Viral link building campaign

Tell me how

[wheel]

I'm releasing two pieces of content, either one of which I think may be suitable for a viral link building campaign. And a real campaign, something folks outside my niche may find interesting.

Where do I start? Do I just create an article and start spamming the bejeepers out of digg?

[Nuttakorn]

When you have great content in your hand, you can start from small community that will influence and spread the word outside the community, starting with your friends via Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. Also you start relationship with bloggers to talk about your campaign , giveaway, contest, sweepstakes or whatever that you think that make them pay attention to your campaign and then you start monitoring what people talking about campaign through social media. Influencers are important to spread the viral!

[wheel]

I spoke to a viral marketing firm this week and unlike general link development where I feel I've got a handle on the basic principles, it became quite clear that success with viral marketing is something I don't even know where to start. There's a lot more factors to success than having some linkable content and dropping it out there in the right places, and maybe having some sleeper accounts to bump stories. this stuff I know. The other stuff that was described to me was an eye opener.

This must be how noobs feel when it comes to link development :).

I could probably figure it out via trial and error, but I don't want to do this through 10 trials, I want to have the greatest hit the first time round. So I think I'll be calling in the pros for this one.

[rj87uk]

The other stuff that was described to me was an eye opener.

Anything to say on that? :)

[OMZen]

AFAIK, there's no "full proof viral marketing" formula :)

Actionable items would be:

List all the segments of your target demographic

Identify the online places where they hang out ( Facebook /groups? Twitter /lists? , YouTube? , Ning ?, Digg? SU? some popular blog ? etc, etc )

Identify the top influencers / power users leading those communities

Get on the radar of the influencers ( further their cause for a sufficient time - reach out to them - pitch last )

Easier said than done if you are not a heavy hitter on the social scene, but if your content is truly purple and you can get the power users to talk about it - you stand a good chance.

Best wishes for success!

[CainIV]

Although I cannot reference links in WebmasterWorld, it would be wise to do searches for link bait and viral marketing techniques. Both are different - with link baiting being about developing quality links and viral marketing being more about branding.

You will want to present a strong hook, which is similar to a new anchor and a story.

Without a hook and strong headline, even great viral content often goes unnoticed.

Depending on the nature of the hook, the approach can vary. Contrary hooks I find easier, since the public seems somewhat geared up to action better and often you can get links from the very institutions, websites or entities you called out.

One of the most common hooks, and one that you appear to use in the other thread Wheel is the resource hook - where you collate data, organize it in a better or more meaningful manner, and then present it to strong sources in the industry.

[Goodfellas]

Depends on the nature of your topic. Politics would rule over at Reddit but technology would fare better at Digg. And even a good piece may not be 'viral' material. It's difficult dissecting the anatomy of a viral campaign. Even the pros might admit that it's more art than science and can go either way.

[Pumkin_Dan]

This must be how noobs feel when it comes to link development :).

Indeed.

I am learning a lot from these threads however.

[Crush]

Seek out your target sites forums blogs. Then pay the tops users to drop some links to your story/site.

Make sure what you have is good and you might do OK. Expensive though :)

[Fgump910]

I agree with Crush. It is your best bet in getting something on the front page of Digg or related social news sites.

This tactic does not ensure the content goes viral, as you really just paid a guy to have it to get it on the front page. However, it is a good start!

I have gotten several pieces of mine to pop to the front page of Digg, and usually what I see is a huge increase in site traffic for about 24-36 hours, which tails off quickly.

I have a few more pointers if you are interested. Just PM me.

[wheel]

I've outsourced it to some pros - and I'm excited. While I of course need to keep specifics close to my chest, I'll post as to how it goes down.

I'm not interested in traffic at all, I'm interested in backlinks.

[JS_Harris]

A lot of backlinks to one page is worth less than fewer backlinks spread accross a higher number of pages imo. Remember to add extra internal links on the page that becomes viral to help lift the entire site too. Just some things to keep in mind before unleashing your next linkbait campaign.

[Fgump910]

Good luck with your article! Let me know if you need some Diggs.

[wheel]

A lot of backlinks to one page is worth less than fewer backlinks spread accross a higher number of pages imo. Remember to add extra internal links on the page that becomes viral to help lift the entire site too. Just some things to keep in mind before unleashing your next linkbait campaign.

Any links will be going to a specially designed page, that then links out.

I imagine when things die down, if the page gets a lot of links, that we'll tweak that page a bit to better redistribute.

[wheel]

Viral campaign that I outsourced is now over.

Unfortunately it was launched in the midst of some 'natural' news that completely buried it. The campaign didn't provide any measurable conversions or any other direct benefits. Not the company's fault, nobody could have forseen the avalanche of news that buried the campaign.

We're going to do another campaign. Too bad, I burned a pretty good viral idea last time, so we'll have to come up with something hot again - tough to do in my dry industry.

The target/landing page on my site though is now a PR 6 :). Pretty good since my home page is a pr5. So eventually I'll repurpose that page and give myself some nice links.

[Makaveli2007]

"A lot of backlinks to one page is worth less than fewer backlinks spread accross a higher number of pages imo"

What makes you think this? (really just curious)

Does this make you a strong proponent of getting deep links vs. mostly homepage links?

[martinibuster]

I have gotten several pieces of mine to pop to the front page of Digg

And then what?

The target/landing page on my site though is now a PR 6 . Pretty good since my home page is a pr5. So eventually I'll repurpose that page and give myself some nice links.

Surprised to see you post that. And then what? What about ranking and traffic?

[wkathome]

I think if anyone could figure out what would go viral and what won't, it would cause a lot more millionaires. I seen you-tube videos that were extremely informative and only got 10 views, while some kid scratching his nose, gets a million hits. go figure.