Lee Oddin at TopRankBlog brings up a good point about renaming old things to make them new again in one of his latest posts.
He draws a line between viral marketing and the newer term link baiting. I feel like the better fit would be viral linking instead, but they are all closely related.
Link Baiting: Putting up some stellar piece of content, resource list, how-to information, a free guide… something free that makes people buzz you with links to make their readers go hmmmm, or to simply impress them.
Viral Marketing: This is really a lot of things that cannot be restricted to the narrower tactic of link baiting. It also encompasses free distributable materials where people are rewarded in some way for “passing them on.” It also includes publicity stunts that kind of go hand in hand with link baiting, yet can also veer from the definition above depending on the type of stunt you pull.
Viral Linking: This fits and joins the two terms nicely I think. This could encompass the best of both terms above, but who needs yet another term to throw on the pile of already confusing lingo for beginners?
What’s the point here? To get you thinking about getting links. That’s one of my biggest jobs here at FTR. Why, where, and how to get links is a big piece of any good marketing campaign. A BIG piece.
Google Top 10 offers some more resources on link baiting.
Link baiting may be the latest sexy term for viral marketing (or viral linking or Power Linking) but it is mostly a new spin on an old tactic. One of the oldest on record in fact.