Social Media Marketing Strategy #1: Re-Submitting Linkbaits for Viral Success
As you might already know, link baits are content, tools or webpages specifically created to pull in links and traffic from other websites and popular social media websites like Digg or Reddit.
Creating an effective link bait can take a lot of time and effort and I think initial control over the distribution process is very important. You want someone who has influence or connections to submit or promote your link bait to the social community you are targeting.
This increases the potential for eventual success on many levels. Submitting your link bait using a very weak account on social voting or news sites will not allow you get the prominence you deserve, primarily because there isn’t enough initial support to propel your link bait into the limelight.
However, sometimes even power users might not have the ability to make your link bait go viral. Blame it on the saturated of news, the inherent bias against your domain or the inappropriateness of your article.
There are dozens of reasons why your bait didn’t succeed but trying to pinpoint them definitively is futile, particularly when some of the factors lie outside of your control (e.g. editorial/management prejudice).
Why You Should Resubmit Your Content for Social Media Popularity
Re-submission or re-insertion of link baits and valuable content into the social community gives your website a second chance. Didn’t make it big before? Now you have another shot. Note that there are also some concrete reasons why you should consider resubmission as a promotional strategy:
- Correct Weak Submissions. You might have submitted your own linkbait with a new profile that doesn’t have much clout. Or someone else with a small circle of influence might have submitted it before you. Even though your article is awesome, it may still go unnoticed on the social site. Resubmission with a stronger profile is a good way to bring it back from the dead for round two.
- Resuscitate Your Archives. Maybe you’ve written great content in the past but never bothered about social media marketing. Your favorite articles might have already been submitted by other users but now that you’re more social media savvy, it’s time to dig out some of the older, timeless articles to give them another go-around on the social sites.
- Feed Current Interests. Say you have an old Apple article which intricately explores the history of all their mp3 players. You’ve just found out today that Apple is releasing a next generation iPod with great new features. Pull out your old article, do some edits and resubmit it to ride the social media buzz.
- Kickstart a New Domain. If you’ve moved all your articles and content over to a new domain or brand, resubmission is an excellent way to immediately get some attention to your new website. All your permalinks will be different, which will faciliate the resubmission process. This was something I personally realized after completely restructuring my category and permalinks.
Remember, the aim of every linkbait is to bring in links and traffic. Re-submission doesn’t deviate from this principle. Ergo, your content must still be incredibly appealing and link worthy. This must be the number one rule to keep in mind.
You’re essentially giving your article or webpage another chance. You’re asking the social media audience to take another look, because they might find something valuable that was overlooked the first time round.
How to Resubmit Your Content for Social Media Popularity
Take a stroll through your site archives to examine the webpages or articles you have created. Look at the ones that are exceptionally well written or still relevant to the current climate. News-oriented or topical posts will probably not work well with audiences who expect content that is relatively fresh or new.
You can also make minor (or major) edits to the articles you want to re-submit, in order to increase their relevance or attractiveness. This will also legitimize your article, particularly if it received a decent amount of exposure the other time, while failing to eventually develop massive popularity on the specific social site.
Pick some of the articles you like and then submit it to the social news websites through a strong social profile. Submit it yourself or get someone else to do it for you. Some of the social websites block the old url so create a new URL for your linkbait page and 301 redirect the old URL.
And you’re done. Depending on the strength of your article and the influence of the submitter, you will now have a better chance going big on any social website.
More Articles on Effective Social Media Marketing Strategies
This first social media marketing strategy is something that anyone can implement for success. I’ve been meaning to write about resubmissions for a while but haven’t had the chance to do so until now. A special hat tip to Chris Winfield, who reminded me of this method in a conversation we had earlier today.
I’ll be writing a little more on social media marketing and will be providing more tips on how you can better improve your potential for getting traffic, attention and links through the various social media outlets.
Stay tuned and subscribe to Dosh Dosh to receive updates on new articles.
I like the idea of re-submitting and having an influential social networker submitting my posts however; the question that I think begs to be asked is how to get an influential digger etc to give you feedback on your site, and to then take time out of their busy schedules to submit your article?
Great tips!
I saw the title and was wondering if you were going to say to just change the title or something and resubmit, but I was pleasantly surprised!
@Sucker, I’m glad you found the article useful.
@Andrew Bell
I am actually planning to answer that question in another post but I’ll add here that a part of it is about networking and building a relationship. True social media junkies and power users are never too busy to look at your article. They are always looking for something to submit or ways to contribute to a social community. I know that from personal experience.
I was pretty late in starting with the social media submissions, and I was just thinking today that it’s a shame I didn’t have it together from the beginning because I think I wrote some pretty great stuff…thank you so much for this post. I’ll be looking out for further posts!
I think this is a great tip - more importantly, as a beginner, I have enough trouble just submitting them myself, let alone get someone with clout to submit it for me. I think I’ve got some long days and weeks ahead of me. I thank you and I’ll be back!
This article highlights a fundimanetal problem with the likes of digg and reddit - they are crowded and often even if content is great it can be buried.
I have found Digg getting more and more autocratic in their management of their ‘ecosystem’ to the extent a number of good blggers have been banned for apparently ’spamming’ the system.
I think recycling makes a lot of sense - but what makes more sense is gradually building your authority and of course building a network of diggers to vote you up when your content hits the site.
@Online PR UK,
Recycling is a technique that is rarely explored by most social media marketers. I don’t think I’ve even read any other article which addresses it in detail. Naturally reciprocation and having a strong network of social media connections/friends is important but that topic has been covered far too much by every marketer. I thought I’ll start with this strategy first and then move on to the other more ‘traditional’ ones. ^_^
Maybe the place is crowded, but we still get backlinks with those sites.
I’m working on moving my blog to a hosted wordpress format, from typepad. This well be a great way to begin giving my blog an initial boost out of the start gate, outside of the traffic that will follow me (subscribers and the like).
Great read! This is really helpful for me, as I recently launched a new blog but lack the “social cred” to promote my initial articles. As I start to build up my social influence, I’ll definitely revisit older content to see if I can breathe in some new life.
I notice you don’t date-stamp your articles. Is this a strategy to use against those who will immediately discount something for being more than 24 hours old? If so, brilliant!
Try this strategy, and got boost page view from stumbleupon! great post Maki!