When you create content that praises the work or pays homage to a particular influencer or industry leader, it’s called Ego Bait. Essentially, you are stroking the egos of those popular voices in your niche to drive more traffic to your site or blog. And, yeah, it actually works like gangbusters.
This works for two reasons. By honoring an influencer, you are hoping to engage with them and have them share or like your link. If they share to their audience, that is a HUGE boon because they often have a lion’s share of the consumer attention for that niche. So this creates a backlink as well as drives traffic to your site. Relevant traffic, fyi.
Types Of Ego Bait To Create
- Lists or Listicles – This is a fantastic way to draw traffic as well as the eye of the influencers you include on this list. You can create a “best of” list for your category or even an annual list showcasing the most amazing producers of the year. Everyone loves a best of list because it helps them decide who to follow and learn from. Influencers love it because they see where they rank. Regardless of who reads the list or why, this type of content tends to draw traffic.
- Interviews – This is the classy, sophisticated way of drawing traffic and earning quality backlinks. By having an article interview, video or podcast of you engaging with an influencer, not only can you link build and draw traffic but you are building a relationship with that thought leader that could benefit you greatly down the road. This type of content is ideal because you are providing the audience with a key source of information and relevance to the answers that they seek. Be sure to come up with challenging questions for your subject so it draws forth useful information and isn’t simply a puff piece.
- Round Ups – This is essentially where you ask a large number of thought leaders in your industry a simple yes or no question and offer the results to your audience. Pick one or several hot button issues in your niche and get the expert’s opinion on them. Not only are you creating amazing, thought-provoking content and building links from these heavy-hitters, you are associating yourself with them. Folks see you engaging with these people and naturally place you among them.
- References – Your content piece doesn’t solely have to be about a person or their work. You could be writing an article and include a particular person’s work as an example of a great way to do that process or strategy. This is a very pleasant way to incorporate an influencer into the article and have them potentially thank you by sharing this content with their audience.
Remember that Ego Bait isn’t simply about engaging with an influencer. It’s about gaining access to their followers in a non-spammy way. You are trying to get attention from the thought-leader and, hopefully, a backlink from them but you are also trying to get the attention of their followers and drive traffic to your site. The best possible way to achieve a positive result in Ego Baiting is to be AUTHENTIC.
Focus on the person you are hoping to engage with and not about numbers or tactics. Featuring them to highlight the great work they are doing and to genuinely help those who need it should be the primary objective in creating this type of content. If you show true intentions and create information packed pieces, the rest will fall into place.
If you find yourself a little short on the time needed to launch a full scale marketing plan or feel like you might be missing something, give us a call and find out how we can help.
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