|
I agree, this fad is a bit lame. From at least one of my stunts I am a tiny bit partially responsible for morphing this viral SEO marketing into the spammy link junk that's out there now, and I am sort of embarrassed how quickly it got turned into crap. I thought the original idea was fun and worth the effort, but if it keeps spiraling down the wrong path, my name won't be remembered as I intended.
I don't think viral marketing or link baiting will ever fade. It is vital to the growth of markets. Marketing is sort of evolving from mass marketing, to direct marketing, to personal selling, to viral market buzz generating, to whatever is next etc. I don't even know how to label it, but the growth of social media and UGC is changing marketing in ways that I think will be mostly positive.
It is typical style for an SEO (like myself) to try and take advantage of leveraging any advantage the marketplace creates. Social media is new, and thus it is getting spam slammed a little. I don't think this type of medium deserves a bad name just because of a few bad apples or bad ideas.
The way this little niche type of SEO evolved from link generation, to linkbait, to drinkbait (link stunting or whatever you want to call it), to [insert any word here]bait is kind of embarrassing. Just like SEO evolved from basically what is link spam to the new art form it is today, the buzz marketing aspect of SEO will change and evolve too.
Here's to hoping that the next generations of viral SEO will be much much better than any form of SEO that currently exists. I don't know if it will work out that way, but I hope it does. Then the idea of drinkbait will actually look smart instead of spammy. The point was to break through the clutter, not to make more of it.
|
