A few days ago I posted a story about a thirteen-year-old who maxed out his dad’s credit card on hookers, XBox and Oreos. Quite understandably, there was concern that the story wasn’t entirely accurate. Those concerns were well founded.
Warning: the following extract contains vomitous online technosperm.
Online marketer Lyndon Antcliff recently helped a client achieve over 1500 inbound links in under a week with a story designed to grab attention.
The article – 13 Year Old Steals Dad’s Credit Card to Buy Hookers – appeared on money.co.uk as part of Lyndon’s linkbaiting campaign, and it was certainly successful.
The story soon appeared around the world. Digg users pumped it up to a total 2452 diggs, driving tons of traffic to the page. Then news outlets started leaping on the story. In Australia News.com.au, The Daily Telegraph, and more all publicised the story, driving hundreds of links and thousands of site visitors back. Back in the UK, best selling newspaper The Sun published the story in their pages. News services loved the story of what American teens can get up to. In the states, Fox News aired the story, later spread wide through YouTube.
But the whole article was fiction. (more)
Lyndon (rad name) has inadvertently sparked a heated debate within the acnefied, four-eyed, marble-tanned, salty-knickered online marketing community about where (and if) the line between whorish marketing and responsible journalism should be drawn. By his own admission, Lyndon (rad name) is not a journalist and never intended for his article to be published as a representation of fact. However, his magum opus has clearly been written in an emulatory style with the singular intention of “linkbaiting”, i.e. publishing material designed to “spread through social media sites, or sometimes mainstream news sites, to point potentially hundreds of valuable links back to” a particular site.
Linkbaiting. Pfwah. Geeeeeeeeeeks.
Crunchtime: irrespective of whether you think he’s an SEO visionary or just a total douchebag, Lyndon (rad name) has done a sterling job of generating massive buzz and traffic for his conveniently unnamed client. Bully for client. Downside for the client, of course, is that the the cost in real terms of Lyndon’s (rad name) services has the potential to fruit-machine his bill for $200 (or whatever he zapped them for) into Godzillian proportions. Everyone knows that the three fastest moving things in cyberspace are Keanu Reeves, Asian vomit porn and nasty gossip, and whilst the first two are terrific for everyone, it’s the gossip that the client really needs to shit themselves about. The only real inherent value in any brand is the trust placed in it by consumers, and as any double-crossing, backstabbing Judas realises sooner or later, trust can be a real bitch to repair once broken.
Here endeth the Web 2.0 shart. I just totally sold my ass and it hurts. But now I’m fishing with dynamite!! DIGG ME, BABY!!
Digital media types: sure, it’s old news for you. Go fuck yourselves.