events as well. You can toss up a page for them quite easily in exchange for some link love and it reflects well on the business to boot. Connecting with the community has numerous benefits for the local business owner outside of just boosting traffic.
Let’s pretend, shall we?
We’re working on a site for a local bakery and lunch room. We’ve done Yelp and all the regular spots, but we’re needing an extra boost. So, here’s where I’d be looking for links and citations:
Local hospital — they’re having a fundraiser, we spread the news, they offer up a link
Grocery store — we drop a piece on planning birthday parties for diabetics
Party planning store — we talk them into a citation/recommendation
Tourist information booth — they love having tons of information on the local area, so we send them some! Like helping them put together a free ebook interested visitors can download. Of course links and information for the business will be inside.
Radio station — we talk to the local biz owner and they agree to play the station in the store in exchange for a great link/ad
Local Facebook pages
Hotel /restaurant/lounge — They’ve got a little newsletter that’s going fairly decently, so we’ll help them put it together every month.
Real customers — Make sure the business owner is promoting its website in store and offline as well as sites such as Yelp, Google Local Listings, and FourSquare. Promoting customer reviews is huge and even helps encourage customers to talk about the business elsewhere.
Make pages and features local businesses would make use of: an interactive map filled with local info and hot spots, a list of upcoming events , interesting local information and odd stories collected from locals, track deals offered by area businesses. These ideas require you to do some work and give out some links, but others will happily link to them and send people directly to the site.
Many times, you don’t have to do more than just ask for a link or citation and you’ll get one. It’s often a matter of showing the other business owner they can benefit from working together. However, don’t be afraid to offer up a little something either. Being cheap isn’t going to get you anywhere.
Ok, so I realize this is a horrific title and probably a bad set of ads to put together, but considering the topic is bad viral content, I decided it was perfect. Anyway, I think these serious screw-ups examples have some great lessons to teach us.
Ford and Its Evil Car
These have been around a long time, but just so you know what I’m talking about:
I highly doubt I need to explain the problems with this campaign, but just in case, you might want to have a look at the second video (not for the squeamish or cat lovers):
Shockingly, the official word is that the first ad was approved while the second was not. I have my doubts, and so do a lot of others. It actually turned out like the PUMA fiasco, but you can be the judge.
Regardless of whether the reaction was intended or not, animal lovers or anyone who vaguely likes cats was horrified, the marketing world was horrified, and the backlash became so fierce Ogilvy & Mather released a statement assuring the public the commercials was computer generated.
Some people were completely horrified and the ad world seemed to be abuzz with the idea that a company would release something so evocative. I would like to argue that they were aiming for children with a mild rip-off of Simon Says, but using words like ’subservient’ really kills that idea.
Were These Link Bait / Viral Campaigns Successful?
Well, if you type ‘Ford Ka Cat’, ‘Ford Ka Bird’, or ‘Ford Ka Pigeon’, you’ll notice these campaign had no trouble generating links. In fact, many of the authority sites mentioned something about the videos and millions more shared them.
As for the odd Burger King content, Snopes.com and the Wall Street Journal report that only 20 people were told about the site and a few TV ad featured the address. However, the site had received an estimated 15-20 million hits. The Barbarian Group who worked on the project state it made the cover of Business Week and “sold a lot of freaking chicken sandwiches.” That’s not bad at all, considering the backlash created at the time.
How To Fix Negative Viral Content, Link Bait, and Badly Behaving PR Campaigns
Before making a move to put out the fire, I think it’s important to weigh the seriousness and extent of the damage. BK’s attempt at serving up chicken your way wasn’t horrific. In fact, it seems to have accomplished everything it set out to do. So, worst case, they had to calm a few frazzled nerves and maybe give out a few coupons for free chicken. Was there much to fix? Well, no. Not really.
Ford’s mistake is a little different. (Keep in mind, these were released a number of years ago.) They made a number of people very angry and created a large amount of buzz. The other problem is that they couldn’t simply give away a few pieces of chicken to solve their problems (although, I would have been first in line to scream complaints if they were giving away a new car).
So, they had to endure the firestorm and do what they could to minimize the effects. They explained what they could and attempted to take responsibility for the rest.
But here’s the thing: Has everyone stopped buying Ford cars? They might have lost a few sales, but people are still buying cars just as much as they did before. In fact, I would venture to guess the recession hit them harder than the backlash from their campaign. Had it of been a small company dealing on a local basis, they may not have been so lucky.
For businesses like Kryptonite Bike Locks, negative content can be extremely hard on your business. The topic, in this instance, proved their products were essentially useless, and to make matters worse, the content circulated directly through the intended target audience. Not saying it killed the company or cut sales right off, but I’d be willing to say it slowed sales down considerably.
It’s also important to note, however, that Europeans are a little more…uh…open minded when it comes to advertising. While an ad like that may cause chaos in North American, it’s merely frowned upon and ignored elsewhere. This is not to say there’s more approval. The ad agency just isn’t roasted at the stake for it.
When you first realize link bait or viral content has gone pear-shaped, you want to deal with the damages and try to minimize its effects as much as possible. This is usually when a junior exec or external team member gets blamed for screwing up and apologies are made. Someone might even get fired to make it look good.
Don’t just stammer and make whatever excuses come to mind, however. Handle an angry member of the public the same way you would an angry client. With a bat Delicately!
Start by listening to the complaints. All of them, all the way to the end. It only makes people angrier when you interrupt. (If you’re dealing with them online, this likely won’t be too much of a problem. Oh, and hopefully you put some type of monitoring or alert system in place prior to launching the content. If you didn’t, use wine boxes from the liquor store to move your breakables because they have great cardboard inserts.)
Validate what that (those) individual(s) are saying, do your best to take responsibility, and make things right. Exactly how you go about this will depend on the exact situation, but so long as you let the audience guide you, you should be fine.
This doesn’t mean let them boss you around. But, by listening to the audience’s needs and concerns, you should be able to determine your first few moves (In the United Breaks Guitar situation, the airline would have walked away unscathed if they had just paid for the damage!).
It’s important to deal directly with the source of negative feedback. Many times, the person spreading the negative content isn’t the person who experienced the problem. If this is the case, simply explaining the situation and asking nicely is often enough to have them reconsider their position.
If they were the one wronged or offended, try to solve the problem and ask them nicely to spread the word. Yes, you made a mistake poor judgment call and were in the wrong, but you personally contacted them and fixed everything. It doesn’t hurt to go the extra mile here either, even if you weren’t wrong.
The worst things you can do include (as many companies have already experienced):
Threaten to sue a bunch of bloggers. This just makes the story more popular and you end up looking like the bad guy.
Argue with the masses. There’s one of you, and likely millions of people who have heard the story…you do the math.
Pull down the link bait/viral content without providing any sort of an explanation or acknowledging what you’ve screwed up done poorly. You just look really guilty and lose any benefit you might have gained from the experience.
Follow it up with the exact same content that got you into hot water in the first place. This makes a normal mistake into pure idiocy, and that’s never a positive trait for any company.
Well, don’t panic. I don’t see these as necessarily being a bad thing. (There’s no such thing as bad press, remember?) Yes, this will likely spread some negativity about your company, but being able to laugh at yourself and your mistakes is an important trait.
The way I see it, these things have a way of making a horrific story that brings shame and shudders from a target audience into something they’ll chuckle about and pass along. In other words, it takes the edge off. Plus, you’ll likely get traffic and links.
Chances are the evidence links to your failed link bait/viral content will be scattered across the Internet like seeds in a watermelon, and no matter how hard you try, you always find one popping up somewhere. So, when you can’t make it disappear, bury it!
Now, I really shouldn’t have to go into detail here since you all should have ideas as to how to do this, but I will anyway. Here’s a few ways to bury that content and help people forget about the incident (and yes, there are many more; you just need to get creative!):
For Brands/Businesses:
Bury the bad by doing something good. In other words, give to the needy, solve world hunger, or save a whale and tell the world about it! With all the bad PR you’ve been getting, more people are watching you than ever. In fact, if you’re going to do something particularly risqué, consider having something you can release right after.
Distraction can be a powerful tool, so drop another piece of link bait or viral content (NOT the same kind you just got in trouble for!) It’s sort of like a magician. If people watch what the left hand is doing, they soon forget about the right. Releasing a new product or service line can also help.
Visibility. Show that you’re not going to hide from your mistake by putting yourself out there. Even using the situation as a learning tool for others isn’t a horrible idea. Just get out there and show others that your company or site has the same value it did prior to the catastrophe.
Forget about it. It’s only a matter of time before everyone moves on to the next big thing. Get over it, get over yourself, and move on. You know the saying that goes ‘others don’t worry or think about you near as much as you do? Well, it’s really true.
In the worst-case scenario, use the three Rs: Rebrand, Relaunch, Remarket. Keep in mind, however, that people still know who you are! So, if you’re hyper-local (ie. Do little to no business outside of your hometown.) this likely isn’t going to have any effect.
For SEO/SMO/Marketing/PR Firms:
Panic! (Yes, I’m kidding!)
Explain the above information to the client: while it’s not the reaction you’d hoped for, negative PR is not the end of the world. The clients are going to be hostile, they’re gonna be mad, but do your best to listen, acknowledge their feelings/opinions, and do what you can to rectify the situation. If you’ve been able to cover up your mistake move quickly enough, now would also be a good time to explain the steps you’ve already taken to control the situation.
Blogging, article marketing, press releases, and content generation. Just try to stick to the safe subjects!
General link building, and lots of it! By this, I mean directories, commenting, content programs, guest blogging, and all the usual systems you use to build a profile up quickly. I should mention here that you’ll need to be careful. Building too much, too quickly, and particularly all from the same source can be a big mistake.
Use a variety of media. So many people get so hung up on written content they forget about videos, images, and other types of content that are still out there.
Distribute free ebooks, white papers, reports, and other items. They generate links/buzz and help establish your client as the authority.
Target the terms and long tails of the responses (“Ford Ka cat”, for example) can give regular keywords a boost and help offset the negative content as well. However, these are a lot more difficult and often require you to be a bit sneaky to pull off. This isn’t always an option, but I’m throwing it out there anyway.
Do what you normally do, but do it with caution. Just don’t let those negative results stay at the top.
This brings me to the next question:
Should SEOs have a solid understanding of Social Media?
Last week, I published a piece on dark side of viral content and link bait, and it certainly seemed to get the conversation going on Twitter and beyond. This week, I thought it’d be good to look at a few examples and learn from a few other’s screw ups. Let’s go to the dark side shall we?
Now, I know we’re talking about link bait and viral content, but the story of Walmart’s experience with its virtual audience wouldn’t be complete (?) without getting a bit of background in here.
(Disclosure: I worked at Walmart for a few years. However, this post is not connected to that in any way. All things considered, I liked it there.)
The Story:
Walmart has been taking the heat for a number of years on various issues surrounding its business practices and the way it treats its work force. In fact, it has turned into a bit of a PR nightmare that just doesn’t seem to go away. So, to combat this, Walmart decided to go straight for the working population to fix it. It decided to use the power of the Internet.
It may not be Walmart’s first attempt at Social Media, but their Facebook page was definitely one that should be included in SM textbooks in the future. You see, instead of using it to launch a complementary marketing strategy or share information, someone at the company thought it would be wise to let people share their stories about the company.
Well, I’d love to show you the results of this little experiment, but Walmart got rid of it pretty quickly. However, I can tell you it had attracted a number of people who were less than happy about several questionable business practices. Can you say ‘whoops’?
One of them, for example, (and this is going to sound familiar to Tim Horton’s fans) followed an imaginary couple as they crossed the country in their RV and ventured from Walmart to Walmart. Others were fake stories by imaginary staff members and other ‘family’ members about all of the wonderful things Walmart had been doing.
The Problem:
Um, they lied, and for a retailer and a company who has worked to make its company part of daily life for the working public (or a part of their family, depending on which way you look at it), this was pure suicide.
In the case of their Facebook page, they failed to recognize the true power of the general public and exactly what they would do if left to their own devices. The only real upside to the whole thing at this point was the fact that their reputation was already pretty tarnished, so this wasn’t a big shocker to anyone.
Possible Solutions:
When it was discovered that things when horribly wrong, the evidence simply disappeared. There was little to no conversation about the topic on the official side, and no real statement made by the offenders either. Well, an Edelman senior account manager blamed a junior, so someone lost his job. In vain, I might add. The whole situation smells funny and it’s even worse if you know a little history on Edelman. They may as well have not bothered.
Making up a bunch of BS posts about how wonderful Walmart is and all of the great things it does for everyone should have been the last thing they considered. Why not take the time to talk to some of the people who work and shop there? It wouldn’t have taken that long, and if they’d have done it right and offered a reward or prize for each person who submitted a feel-good story, they would have been able to repair their image from the inside out. They could certainly afford it!
Once they got busted for fake content, they should have come clean. They should have admitted to the screw up, but they also should have followed it up with a collection of really awesome genuine stories. The more grass roots, the better. Videos or podcasts would have been even better.
The next step would have been giving back to the public in some way. Giving away something on those fake blogs would have been ideal, particularly if the coupon or post about the giveaway was sent through the RSS feed only.
At the same time, Walmart and Edelman both generated a number of links, and most people forgot about the whole situation. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all? Maybe they decided to try it anyway? Neither company had much to lose. Remember, their reputations were already pretty dark.
The Facebook page demonstrated nothing but pure stupidity, really. I mean, before soliciting for testimonials and revealing them to the public, you should make sure you want everyone else to know what they say.
Had they moderated the comments published to the page in some way, they would have been fine, but they didn’t. In fact, they could have just forgotten about the fake blogs and just posted some of the real stories on their Facebook page.
You know what would have made some really great viral material for a place like Walmart? Posts like ‘Odd situations/occurrences in your local Walmart’, ‘Weird Shoplifting Incidents’, or even ‘If you could change one thing about your local Walmart that would have you returning several times per week, what would it be’.
We’ll look at a few more examples of negative viral content/link bait, but I’d love to hear your ideas on this first.
Breaking news and free stuff always makes good viral content. Humorous or articles that hit the emotions of your readers in some way work well too. And so long as the piece is well written, any of us who have worked with content programs should recognize it pretty quickly.
I guess that’s what’s interesting about this type of content. Even though we know why it’s created, we often can’t resist sharing it with someone, discussing it, linking back, and giving the writer exactly what he or she wanted.
Others have a serious dislike for link bait and viral content, and honestly, I can’t see why. The only time I have a problem with link bait or viral content is when it doesn’t fulfill the promise made in the title.
Well, I shouldn’t say that. Some get irritated when they fall for it (also known as the ‘why didn’t I think of that’ syndrome), but it doesn’t generally affect the reader in a negative way. If anything, it should irritate you and make you think about the topic.
That being said, there is a dark side to viral content and link bait.
Viral Content Gone Wrong
Viral content can be priceless when it attracts the right crowd and drives the buzz in the right direction, but what happens when it goes wrong? While this often happens with controversial issues, sometimes even innocent viral content can have unexpected negative effects.
Say, for example, that you create an innocent blog post promoting a contest for a local charity. It goes well at the start and begins to generate a number of donations and a fair bit of excitement around the cause.
Now, imagine for a moment that a member from a particular religion, country, sex, or ethnic group reads the piece and gets offended by a particular angle to the contest, the subject matter, or maybe something to do with the charity itself. The next thing you know, a little bit of viral content becomes a PR nightmare for your company. After all, this type of reputation glitch doesn’t disappear easily or quickly.
While this will certainly increase the buzz surrounding the contest and the charity, it might not work to your advantage. And unless you’re quick thinking and have the resources to fight it, things could get pretty nasty and someone (likely you) is going to get into trouble.
If you’ve created controversial link bait, the backlash from your ‘target’ should be fully expected. But what happens when content attracts the wrong crowd all together? Now, the ‘link is a link’ crowd isn’t going to care. Much. But what happens when it just happens to grab a lot of scraper links when the site really needs a few good authority links? What happens if it just generates some crappy links and barely any traffic at all?
Failed Viral Content or Link Bait
Any SEO who has been pushing to get a client site going understands the pure frustration of this, particularly if they’ve put a fair bit of time into the creation and planning of the content. Clients often don’t understand that audiences are very fickle.
Sometimes, articles you expect to take off and spend a lot of time on start to collect dust almost the instant you click publish. Then, the client is phoning and breathing down your neck because they’re not getting traffic or links and they spent a fair bit of money to create the content.
The next time, you publish something you scraped together in a hurry and it goes crazy. Suddenly, you’re dealing with comments and maintenance on a day when you hadn’t planned on it and really don’t have time. Did I mention the client is calling and freaking out because they’re getting traffic they weren’t expecting? (Believe me, it happens!)
Viral content and link bait is very much like a puppet show in text. The writer (the puppet master) knows just how to pull the strings to make the puppets (the targeted readers) to do what he wants. While this is generally harmless and often is nothing negative in the least, someone who is very good at it almost makes the situation eerie. I mean, when you think about it, it’s really no different than some of the greatest speakers in the world. The amount of power they have over others is almost scary.
Now, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has witnessed or experienced content strategies go bad. Have you had viral content or link bait go horribly wrong?
In SEO links are the golden commodity that make or break a campaign. Not only are inbound links critical in ranking, but who you LINK TO can also be a serious consideration. Google has said many times that you really can’t be hurt by who links to you, but you can be damaged for linking to bad neighbourhoods.
One area that can certainly get a website flagged is by serving up malware or other nastiness. Most often this is done by hackers/crackers that have accessed the site and installed malicious scripting on the server. But how does one know if a potential link target has had issues in the past?
Enter the Google diagnostic tool
There is a handy little too at Google for checking the recent history on domains which is well worth using when link building (link exchanges, link drops) as well as checking websites you may be linking out to within your content or blog posts. It is a simple query; http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=site-reference.com (replace the end part with the domain you’re investigating)
And yes, I mean anyone… look at a search for Google.com – or eBay - and Joomla (as recent as yesterday) – you get the idea. While these sites seem to be good at catching it, there have been attempts.
How reliable is the application? It’s hard to say at this point as it’s only reporting problems that Google has seen; they don’t seem to be testing entire websites. What is important is that you remember that malicious actions can have an affect on your site’s presence in search engines. Be vigilant.
This only takes a few moments and can be invaluable to the search optimizer. Add this little toy to your toolbox and take the time to check out those sites you’re considering linking to from now on…. Better safe than sorry. I’d also suggest checking your own site every month as well to ensure you haven’t been compromised. All in all.. and groovy new tool in the box.
Foundational link building part II – article marketing
When we left off earlier this week, article marketing best practices were the topic of the day. I like to think of it as content distribution more than anything. Deciding which articles are to be marketed for each target is a big part of the game.
Media/News outlets
Industry Blogs
Social Networks
Associations
Supplier Sites
Vertical non-competitor
No easy way here, hopefully you already know the major players in your market. Track them down, establish what types of articles are common, the general demographic and set about crafting a piece that had a high likelihood of appealing to their senses.
It could be argued that we’re now crossing into blogging terms such as ‘guest posting’ or ‘content marketing’ but ultimately we have an article and we’re using it for marketing purposes… so let’s not mess with semantics. Ok?
Now some directions to get you going….
News Media – If we were in the ‘Antique lighting’ niche we could try some things like; Interior design news Or Interior design news, submit- Play with some related market keywords and start making a list of sites to assess and short-list some for targeting.
Social Networks – find the networks and social media sites in your niche to find top influencers and top sites being published. Start to make some contacts and opportunities to guest post. Here is a Big list of Social Media sites - or search out niche ones.
Associations – once more you need to find international, national and local associations that are related to your market and see if they have any white papers, articles or blogs that you might be able to target content at. Google is your friend.
Supplier sites – not only do your suppliers love you for promoting their products, they also are in a need for content and this can be a win-win situation. Have a look at some of your supplier’s websites for ways to get your content (and name) out there.
Vertical non-competitor – beyond the above mentioned tactics, there are often related niches to yours (verticals) that are not direct competitors. We can also look at these sites as places to hopefully publish our articles. No stone un-turned right?
The approach and pitch you use when looking to place articles will vary. The main thing is to be respectful, humble and have one helluva a targeted piece that they want to publish. Remember, one well placed article can build a lot of link love for the not only target site, but from author links it will also flow to you.
Article Repositories
Now we’re into the back end of the strategy. I say that because as we discussed last time with article marketing strategy, the articles we don’t think are of a high enough quality get relegated here. That is not to say total crap, but just not the A List material.
That is not to say there aren’t benefits as some articles can actually get some reasonable distribution and even a few half decent backlinks if yer lucky. These are no where near as valuable as the above targeting methods, but some cumulative effects are possible.
I am once more not a fan of huge mass submissions as quality is the game. And to b honest I am unsure if I’d go deeper than the top 10 – but here’s a list that should suit the most dedicated among you;
Foundational link building part II – Article Marketing
At least this is the mind set one needs when approaching it. You see, ultimately one must go beyond links. Think about the actual value of the placement as far as potential traffic, branding and reach. You will find that when you do so, that the links are of better quality and the benefits greater.
As we learned last week with our guide to directory submissions, quality supersedes quantity. When it comes to article marketing we seek to get as much value as possible. This means that we don’t simply toss off a bunch of copies of the article to repositories far and wide. You need to look at what makes the most sense strategically and plan from there.
Content is content
Now, the first thing we are going to need is a writer. If you have someone in-house that is already creating content, marketing materials or managing the blog, we’re in business. If you find yourself creatively challenged then looking at bringing in a professional writer as a sock puppet staffer is also an option. Much like content for the website, cutting corners will ultimately weaken the program.
You seek to create content that would be of a quality high enough that you would publish it on your own site. Not some knock off garbage piece that is 400 words long and devoid of value. That is not going to get us what we want… and at worst is negative branding.
You are seeking to build authority, become ubiquitous in the market and hopefully get some links that do more than please search engines.. we actually get some traffic ;0)
Finding the targets
Next we want to establish some targets for content placement. Remember, article marketing is more than mere repository overload. We can generally look at a few locales for potential promotion;
Article repositories – the most common form of article marketing.
Industry media outlets – most markets will have media/news portals
Guest blogging – on first and second tier industry blogs
Vertical markets – websites of related non-competitors.
Basically you need to get inventive and look for those that might appreciate some free content. Some of these relationships may not happen over night; cultivation is often required. But an article is often nothing more than content…with accreditation to you. This is how the path should be travelled.
Article repositories should really only be used for posts that you feel are weaker than others and aren’t suited for higher level branding. But even these should be of at least an average quality as any distribution is still a representation of you and your enterprise.
Crafting the article
Now that we have some varied targets we can set about trying to establish some demographics for the audience. Whenever possible, don’t be shy and simply talk to the editors of your target site and ask about the people and topics that fly well. Most times they can give some great qualitative feedback which helps when crafting the tone and language of the article.
I won’t get into the nuts and bolts of targeting as that is more of the writing element and beyond the scope of this post (look at this later in the week). But what is important is that the article is set up to succeed.
Getting the links
The best links to have are what are known as editorial links; these are links within the actual content themselves. This is something that should be used sparingly and don’t fill up the article with a ton of them from one end to the other. Each post should have 1-2 nicely targeted, but relevant, links to your site.
This is also extra important with distribution via article repositories as it ensure that is someone reprints it without the author bio (no! say it ain’t so?!) that you still get a few back links from it.
If we’re targeting a specific location with our article, we’re sure to get a link in the author bio and latitude for a few editorial links within the post as well (to relevant content on your site).
Targeting Considerations
Just as we did with the directory submissions, we want to vary link text as much as possible. This means a unique author bio for each and every article repository and diversity in link texts for our other distribution channels.
What link texts should you be using? That all depends on the strength of the potential link location (re-print from repositories? Or one-off on an authority site?). Try and use your core target terms for the stronger sites and work your secondary terms with the larger distribution channels.
Also remember to incorporate targeted titles for the post and include words from your lists of semantically related support terms.
…. And those are the basics of a successful article marketing program. Next time we’ll get a list of top repositories and tips for finding target sites.
Based in Saskatchewan, Canada, Angie Nikoleychuk (Haggstrom) is the Senior Copywriter and Content Consultant for Angie’s Copywriting, a professional business copywriting service providing high-end content to companies and organizations of all sizes. In addition to her online copywriting, Angie is also a contributing author and guest writer for several industry leading publications, a diehard coffee addict, and avid Twitter user. Her favorite subjects? SEO, SM, branding, marketing, and business. (Besides writing, of course!)
Marie-Claire Jenkins is a seasoned SEO professional and a PhD candidate in Information Retrieval that has worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies to create comprehensive SEO strategies and SM campaigns. She is a semantic web expert and a keen developer. When she isn't with her laptop she can be found surfing or on her yoga mat. Her website: Science For SEO
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