Building Linkbait Outside of the Box

May 7th, 2007 by Michael Gray in Social Media

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While everyone concentrates on content linkbait one thing many people over look is physical linkbait.

Physical linkbait involves creating, building, or highlighting things in the physical world. One example is the TV bedroom installation shown below.

While that case is on the extreme side there are lots of other options. For example FedexFurniture show how an enterprising college student built furniture out of FedEx boxes (yes he did get a in a legal battle so go with the concept but steer clear of trademark issues). Building things out of Lego building blocks has always been popular on social media sites.

However you’ve probably seen that before, how about some uncharted territory? Food is always interesting if you have skills (or are working for a catering, restaurant or other food services client). Need an idea for woodworking or metal shop or welding client, monitor and case mods are always popular. Got a lingerie shop why not dress your car in a thong (seriously don’t forget to put a URL on the whale tail … like duh).

Convincing a client they have to spend extra money creating something in the physical world isn’t always easy, but it has the advantage of being much harder to duplicate …

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5 Responses to “Building Linkbait Outside of the Box”

  1. John Says:
    May 7th, 2007 at 1:27 am

    I got an error, “This video is no longer available.”

  2. Dreyer Media Says:
    May 7th, 2007 at 2:52 am

    Anywhere else we can see the video?

  3. Daniel R Says:
    May 8th, 2007 at 1:46 am

    Michael,

    The funny thing about linkbait is the regular SEO folks forget that it overlaps (if not nearly identical) with the goals of another online Word-of-Mouth campaigns: creating buzz online.

    And WoM campaigns have always come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, from YouTube videos to UGC competitions to “Top 10″ list of the standard Linkbait stuff.

    Nokia World on Flickr is but one example:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/nokia_world

    The only difference with WoM is that its not very concerned if the those “buzz” links point to http://www.viral-mini-site.com instead of your corporate website (the one you want to rank highly).

    And that would be my question about YouTube as linkbait, certainly it works. But, there’s a good chance that bloggers would embed the video without a linking to which company/website posted it up.

    What I’ve covered:
    “Hey Social Media Marketers, Remember Word-of-Mouth Marketing?”
    http://www.emergence-media.com/2007/04/hey-social-media-marketers-remember-word-of-mouth-marketing/

    “SEO Linkbait v. Online WoM Campaign: The Difference is Positioning?”
    http://www.emergence-media.com/2007/02/seo-linkbait-v-online-wom-campaign-the-difference-is-positioning/

  4. zafer Says:
    May 13th, 2007 at 11:43 pm

    How can shopping catalogs be used a link baiting and how?
    http://www.luxurybedsets.com

  5. Will Critchlow Says:
    May 15th, 2007 at 3:17 pm

    I want one of those fold-out TVs…

    A lot of what would have been traditional PR stunts get online benefit these days as well (someone we are working with just drove a sofa at 92mph to set a world record - the driver won a charity auction to get the right to drive it - typical PR stuff). Thought you might be interested.

    Good spot on the SEOmoz post about political candidates - you should comment over there more often - I enjoy your input…