Having trouble getting exposure for your linkbait on social media news sites? Well, complain about algorithms all you want, but the odds are you’re doing something wrong. Identifying these 5 main mistakes along with these tips to correct them, can help you debug your social media problems leading you to social success!
This is a no-brainer; social media ‘power users’ do exist. While you DON’T need to be a power user to find success on sites like Digg and Reddit, you DO need to be a part of the community. If you don’t regularly participate in the community, vote on stories, submit great content (not just your stuff) and make friends … then the odds of  your content becoming popular are severely limited.
If your accounts have never had any social media successes in the past, don’t waste your precious linkbait trying to make it your first ever submission to go popular. Join the community, contribute to the site and build yourself up BEFORE submitting your content. If you don’t have time to work your accounts, you should either stop your involvement in social media news marketing or look to others for help/guidance. Chris wrote a brilliant post awhile back on how to meet other social media users and how you can use this to your advantage.
The quality of accounts is one of the most critical success factors in the social media news sites. To set yourself up for success, make sure you join the community wholeheartedly or know someone  who does.
The quality of a site is make-or-break in social media. If you are too salesy, business oriented or ad-focused you are setting yourself and your content up for  colossal failure.  Social media news users are looking for one thing – interesting news or great content. They didn’t come to get slapped in the face with a massive pop-up.
Many users are even repulsed by content that is too corporate. Many times the creation of special non-branded pages or microsites is a good way to ensure that your linkbait will have a higher probability of being seen.
A classic example of setting yourself up for failure is that of spreading your content across multiple pages to boost your ad impressions. Sure, getting  ten extra pageviews for that piece of linkbait spread across  ten different pages is nice, but what would you rather have – a social media success with 100,000 visitors and 100,000 page views or a failure with 100 visitors with 1,000 page views. I always recommend erring on the side of caution, and not giving social media users a reason to not vote for your content (or even downvote you).
Even the most powerful social media users can’t make poor content popular. Your content should fit the site’s audience, and be unique and engaging. This is far and away the most common problem with the linkbait success.
People spend far less time on lists, guides, and articles than they should. If your content doesn’t floor someone, then why would they vote for you, let alone link to you? If you are taking the humor hook, have your funniest friend or local struggling stand-up comedian help you write it. Using the resource hook? Then reach out (send emails, leverage twitter) and try to gain a quote from an industry expert.
Maybe you think you can buy votes to get popular, or maybe you think setting up hundreds of accounts will do the trick. Wrong. Strategy is absolutely critical in social media news sites. Your content should fit the network that you are using; you should follow all terms of use and you should act in a way that represents the community.
Buying votes is a bad strategy. Submitting to irrelevant sections just because they have more subscribers is an awful strategy. Having everyone in your building vote on a story is a terrible method.
Make sure that you have a well documented strategy before engaging in social campaigns, as one bad tactic can kill your linkbait forever.
Let’s face it, sometimes your competition is just dirty. Make sure your campaigns are under the radar until they become popular. Don’t update your Facebook about upcoming promotions or send out Tweets asking for votes. You are just asking them to help you fail. Like everything else, there are always people looking to halt your success.
Conclusion
If you can take one and only one thing away from this post, I implore you to think about this: “When in doubt, always take the cautious route”.
Do whatever it takes – ping a top user, put that corporate linkbait on a non-branded page, throw an extra set of eyes at the content, spend the extra time coming up with a comprehensive strategy and stay under the radar. Your linkbait will thank you.
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37 Responses to “Why Your Social News Linkbait Isn’t ‘Baiting’”
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If people only understood the value of what you are saying here, and took even just a few moments to figure it out – it would be life changing for their website, rankings and link baited content! Great post Greg!
Thanks Matt! I love debunking things, and if you are having problems w/something – 99% of the time there is a way to fix it. Just have to find the problem and work from there!
Good advice, but come on–if you have a humor hook, have someone else write it? Give me a break, like I can't write my own funny content? If you can't write your own funnies, then you shouldn't be taking that angle at all.
great post Greg. you are so correct that if you are no going to floor the audience, then forget it.
Now that IS awesome advice. Great content is the first step…then connecting.
Not having this problem for what I did today
great advice though guys
Very good advice. I think there are some many companies out there that create 100 social networking profiles becuse someone told him it would help their business. It really all starts with having a good website and good content then being very social in the networks that fit the demographic you are trying to target.
Hi Greg, this is a very helpful article that needs to be bookmarked. I'm a Digger but haven't invested much time there as I supposed to do. And hence, haven't benefited much. You're right, one doesn't have to submit only his/her own content.
After reading this, I feel very grateful that I don't have to blog for money. My blog is just my opinions about pointless junk and it doesn't matter if five people read it. Ah, the freedom of mediocrity!
Very good thoughts here Greg. So how does one overcome issue #1? Contact a top account and pitch them subtly? Other ideas?
Ephricon,
Thanks! I think I will make a follow-up post to this in the next week or so about how to tastefully contact top users. The main thing is that you don't want to come off as really salesy, building the relationship is the real key.
I've always found it easier to get my top content onto Reddit (as compared to Digg). It's far easier to get to the front page, all it takes is a few early votes to really get noticed, whereas Digg requires far more to get noticed.
[...] Why Your Social News Linkbait Isn’t ‘Baiting’ (10e20 blog) [...]
I am a part time web developer and now want to switch myself to Web2.0 Application Development, i was searching some stuff about Web2.0, Social Media, Social networking and Blogs, by passing Google Search i came acroos your website which has excellent resources of Web2.0 and e-Marketing.
I can understand link building for web designers, seo, or general software/consulting websites. It’s hard to imagine link baiting for say a candy store. Just a thought… Meanwhile I’m trying to think of one.. Also, I would think it’s a catch 22. How can you get people to take the bait without being well ranked and how can you rank high enough without it?
So what would you suggest fora big brand like lets say sears. What would a conversion optimized linkbait look like for them? I guess what I am asking is, if you ad any type of branding what so ever from what I have seen – you are banned or burried on digg immediately and this type of results I do not see so much from reddit, delicious, stumble and lots of other sites but digg is so anti big brand.
hi !
yeah man you are absolutely wright and a perfect points you mentioned thanks alot..keep updating us ..
I've struggled with social media marketing for a long while then I took a similar approach you outlined and it made a world of difference. The content definitely has to be compelling to get the most reward. And you're right, buying votes or asking others to vote for your content will not work, it will deliver traffic but not the quality you'll want so it won't convert. Great post.
It's hard to get a story on top of the listings if you don't have the time to join the community. While I have tried many things it never worked for me.
Iam stil confuse about SEO n whatever realted is that..do you have tool or software to do it see simple and cheap?
Hi Baby.. Greg has explained about social media marketing. It's possible that people will get confused. Only in-depth explanation can help to clear the doubts. You can drop a line with your doubts and find answers to your questions!
Though all the tips are valuable to solve out almost all the social media problems but inviting votes is certainly a great and easiest idea to gain popularity.
good suggestion to hire a local comedian. we have bin doing the humor hook angle for a while now
People that can create truly brilliant content probably won't have a problem getting it seen/read/spread…
or will they?
hi,
I want to say that some comments, pages in Digg do not have that good content still they are in the 1st place because of their network only..so in my view network is more important than contents…..
hi,
I want to say that some comments, pages in Digg do not have that good content still they are in the 1st place because of their network only..so in my view network is more important than contents…..
[...] Why Your Social Linkbait Isn’t Baiting – Greg Finn @ 10e20.com [...]
Thanks for good advice , Gred , great post !
Content is a key factor in making your website a success, if the content is updated and relevant people will be inclined to come back again and again.
glad find you article, cause my link bait in may social media are not work wel…not to help for my website, know i will trya you sugestion above
The content of your site is quite brilliant!
its nice. So how does one overcome issue #1? Contact a top account and pitch them subtly?
Textlinks.com…
Great review of this link building site…
me to I think there are some many companies out there that create 100 social networking profiles becuse someone told him it would help their business.
[...] Why Your Social News Linkbait Isn’t ‘Baiting’, 10e20 Blog [...]
very interesting
its not too easy to implement, have to put in lots of effort