Brand Protection vs. Link Baiting

Any publicity is good publicity... I've never believed this old adage - I think it's an arrogant dismissal by incompetent marketers who can't manage their public relations properly. Until recently it has never really been a big concern in the online world, but with an explosion of online communities over the past few years and the more recent increase in brand protection services, perhaps online marketing professionals should be taking their branding more seriously? If I could be bothered hunting down "how to" link bait articles, you'd see that most recommend undertaking some kind of negative efforts in order to spark off some link love to your site. A war with another blogger. A campaign against a well known brand. Posting inaccurate information to tempt righteous bloggers to correct you. Etc. I'm sure most people who read this blog have already seen such articles, so no need to rehash them here. Let's consider some examples. A while back, Zipatoni launched a splog for the Sony PSP and ended up getting slated by pretty much everyone over it. What's worse is that Matt Cutts told the SEO world that they were in fact penalised from Google (and it wasn't a mistake as BMM claimed). Again, search for "Notice I haven't linked out to them just now - I'm not a link scrooge - I just do see any point in rewarding stupidity. If I thought for a second that these were well planned link bait campaigns and not simple screw ups I'd probably have more respect for them! However, what happens when clients carry out due diligence before they sign up for services provided by these marketing agencies? While a Google search might not be the first thing they do, it is fairly likely it will be part of the research. Will a client want the services of an agency that has caused an international uproar for a major brand client or an agency that have themselves been unable to assure the service they are offering? The overall impact is debatable and obviously there are many other factors in the client decision making process, but the point is do we really want to throw some negative factors into the mix? Link baiting is a short term exercise that can potentially have long term positive results, but I think that all too often people neglect to consider the long term negative results as well. Credit to those who do link bait well - it can be a useful tool, just as SEO can be. But as with SEO, many take the basic concepts and run with them without looking too deeply into the strategic implications they can have on their site, business or brand. eFlaunt, where he mixes a blend of traditional marketing and SEO.

Scott's musings relating to the marketing and SEO industries can be found on his blog -