Pay People to Do Something: An Advanced Link Building Strategy

Advanced link building is about keeping things topically relevant to your core products and services if you have customers, or content if you’re a publisher and need readers or subscribers, and acquiring quality backlinks at scale with minimal outreach.  The links will occur on sites where your audience reads and engages, and the reason they’re linking should cause your target audience to want to share the content on social media.  That’s why it is “quality content.”  Below is an idea I had and have run some versions of, but never a full execution.

To protect client identities I am not using themes or examples from the live campaigns, but I do share multiple industries and niches so you can try running it as a test.  You will need marketing and PR skills to make it work.

It may feel similar to gimmick marketing like scholarship links (which do not work once you’re caught), but it is very different as you don’t stop with the initial gimmick and instead focus on the quality of the content after.

Spoiler alert: The initial links that come from steps 1 and 2 are not part of the goal, in some cases you may want to disavow.

The multi-step process for this strategy includes:

1. Paying a person or a group of people
2. Building exposure for the opportunity
3. Getting them under contract and explain what is required
   1. This section has the first examples by niche, and is where the meat of this article and link building strategy is.
4. Organizing the data
   1. This is the next most important section.
5. Doing content marketing via the original data
6. Advertising the content to build buzz around it
7. Contacting the media for exclusives and teasers

Pay the Person or People

Instead of scholarships, pay someone or a group of people to do something that is also contextually relevant to your business and advertise it in your jobs section and on job boards.  The goal isn’t backlinks here, it is building awareness for your brand through a PR stunt.  Your goal is to create a unique job either part time or full time and bring attention to it.

If it works you’ll see temporary influxes of backlinks and traffic that aren’t going to lead to customers or people looking for more information on your products, services, or content.  They’re instead curious about the job and why you’re doing this.

This does build temporary authority that can be used to get backlinks.  But these may not be good links, so there is a chance you may want to disavow some of them, similar to how you should be getting rid of scholarship backlinks.

Pro-tip: The backlinks will be pointing to your jobs section if done correctly, reach out to the contextually relevant or quality media companies and ask for a link off of your brand name to your homepage if it is a site that will have your customers and target audience on it.

Warning: I have seen these types of mentions boost brand visibility and temporarily power the site for other phrases.  But it is not shopping and converting traffic, and that can work against you.  Don’t rely on these links for SEO.  Just like scholarship links, directories, etc… it will work temporarily, but then it stops and you could be worse off.

Build Exposure for the Job

Posting the job is easy, now you have to build a viral type of campaign for it.  Start running ads on social media for the unique job to potential applicants or people that are likely to share.  You can also target media by using job titles and interests like journalism societies, blogger or influencer as a career, and works at specific media companies.  But remember, the goal is to build buzz and awareness, so focus on an audience that would want to apply and share vs. the media.

Pro-tip: If the media does reach out and sources your posting, begin building the relationship with the editor or contributor if they also write topics about your products, services, or content as this will help your business grow for the long run.

If you don’t get someone or a group of people hired, the link building campaign and PR stunt will not work.  When these audiences do engage and they do start sharing, it builds the buzz naturally and media companies may pick the story up without you having to do excess heavy lifting as it is a unique story that is trending.

If this step does not take off it could be a sign that it is the wrong season, you didn’t get it in front of the right couple of eyes that starts the virality, or the idea simply didn’t have legs.  Move onto the next, or give it a try again once the correct season takes off.

And as a bonus you can target currently unemployed people that are qualified for the tasks below, you may be giving these people a mental break that they need and some temporary income.  And if it turns out they’re good, you may have a new employee starting after the promotion is over.

Get the New Hires Under Contract

Now its time to get these people under contract and to commit to giving you the data you need.  Make sure they know this job is temporary and not permanent, especially if you advertise to unemployed people.  It isn’t fair to lead them on thinking it is full time.

The requirements must be clearly stated including what is required, the potential time needed to complete the tasks, and repercussions they face if they do not follow through.  In order to get what you need for the next step, they must stick to the plan.  Multiple companies just have the contractors share their experiences.  That is not enough for advanced link building, original and unique data points turned into quality content are what drive long term success.

The tasks can include keeping daily journals, completing surveys once or twice a day, calls to report to a data collector at your company (fancy way to say marketer), writing about their experiences in public or private blog posts, or anything else that gives you an easy to crawl, read, combine, and extract from format.

This can apply to almost any industry and retailers, service providers, and publishers or niche sites.  One thing that will potentially help is to tie in something iconic, has a cult following because there is an emotional attachment, or that cause an emotional or physical reaction like good or bad feelings.  Here’s some examples of what you may want to do and by niche.

Watch Horror Movies or Rom Coms

This is not for horror or fan sites, or for costume shops and collectibles.

Have a group of people watch the same exact horror movie or rom com night after night for a month or two before bed.  Or give them a series of five and they have to watch one each work night in order (Sunday through Thursday) before bed for a set amount of time like 2 months.  Or mix up the horror movies and assign them to different segments based on demographics where the victims or killers match the person or people assigned to watch. 

Another variation can be half the group watches horror and the other half watches rom coms. The rom com heroes, anti-heroes, and characters can match the demographics like above, etc…  Now set the standards for tracking specific information and data points, but don’t phrase it that way because you don’t want them to catch onto what you’re actually evaluating. 

What you can look for here could include: (I share more details in a later section)

• • Tracking the turning point that these movies become part of their dream cycles.
  • When do they impact their work lives and their personal lives.
  • How often and how long did it take before they thought about the movie or a scene at work, or cracked a joke from or about the movie.
  • Did sleep patterns and cycles start to shift and change?
  • Is there anything noticeable about the way they write, annoyance, grievance, etc… with repeating the same task and learning the same thing over and over in their journals?
  • Have they begun taking on characteristics of the characters they match most demographically?
  • Are there any new behaviors or skills they’re learning like personal defense classes if they match the victim’s profile from the horror movies and dreamt about it, or started dating apps and being more social from rom coms.

Paid to Travel and Blog About It

Lots of travel and food companies do this or did this, but I haven’t seen any follow through with actionable campaigns after.  If I was running this campaign I may actually have a travel company post the job to their website, and my client would collect and use the data for their business and link building strategy.  But my client would not be the travel company or brand themselves.

In reality, who cares what a single person thought about a hotel or a trip?  It gets boring after a while and once their journey is done, their content becomes stale.  If they’re not on the road anymore, fans and followers likely leave because they wanted the person and their voice vs. the brand.  And there’s a likely chance their original subscribers tuned out once the novelty of the “paid to travel” winner wears off.

Just like above you need data points for the next steps both on the road and after.

• Eating habits and cooking habits that are changing.
• Self care routines and habits for cleanliness (hand washing and hair washing frequencies for example).
• Fashion and style changes on the trip and 6 months or 12 months after.
• Friend groups and social circles after, what are they drawn to and how have they changed.
• How have their dreams changed, their goals, what do they want out of life now vs. before?
  • Does this change again 6 and 12 months after their journey has finished?
  • New jobs or industries they want to work in, have they gone for non-profits or are focused solely on corporate life, etc…

These are data points perfect for HR associations, psychology and medical companies like hospitals and supplement companies, of course the travel companies (hotels, airlines, publications from Conde Nast) and camera manufacturers, and plenty of others.  The blogging content about travel would not be relevant to most, but the data would be and that is in the next steps after these examples.

Watch All of a Series and Document It

I forget which talk show host had an employee watch all episodes of Game of Thrones (GOT) back to back for a weekend without leaving a room.  This is definitely something that will impact you.  Just like GOT, a movie series like star wars, or an older show that would not be PC now like Married With Children, The Golden Girls, or All in the Family could be interesting to test because there is an immediate connection many of us have to them. 

You can have liberal or conservative college students watch the series back-to-back to completion and have specific requirements.  And in this case you may want to record the room while they watch like the talk show host did.

Each of these series brings out raw emotions and reactions from people of all walks of life.  These shows in particular may be especially impactful because there are generational bonds and beliefs being challenged.  The watching of a series can be done over multiple weekends vs. a single binge watch as well.  It all depends on the goals of the data collection.

• Shifts in generational beliefs.
• How TV shows impact their lines of thinking before and after.
• Do they bond with villains or heroes, and how their emotions towards them change as the characters develop and morph.

You get the idea.  The goal is to have demographics and monitor their behaviors, reactions, etc… and see how these change.  You could take it further and for each successful 2 hour segment they watch, they get $20 or $50 to spend online…watch their buying behaviors and habits.

• If its for food are they going for comfort or healthy.
  • If a character is sick or dying in an episode or season, does this impact those choices.
• Are they using the money for necessities or for needs.
• Is the purchase a “treat yourself” type of thing or something that advances them and did this follow up from an emotional scene.
  • It is especially important if you’re surveying buying behaviors where income is more limited like college students or senior citizens.

With this data you can now run tests on your website to see how you can get the demographics to change behaviors, learn what words and ideas may influence them, and how to shift brand appeal or acceptance.  You may also be able to shift and change how long they stay in the lifecycle path and increase or decrease it, or win them back once they return to a user demographic.

These tests are perfect for consulting firms, ad platforms, marketing agencies, conferences, non-profits, etc… They can use the tests on real time users and create case studies.  These case studies and the test data are used for link baiting and customer acquisition.  Publishing these stats and tests can lead to a lot of quality links when done correctly, and even with a gate like email or SMS depending on how good the hook is.

Build or Put Things Together

LEGO sets, Ikea furniture, and other icons where construction is key.  People relate and joke about these whether it is stepping on a brick and it being painful, or needing to assemble things, and of course getting it almost done only to find a piece is missing or broken.  Multiple talking points from above can be applied here, so I’ll leave that to you to “puzzle” over since this is assembly.  

Let’s go into using the data once its collected.

Organize the Data and Content Marketing

Now we need to organize the data and begin processing it in meaningful ways.  I’m combining two of the steps above because they make more sense together here, but split into steps in the list.

Note: This is a section I shortened a lot.  The previous version went into great detail about the content plan.  It cannot be just one datapoint and article, you need a series and themes so there are unique things to talk about for 6 months and potentially a few years.  If you did the horror films, then look at what will be releasing new editions, especially cult classics like Nightmare on Elm St. and Child’s Play.  

• Track full nights sleep with and without the TV on using apps as they’ll be running the music and voices in commercials.
• What was the change during non-horror movie trailer seasons and the months they run more frequently.
• Note room temperatures and blankets, did thicker blankets provide more of a feeling of security if you provided options and they choose.
• Had the person felt more stress or less during horror seasons and hearing those sounds while they slept.
• What types of medicines did they use to get better sleep after and how did it compare seasonally.

If you went with horror films and rom coms, your data can apply to sleeping companies like mattresses and melatonin, not just comic book stores and fan sites.  The data could also be used for gifting companies and also dating websites or apps and the aspects of social settings that cause them to start feeling the need to use them.

The goal is to share some form of interesting facts based on the study that answers a question customers have, or could be a topic of interest and is relevant to your products, services, or topics.  When done well it builds trust and makes you an authority as you are the one with the original data and research.

This gives media companies reasons to reach out or source you, and customers reasons to come back to you as you’re sharing answers to their common questions which happen to also be related to your products and services.

The case studies and data driven blog posts could be about:

• How sleep patterns are impacted by horror films and how many it takes to impact your life
  • Why you may have more issues sleeping in the fall when more horror films get released
• Why you may feel the need to try a dating app again during non-dating seasons
• Interesting buying behaviors and comfort products based on “non-visible” social patterns and behaviors
• The reasons you may be purchasing X and Y in the fall and A or B in spring
• Why you feel the need to take self defense classes or martial arts during specific times of the year

If you’re having the focus groups watch from a studio or room like the GOT filming, put things like blankets made from different materials and other comforting items.  Watch for patterns like going for a thinner and lighter one vs. a thicker down one.  The same goes for pillows or wraps being used and the frequencies as which the focus group takes them.

The same with rom coms coming out in theatres and streaming services in fall and spring, or around the feel-good holiday films.  Hallmark is famous for their Christmas series.  Whether you like them or hate them, you definitely know they’re coming and exist.

Same with the snack foods and how the patterns shift, or if the person stops eating because the seasons shift and modify.  This can be especially true if the media being played is about unhealthy life habits and they’re watching the progression of a person destroying themselves through bad habits.

This may be able to map back to customer buying behaviors.  New Years is New You season and when people go healthier, but maybe your product mix is missing the items consumers are going for during the study, and these also match the health foods and fitness gear.  Same with what is actually providing them comfort vs. what we assume is comforting post horror movies and disturbing or graphic content.

You have original data points and if you create blog posts, videos, and other media points on your website that relate to your customers, how they’re feeling, and what they can do to resolve the issue or make their lives better.  These unique data points are the link bait that you want to push out into the world.

Advertising the content and build buzz around it

Now that your content is published and has meaningful data that answer’s customer and reader questions, you need to push it out so people want to talk about and share it.  Here’s a few things to include, but only when they complement the content.  You don’t need to do each for all types.

• Social sharing counters can build trust with visitors when they’re going up regularly and lets journalists know the topic is hot when the published date is new.
• Infographics and visual pieces are not helpful on all content.  But they are for some.  Don’t use them for backlinks, but make an embed box available so people can embed them if they want.  The goal of the info piece is a quick and easy way to understand the concept and datapoints.  It can be selected as an alternative to the featured image when shared, and that matters on platforms like Pinterest.
• Contact information if the reader has more questions or happens to be part of the media and they want to learn more.
• Sharing you have more details and data with some teasers about what the other data points are.  Then place your PR or media contact forms and email addresses on the page so you can build a list of journalists and bloggers for future content and coverage.  They get access to the data, you build a media list, and they’ll hopefully link to you as a source when the data gets used.
• Make sure to run the blog post on your own social media channels and advertise them to audiences that would benefit from the topic.  This helps get buzz going, and once it does you may want to try adding media companies and niche publications to ads the mix.

Contacting the Media for Exclusives and Teasers

Now that you have the content live, customers are sharing it and your counters are climbing, this is when you reach out to the media.  Local and national almost always need a story, and you have original talking points and data.  If done right, your original content is the current hot trend.  Use this to get your foot in the door.

• Can you do an exclusive about the data and study with some things not mentioned in the post?
• If the editor already sourced and covered you, do you have another topic that is related and coming out shortly?  If yes, why not pitch it to them or ask if they’d be interested in learning more.
• Try using search operators to extract phrases and claims that you have now proven.  Look to see if the media companies have sourced it, and if no this is an opportunity for you to get the link and for them to back up their claims.
• Media companies need eyeballs, and some editors and contributors are held to impressions and revenue.  Offer to advertise their content and spend $XYZ to drive visitors if they agree to cover it or source you as a subject matter expert.
  • There could be legal disclosure requirements here, so check with your legal team about the best way to do it.

You get the idea.  The goal is to find something that builds buzz and awareness so you can get a person or group of people that matches your customer demographics.

The bottom line is to publish original content that answers questions, solves problems, or shares data based findings that is unique and relevant to what your company does.  This is what can get amplified, sourced, and drive quality links to your site.  If they’re not on topic and it is not a reader who would likely be a customer, you’re doing gimmick marketing and the backlinks will eventually work against you.