We have discussed Link baiting a fair amount here at Performancing. Right now you have an opportunity to see a link bait campaign at work and unfold.
Andy has created a Link Baiting Competition. The clever part of course is the competition itself is link bait!
And it is working, his blog on that thread has received 31 comments at last count and traffic (looking at the public stats) has increased massively. Before even a decent idea has been posted the links are coming in. They do not even need to choose a winner and they have achieved the link goal already. How about that for link bait? Heh, genius or dumb luck? Bit of both?
So what lessons can we learn from this piece of blog marketing?
Number one is for people to want to talk about something, pro or anti, there needs to be something to talk about. Milliondollarhomepage was worth talking about. Yet another pixel advertising homepage is not newsworthy. Your idea needs to be remarkable. That does not mean unique! Competitions are done all the time, what Andy has done is used it in a new way.
Second, hook into something people are interested in. Many bloggers want to find ways to market their blogs. Link baiting itself is interesting and good to talk about. Heck I managed to find enough to post about more than once, heh.
Third, feed the human self-interest. WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). Cash is an obvious prize, your niche might have a need/want for something other than cash that you can give away with as high a perceived value. You might be able to give away software or free content, telephone consultancy or training, design, etc.
Have a good think how you can use this technique without it being a me-too idea and you might have a big success. As you can see, it works, it is already working for Andy.