Oftentimes, when I describe the concept of linkbait to clients, it's critical to also describe those folks who are the targets of linkbait - I'll call them the "Linkerati". Let's explore the culture of these most valued of web-dwelling souls:
- Bloggers - probably the most targetable and directly influenced folks, bloggers are an excellent source of traffic, links and the spread of your content's idea virus.
_ - Forum posters - although the links these folks put up don't often result in great search engine value, the traffic can be positive and the possibility that other likely linkers will come through to visit is also high.
_ - Web News Writers - a rare species, but exceptionally valuable, these folks control the news outlets on the web, including places like C|Net, Wired News, Yahoo! & MSN's online news portals, etc.
_ - Content Creators - These folks are building or beefing up websites and are seeking valuable resources to link out to. Most frequently, you'll find them linking to the sites they find valuable in the top 5-10 results at the search engines (another reason why "the rich get richer")
_ - Resource Editors - Another rare breed, these folks work at government institutions, no-profit organizations and educational establishments and are looking to add content to their pages or directories.
_ - Social Taggers - These folks don't provide direct links, but if they and their friends at Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit & Furl love you, you're in for a real treat - thousands of visitors and the opportunity to be in front of hundreds of link-hungry bloggers.
_ - Viral Connectors - The viral crowd doesn't directly link to you, but by sending out a blast e-mail, posting to an IRC channel or telling their friends about your site over dinner, they're spreading the word. Some of them can be very powerful, and they're not demographically distinct - a well-connected grandmother may know people in the media, executives of businesses and other highly placed and valuable minds.
- Journalists - Online or offline creators of "news" content, these influencers are among the most valuable of all the linkerati. A reporter for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times or the Seattle Weekly all have reach and ability to create links to your site, although it's often in a second-hand fashion (as some sites don't directly link out, but many bloggers "pick up" news items and do).
Any others I'm forgetting about?
Freaking awesome as usual Rand. Sometimes it bugs me that you tell these "secrets" that some have used for thirteen years (me). But truth is, it still boils down to content. It's the content that inspires others to link to it. Identifing the right linkerati or key influencers is meaningless if the content you seek attention for is not linkworthy to begin with. Here's a couple other linkerati... Those who run their own vertical engines (Rollyo.com). If you have a site about fashion and someone has Rollyo'd a fashion site engine, then bingo. Example: http://rollyo.com/dianevonfurstenberg/ If they haven't, Rollyo your own. Rollyo and others like it may never reach critical mass, but think of this as an evolutionary step in social tagging..."individual ly created search engines" Newsgroups. Don't laugh. I still get remarkable impact from a well placed post in USENET, especially for tech related sites. People abandoned them but they do still live. Keep up the fantastic work Rand! Eric Ward http://www.ericward.com
We've discussed this before, Rand. I don't personally think sites like C|Net or Wired are necessarily going to be the ones you want to get interested in your linkbait (I still don't care for the term, by the way). I think it depends a lot on the niche the client's site is in. That means that for every client, you need to do that good old fashioned research to find the niche's own portals and trusted news sites.
True - niche news editors are also invaluable in the promotion and targeting phase. As for renaming "linkbait," I'm afraid it's already in the collective conscious. If I could, I'd like to rename sandbox, SEO, SEM and CPM, too...
Rand, you have covered almost everything. I just have one simple question. How do we get hold of these people? :)
I know that it is a difficult question but I am sure that we can get tips from you.
I hope Rand doesn't mind me chiming in, but I recently spoke on the same topic here in Chicago, and here's some advice:
- Bloggers - Join their community, comment on their blog, and a great way to get their attention is to blog about them! The more frequently you comment, discuss, etc...the more likely it is they'll notice you on their blog.
- Forum Posters - Post in the forum, PM them, and exchange Signature links. It's a more common practice than you would think.
- Web News Writers - Well, they like the news, give them a juicy tid-bit that's already on the wire, and it's likely they'll talk to you.
- Content Creators - Give them free content, they like when their jobs are easier...but not just that, give them a source! They need more than Wikipedia and they love having great quotes from Pros.
- Resource Editors - There's nothing like good old fashion e-mails or giving them a call. Many of these people are in charge of a page that is moderately archaic in nature, but also, they're the only on that touches it. Make nice and give them a credible resource and it's likely they'll add it.
- Social Taggers - Tag, you're it...ever see people who retweet everything? Tweet something worthwhile, post an answer to a question they've asked, and mention them....next thing you know "BAM!" instant social tagging to the Nth degree.
- Viral Connectors - These people like fun online or something or helpful. If it's a bargain, if it's something insightful or newsworthy that can help the people they know, it's easy to feed it to them. You can find these guys everywhere...but really look for people with large friend bases on social sites, who tend to send out blasts. (Secret find: Check for people on social sites, who have a friend base, but also, add them as a friend...if they send you a blast with more than 30 people copied on it, it's likely they're viral connectors. Facebook groups are a great way of finding these types. Go for founders)
- Journalists -Look on Associated Press and other news sources where people are allowed to report freely. If someone has a large following on their RSS, they're likely to be a credible Journalist. Google their name and see what you find. You can also cut the time in half by simply looking for Journalists via LinkedIn...why? These people do it for a living if they're posting it on LinkedIn.
Hope this could help!Excellent response! Thanks, CybertechSEO.
yes it can really help
I found out about Linkerati from a Fresh Egg conference - interesting
Nice work... and I just quoted your blog entry in my blog as it is exactly the types of influencers that we include in our competitive ecosystem intelligence that we do for our clients. The only challenge that one has when trying to identify the influcencers is that there are a bunch of non-social-media-savy influencers that still participate in physical meetings and we never get to hear of.
Wow...I can't believe that I have never seen this info before. Some of these things I've discovered on my own, but this list and subsequent action plan is awesome. Thank you.
Travel tends to be a breed all its own when it comes to social media strategies. If anyone has any advice for hooking up with power users in the travel industry, I'd be forever grateful!
First of all; Congrats for the article.
The Linkerati, interesting word :) The list looks very complet, thank you very much.
Very useful post but I think you could go one step further and offer suggestions to the types of websites which work best with the 'Linkerati' as I am not sure each type works for all websites.
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"The Linkerati", interesting word :-D The list looks very complete anyway link bait is not always working as one expect, you definetly need really good & viral content :-)
Thanks Rand for the insight
and a special thanks to CybertechSEO. Love what provided, great ADVICE. I've copied both posts over and saved them.
Knowing multiple methods to contact people who can link to you is a gem to cherish. Thanks
Hi Rand, nice tips. I have a question: How will be the linkerati of a sites like groupon and others similars? thanks
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There now I feel better.
Now here's the question. What is the "process" for finding the appropriatte linkerati. I know you can do the google searches but of course that leads to a head spinning list of stuff. How do you sort through and evaluate who to target.
To complicate matters. How do you do this when our site (www.votetocracy.com) covers many different keyword terms and topics?
This is not only a great article, but a very cool term is defined: "The Linkerati". Rand, did you coin it?
In this context, I think I'm the first to use it, but folks have pointed out that the word has been written online before, though not specifically referring to the same thing.
So, basically you misappropriated it, right?
Misappropriated implies an incorrect usage of the term. Since the term hasn't had enough popularity to considerably imply any specific definition, I'd say Rand simply referrenced it differently.
A link profile is created depending on the type of Industry you are in and also depending on the goals of the Website...?
For instance sometimes getting links through spam works perfectly, of course it can be a short term strategy, but that is another source for links.
Maybe these go in the "Resource Editor" category... but there are lots of "hobby sites" and professor sites out there that can deliver some hefty linkweight. Unfortunately more and more of the professor links - and even K-12 links now - are going behind course management systems such as BlackBoard, WebCT and eCollege where passwords block the search engine spiders. This type of traffic into my sites has more than doubled in the past year. I love getting the traffic but wish that those links had some juice behind them. Just a speculation... search engines that rely on spidering are not seeing these important citations of many websites. Maybe they can "see" the activity through toolbar data or by giving away web analytics service.
Industry Associations / Affiliates?
What about finding authoritative bloggers thru MyBlogLog, communities with a lot of members (and not ones that attracted the community thru provocative avatars ;-)
If only there was an easy way to become invovled with the Web News Writers in over populated blogging areas life would be easy
Very useful post but I think you could go one step further and offer suggestions to the types of websites which work best with the 'Linkerati' as I am not sure each type works for all websites.
Very well written article indeed, thank you so much for sharing such information with us.