Did I just flush a fat midget down the toilet?

pdstein · #1 (**permalink**) 05-14-2007, 03:05 PM

Alright, so last week I posted the Viral Marketing is Like a Fat Midget with a Wig on a Unicycle post. It was an attempt at using humor to spark a conversation about viral marketing and maybe get some more feedback on a recent attempt at viral marketing.

Chris was nice enough to feature it in the WebProWorld newsletter on Wednesday and the topic has received 280+ views here. I also posted it on a few other online marketing forums where it had a couple hundred additional views. Nothing earth shattering, but it did cause me to think...

Did I just flush a viral marketing (or more specifically a link baiting) opportunity down the toilet?

I mean if you’re not a social marketing rock star like Rand Fishkin or Neil Patel and don’t have a blog read by a gazillion SEMs, if you write an SEM article that you think is funny or insightful or whatever what’s the best way to use something like that to build reputation and links for your website?

I'm sure there of folks out there like me who don’t have the time or ability write an article every day, but would like to make the most of occassional moments of clarity or creativity.

pdstein · #2 (**permalink**) 05-15-2007, 03:51 PM

Surely I'm not the only person around here who would like to periodically write an article and make the most of it from a reputation/link building perspective. Anyone?

kdemonte · #3 (**permalink**) 05-15-2007, 08:58 PM

Who wouldn't love to be an article rock star? LOL I am sick of wasting time on articles and only getting minimal results from my effort. It pays off, to some degree, but I do feel like I'm missing the boat on something and should be utilizing other resources to get more bang for my buck...so to say.

pdstein · #4 (**permalink**) 05-17-2007, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kdemonte

Who wouldn't love to be an article rock star? LOL I am sick of wasting time on articles and only getting minimal results from my effort. It pays off, to some degree, but I do feel like I'm missing the boat on something and should be utilizing other resources to get more bang for my buck...so to say.

What do you do with your articles? I cited several possibilities in the poll. Maybe the problem isn't the articles, but that you're not using them effectively.

saikatblogger · #5 (**permalink**) 05-24-2007, 03:14 AM

Let me tell you what I have been doing so far:

We run different campaigns:

Write an article with a link to my site and get it published in different article directories.
Write an article an a popular topic for my site and post teasers in different forums and blogs.
Write domain specific articles for other sites and get it published with a link back to my site.

To me:

The first option does not look good any more. I am sure SE is not going to give me credit for same content published at 100 places, it should be counted as 1.
The second option is good to increase traffic over a short period of time.
The third option helps me establish good will for me and my site.

littlelo · #6 (**permalink**) 05-24-2007, 01:50 PM

Anyone had a positive experience submitting articles to article directories? I submitted an article to goarticles.com, selfgrowth.com and ezinearticles.com. Are some directories better than others? And have you used article submission software or do you enter each article one at a time?

**Ne0** · #7 (**permalink**) 05-24-2007, 02:13 PM

Have you tried submitting it to digg.com or reddit?

If you can get the front page listing for even a few hours... you will end up with quite a bit of recognition!

littlelo · #8 (**permalink**) 05-24-2007, 10:01 PM

I'll try those. Thanks for the suggestion.