The list below contains the most common types of successful link bait. Note that any one of these can and will often co-exist, and indeed the more of these categories a given Linkbait artefact exhibits, the more successful it is likely to be - if one form doesn't create the motiviational condition in a person, another might.
This raises another important point - each of these factor's effects are specific and different to each person exposed. For example, what might be "Exclusive" or "Uniquely Informative" to me, may be old news to you. Thus, presuming you and I have the same dispositions to linking, I would be far more likely to "take the bait." What this means is that you should never assume a strategy will not work because "It's been done before" - that may be the case, but how successful was the example in question? what reach did it have?, can the same information be promoted or recomposed for a different audience?
The Exclusive
An Exclusive covers any information / feature relevant to a given audience. The actual information / feature may be fairly unremarkable, but its value as Linkbait is simply in being the first source of that information / feature, meaning people within the relevant audience are likely reference it. Exclusives have a very short shelf life, and will almost always carry another factor from the list below. Some made-up examples of exclusives:
- "ISP's to ban all MP3 downloads" (controversial)
- "John Smith made $10,000 on his blog last week" (uniquely informative)
- "GMail Inbox upgraded to 2Tb" (brand associated)
Uniquely informative
This is about material that has a meaningful impact to the viewer's worldview - the information educates, enlightens or enrichs their life, gives them new perspectives, etc. But the key difference is the uniqueness - the same old information regurgitated among media outlets and blogs is never unique - this is all about that story or blog post that stands out from the crowd. As covered above, the effect of this type of linkbait will be very different from person to person depending on individual knowledge and experience.
A close cousin to "Useful" (below), Informative can cover much mainstream news and reporting. However, editorial is as much about getting new eyeballs as it is journalism, thus the distortion of fact into hyperbole. The better journalists and independant content publishers who spend time on research and production provide information in a way that captures attention.
Another angle on this is presenting information in a more user-friendly format. There's countless examples of popular information outlets that you could repurpose as an Information Graphic, Video, Slideshow, etc to create a more informing version.
Useful
Useful is any information or resource that will allow the consumer to achieve some with it. To be linkbait though, it needs to stand out, in a big way. Hopefully you find this article "Useful" - but it's unlikely to achieve "linkbait" status. Examples of effective linkbait in this category:
- A well-presented list of keyboard shortcuts to a popular application
- The code to crack BlueRay
- The raft of - "How to [insert skill here] in [insert slightly unbelievable context here]" blog posts littering the web.
- Software that raises the bar, creates new possibilities / opportunities
For "useful" to work best, it benefits from authority. "How to make/save money" resources barely get noticed unless in the context of an authority. As with Brand Association (below), there's no harm in borrowing credentials to try and make it work "How Donald Trump made $X in his 20's" - I'm sure you can do better than that.
Controversial
Controversy hits the moral and ethical buttons of an audience by challenging their beliefs, sensibilities and opinions via radical means. Although controversy is specific to each audience, it's not hard to imagine material that offends, or would be labelled as inappropriate or questionable by large chunks of the poplation.
Controversy needs to be used with care, depending on what reputational effects you are willing to live with.
Examples include:
- Any controversial news, e.g. Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson, social turmoil, environmental decline, etc. Virtually anything to do with politics - which by nature creates opposing viewpoints
- Prejudiced, hateful or disparaging material, aimed at a subject/target to create an emotional reaction in an audience
- Material that breaks laws or treads a fine line in legal matters - copyright issues (torrents, DRM, lawsuits, etc) being a current favorite
- Material that "dupes" an audience - like YouTube's "LonelyGirl15," the first recognised attempt to deliver a premeditated "online video diary" by a young girl, who was actually an actor. A similiar example was the introduction of "Paid Posts" in the blogosphere. Seem like a fuss about nothing now, right?
- Watch them suffer - Chris Cooper's "Leave Britney alone" YouTube outburst, a seemingly humiliating rant that spread rapidly, along with the numerous "Office worker sex proposal email leaked" examples that make the headlines.
Entertaining
Entertainment covers a wide array of subjects (film, tv, music, celebrities, comedy, books), and on any media (audio, visual, written, graphics, etc.).
Entertainment is subjective, and indeed what some may consider linkbait may simply be the effect of huge marketing budgets for the creators - I don't consider this linkbait. Viral Marketing works very well for certain movies, tv shows, etc; but effective linkbaiting leverages much, much lower promotional costs to achieve far greater return on investment.
Most of the effective examples in this arena are on YouTube - take a glance at the top rated videos. Most of these are not "studio" produced, and show viewing figures TV networks pay huge sums for.
Innovative
Innovation linkbait is about the message of human progress it communicates or delivers:
- "Apple announce 1Petabyte iPod"
- "Microsoft release new Windows version with true 1 second bootup"
- 50 Inch plasmas now under $300
The greater the advance, the greater the linking.
Brand association
The association of a brand with any information or feature can make it go viral with little other effort. In the case of news, just look at anything Apple does and see the effect. Equally, celebrity "brands" have a perplexing viral quality, as seen in the almost obsessive coverage of Britney Spear's (that's two mentions in this article) every move. It's an interesting reflection on society (that means you and me) that even "mainstream" media catalogs absurdly mundane details about her life, yet this is governed by the perceived interest and "value" of the brand in question - i.e. the knowledge that consumers are actually interested.
For those without an Apple-level brand, an oft-used (and misued) technique is to associate a brand with material in order to leverage a viral effect. Examples of this include:
- Information Graphic showing every Apple O/S User Interface since they launched.
- Z-List blogger posts some uniquely derived information about an A-List blogger (very good example was NorthxEast's list of "50 most influential bloggers" which spread like the bubonic plague).
- Free software that adds value to a brand name service of software, e.g. "GMail Drive" - you'll find these littered on LifeHacker's posts.
"Zeitgeist"
Zeitgeist describes linkbait that defies convention - something that just captures people's attention at a point in time for seemingly unknown reasons. No one would dare put money on it, yet it works. It impossibly risky to create, and can lead to a publicity phenomenom, the effects of which attract more attention. Examples include:
- Mahir Cagri's "I Kiss You" homepage
- The Hamster Dance site
- Lightsaber boy
Realistically, most "Zeitgeist" falls into another category such as Entertainment, but are not usually targeted entertainment - their consumption as entertainment may not have been the intended effect.
Use of Medium
In all the factors above, I've touched on the use of different media - it's a very big factor, which I'll be addressing separately. There is one slant on use of media that is worth mentioning. Certain information lends itself well to different media, but adapting information traditionally consumed in one format to another is a sure-fire way to increase linking chances.
-
To finish up, I'll go for one fantasy linkbait title:
"Google offer dedicated Torrent Search Engine"
That ticks (nearly) all the boxes above - (1) Exclusive: assuming it's the first mention (2) Uniquely Informative: this would be unique, given Google's stature in search technology (3) Controversy: Torrents? 'nuff said (4) Useful: for the target audience, it's very useful (5) Brand Associated: if no one knew the company name, who would care? (6) Use of media: the media in this case, is a software application (service).
The only two I don't think apply in this case are Entertainment and Zeitgeist.