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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.