Link Bait Tactics

Augmented Reality: The Future Of Link Bait & Viral Marketing

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June 1  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Ryan Clark

I’m betting big on augmented reality being the next best thing in viral and link bait marketing, in fact, I’m betting huge! The concept is quite simple and for those of you who don’t really know what augmented reality is, then I suggest you get reading. I think it’s safe to say that this is the next big revolution in mobile marketing, branding and selling. I also believe this technology is going to change the way our world is seen for the good. What do I mean by that? Well eventually this technology will leap from your mobile device and straight in your head via contact lenses.

So I don’t think we’ll find anyone who disagrees with my title here…or do we? Businesses are going to have a whole new level of marketing to add on, something a lot of us might be more annoyed with. There is already too much marketing to tackle and yet here comes another avenue. I say get used to it because this won’t be the last! For now, look at is as a way to seriously set yourself apart from the pack and do something fresh. There are a lot of big opportunity waiting for companies out there to use this new technology and build some serious buzz.

I’ll lead by example after I yap your faces off a little more. I’m already seeing augmented reality applications taking off in the travel sector as well as the real estate industry. These are both areas that this technology is really going to benefit both the user and the pusher, and that’s where big money comes into play. Augmented reality is already creating its own economy and you’ll find that hundreds of millions are being thrown at start ups.

This is exactly what I picture when I think of myself sitting at a desk 10 years from now;

For those business wanting to build some hype then start researching and building right now. I’ve seen individual cities come out with apps for free, and I’ve seen how hotels are implementing this technology as I write. There are hundreds of amazing examples of this technology in use already so lets look at how some big brands are already ahead of the trend.

How BMW Continues To Innovate

 

Check Out How Tuscany Is Helping Out Tourists

 

ZAGAT Is Augmented Your Tummy Reality

 

Wearable Augmented Reality Is Already Here


Video Games Are About To Get Real

 

There are so many amazing videos showcasing this technology and it’s only in its early stages. I think our world is about to get really really interesting, and the marketing opportunities are about to explode. I’d love to hear from other companies doing something amazing within the augmented reality marketing landscape, so post something in the comments below!

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Boston Pizza Changes Name To Vancouver Pizza

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May 30  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Ryan Clark

Well our Vancouver Canucks are in the Stanley Cup finals and Boston Pizza has decided to change its name to Vancouver Pizza…well, until the finals are over. I watch half the games at our local Boston Pizza here in Victoria BC, and they always put on a great show. I was pumped to hear this marketing ploy being executed because it’s quite unique and got my interest. It’s even funnier how we’re playing Boston except the Canadian pizza company has no real ties to that city.

While their marketing department is in Toronto, it’s great to see them not being bitter about having a crappy hockey club and promoting the last standing Canadian team. Who ever had this idea should get a big fat raise because it’s brilliant, and I can imagine it will do wonders for business. I’ll have to keep an ear to the ground and hopefully catch some data from them after the promotion is over.

As for the re-branding, every store has got new banners and promotions touting the Vancouver Pizza name. Apparently it cost not much more than $20,000 which even includes custom Canucks menus with unique products..still I doubt we’ll see some Orca meat on the menu(lolz).  I’ll just stick to getting my perogie pizza which is so bloody yummy, and you cannot get it anywhere else.

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Sofitel: Any Press Is Good Press?

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May 18  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Ryan Clark

With the recent shenanigans with IMF director at the New York Sofitel, you’d wonder how bad is all this for business. I know it’s a touchy subject, this is why I have zero opinion on what happened, but more so one about how badly this will effect business for them…or if it were any hotel for that matter. The NY Sofitel has a long struggle ahead of them, but the press might eventually work out in the long run. I know it may be a little early to touch on the subject, but I thought it might be interesting to see how it’s already impacted them in both direct traffic, social media and of course the links.

I do put out my warmest regards to the Sofitel PR team, they are most likely sweating it right now trying to do damage control. If you’ve turned on a TV, read a newspaper or checked out your favorite blog you’ve most likely heard the story over and over. This is quite the scandal so some of the biggest sites on the web are out writing, linking and tweeting!

This definitely has shown to be driving some seriously hefty traffic Sofitel’s way, and most likely not for bookings at the moment! While this also might not be true for return client’s to the hotel chain because having stayed at a few Sofitel’s myself, I can say that loyalty to this hotel is something they don’t lack in. While I cannot get accurate traffic statistics, we’ll have to rely on Alexa and Compete for this post;

So how is bad press sometimes good press? Well I imagine down the road once no one cares about this in a week or two, all those thousands of links, social media mentions and branding will have gone a long way. According to my current SERPs (and checked with Scroogle), I’m seeing Sofitel just on the verge of the top 10 for “Luxury Hotel New York”. I’ll make sure to check back in on how they’re doing this a couple months down the road.

I’d really be interested to hear from them a month from now as well on how bookings are doing, but I imagine that information will never see the light of day…good or bad.

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Repairacar’s Dream Job Is Awesome Link Bait

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April 12  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Ryan Clark

I just love it when I get a chance to cover awesome examples of link bait in the wild, and this time it wasn’t really intended to be link bait. I’m a daily reader of Autoblog.com and came across this post about how Repairacar.co.uk’s latest job offer is a dream position that is going to become reality. The job is basically picking up and returning people’s amazing exotic and luxury cars to and from the shop. What gets even better, that might require him to drive to all corners of Europe! I’d literally pack up and move over there for the job, and I imagine most of you fellow car nuts would as well.

Because of the high-liability nature of the job, Repairacar is being very particular about whom it will hire. Ten years’ experience with high-performance driving is a requirement of the job, and showing up for your interview in a Civic with a fart pipe will likely get you automatically disqualified.

Now I’m sure a lot of you have used a job/hiring process into your companies link building plan, but how often does a job go viral? I already mentioned the Autoblog post, as well Carscoop wrote about it and now they’ll have dozens of other sites doing the same. These are amazing, niche related links and it would do you some good to pay attention to how it all plays out. They’ll surely be getting a lot of Twitter traffic, and I hope they really pimp this on Facebook because it could result in a lot of new followers.

How could Repairacar keep things going in the marketing department? Well if I were them, which I clearly wish I was, I’d do the following to maximize this exposure.

  • Video document the first client’s “trip”
  • Offer a discount for the first client
  • Create a video podcast with the best cars/trips
  • Hold a driving test and release the candidate videos online
  • Press release for more exposure
  • Repeat the process again when they need a second drive(or just hire me)

It’s also nice to see some link bait that isn’t a lame infographic, nor a top x list or anything of the usual sort. I also offer my congrats to whomever manages to get this job, but I also secretly hate you. If you folks see anything like this ever, give us a shout via our contact form, Twitter or Facebook so we can blog about it!

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Hennessey Performance: Cadillac Wagon vs GTR R35

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March 16  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Ryan Clark

While the auto world has been chatting up a storm over a video put out by the fine folks at Hennessey Performance, they’ve been lapping up the exposure. While you folks are in for another motorsport marketing example from me, and this won’t be the last but I’ll at least keep it short. They pitted their latest beast of a creation, their Cadillac wagon vs my personal favorte, the Nissan GTR. They ran the car on slicks against last years Nissan which is what has most people bickering about all over the web. Moral of the story? A little controversy that pits people against people will always drive traffic and branding your way. The story has been picked up on Autoblog.com and Jalaponik, two of the biggest auto industry blogs there are. Not to mention that, but Twitter and just about every related car forum is linking and chatting up a storm. All I can say is, way to go Hennessey and keep up the great work! Our CEO is saving his pennies for your Venom GT and he has very sexy dreams about that car every night!

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Snowmageddon For Building Links

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February 3  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Ryan Clark

While the US is getting pounded by snow left, right and center, how many businesses are taking advantage of it? There are plenty of you out there who would benefit from this situation. Products that come to mind are candles, blankets, battery powered heaters and so forth. I’m making this post as more of an inquiry to our readers, I’d love to see who actually saw it as a business opportunity?

There is a whole host of opportunities to take advantage of before a storm like this hits. Group deal sites would have been my #1 choice for getting the word out quick on your deals, not to mention the plethora of other coupon/deal sites you could have used. Social media obviously could have played a huge role here, especially if you utilized a viral marketing campaign from your blog/website. “Top 10 Products You’ll Need To Survive Snowmageddon?”

Here’s a great example of the Weather.com network getting a stink load of attention thanks to their anchorman Jim Cantore. This single video got the Weather Network a whole lot more traffic for free despite the amount of people glued to their website and channel. It’s interesting just to see how much more traffic an event like this will show up, sadly I have to use Alexa for the meantime.

If you’re able to catch some amazing content to utilize for business then all the power to you. I’d start thinking of what you can do for the next snowstorm. While our clients kept asking us how much snow we were getting up here in British Columbia, they were shocked to hear we get snow maybe twice a year. Not all Canadians live in a winter wonderland, although we do live in a rainy blunderland :)

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3 Places To Launch Your Link Bait

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January 25  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Ryan Clark

In this day and age it is becoming increasingly more difficult to go viral. This is especially true for companies to overcome the feel of spam which means creativity is your only weapon. Comedy is usually the best weapon, and creating the content isn’t the easiest of tasks. Old Spice obviously hit the nail on the head with their commercials and ran with it just long enough to keep the brand in the minds of millions. They’ll most likely never be able to duplicate that amount of buzz again, but take a look at just how much traffic they got blasted with;

For most of the companies out there trying to get a piece of the pie, they’ll most likely not have the option to just launch viral right from their website. Getting that extra push will require the help of the social web, and while getting hot on Digg just isn’t as easy these days, there are other places to turn your attention to. Keep in mind you cannot just jump on these sites and expect to go viral, it could happen but most likely not. Building your social fan base is key, and for this we recommend building up a couple months of fans and social participation on these sites.

Launchpad 1) BuzzFeed.com

Buzz Feed is not only a great site to read on a daily basis, it is also a great place to go viral. I’m an active user here just for the purposes of entertainment, but if you got some hilarious or strange link bait, you stand a great chance of getting attention. Keep in mind on a site like this there are thousands of other content pieces in the queue, so you’re link bait is going to need to be grade A awesome. Have your social media manager build up a strong account here beforehand and put forth a positive image of your brand. From the viral content we’ve launched here, you’ll see a lot of Facebook shares and ReTweets from the users, as well the thousands of sites that aggregate the content.

Launchpad 2) Reddit.com

Reddit is my favorite website, I’m personally a 4 year user and couldn’t live without it! Reddit is not a site you can game very easily, nor do I recommend trying to at all. Their user base is above and beyond the childish Digg user, and they can smell a spam scam from a mile away. The only advice I can give you is to have awesome content and wait for a Reddit user to submit it on their own merit. If you’re team has a good account, make sure you stick to the sub-reddits which will greatly increase your popularity. If you can get content to go hot here, you’re in for a large amount of traffic!

Launchpad 3) Huffington Post

All you right wingers out there might be scoffing at this recommendation, but the left just does entertainment news so much better. This is mainly a news site, but it does have a very popular entertainment section where you’ll find write-ups on the latest viral content going around. This site is also user powered which means you can sign up, write your own posts and participate socially throughout the site. If your link bait is hot hot hot, then you’re chances to getting it to go viral from this site is very good. This is a place you’re going to want to build an account up for as well, don’t bother just signing up for the sole purpose of submitting one piece of content. Social media is about building relationships, so keep that in mind before you try and become a one post wonder.

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This is the section where I plead, beg and ask for our readers to suggest other sites that they are fond of. There are dozens of great sites to launch your link bait from so lets here em! If your company is struggling with its own viral marketing efforts then this is where I’ll offer our link baiting services.

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Interview With Jordan Kasteler On Link Bait Tactics

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January 25  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Ryan Clark

Here’s a great interview with Jordan Kasteler of Blue Glass (formerly Search & Social) where he gives a huge list of link-baiting ideas. It isn’t easy to go viral these days, but there is more ways than one so pay close attention to what Jordan has to say. Creativity is key here, and this video interview at Pubcon certainly reminded me of the variety of options a company has to play with. Good luck and if you get stuck, you can always get our help with link baiting.

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