SEO
17 Awesome Examples Of Social Media Marketing
Technology has made the world seem a lot smaller.
Keeping up with friends and family on the other side of the country or across the globe no longer requires an expensive telephone call or slow, one-way snail mail.
Instead, thanks to the power of social media, in just seconds, you can share updates about your life or check in with anyone who has internet access.
But there’s so much more to the world of social media than just making and maintaining connections – especially for savvy marketers.
Why Is Social Media Marketing Important For Brands?
For business purposes, sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram present an opportunity to engage with a massive audience.
Last year, there were more than 4.7 billion people worldwide using social media platforms, which means a whole lot of potential customers.
Social media allows you to tell your story and humanize your brand.
Without a large budget allocation, it lets you build an audience and stay top of mind with your targets.
You can connect and interact with customers, deal with feedback (both positive and negative), and build authenticity just by being active on the right sites.
Not convinced? Here are some key stats about social media marketing:
From paid display ads targeting a highly specific demographic to organic posts that go viral, social media presents an incredible opportunity to evangelize your brand, increase your visibility, and find new customers.
But what separates the companies who are really killing it on social media from the thousands of also-rans who never quite seem to get any traction from their accounts?
In this piece, we’ll take a look at some outstanding ways popular brands are leveraging common platforms to inspire your campaigns.
How To Measure Social Media Marketing Effectiveness
Before we dive into the fun stuff, let’s take a moment to discuss how you can track the results of your social efforts.
Judge the effectiveness of your social media marketing by measuring your KPIs or key performance indicators.
Some KPIs you may consider include:
- Reach (the number of people who saw your post).
- Impressions (the number of times your post was seen).
- Engagement (how many likes, shares, comments, etc., you received).
- Conversions (button clicks, follow, forms filled out, etc.).
The ones you use to measure success will depend on your goals.
For example, if your goal is increasing awareness, you’ll want to examine your reach and impressions statistics.
If you’re trying to generate leads, you probably want to focus primarily on conversions.
Each brand is different, which means they will not only measure success differently but will also vary in which platforms are most effective for their social media marketing efforts.
With this in mind, we’ve broken down our examples and inspiration by platform. So, with no further ado, let’s jump in.
YouTube
1. Dove: Project #ShowUs
When: 2019
Campaign Outline:
Recognizing beauty comes in many forms, Dove launched Project #ShowUS, a social media campaign intended to challenge stereotypes of what is and isn’t considered beautiful.
Employing women and non-binary people, this campaign is a collaboration with Getty Images and Girlgaze Photographers.
The Numbers:
- The project has reached over 1.6 billion people with over 660 media pieces in 39 markets worldwide.
- More than 2,000 women pledged to create a more inclusive vision of beauty.
- In just the first year, the hashtag #ShowUs was used more than 7 million times on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
Why Did It Work?
For generations, media and advertising have presented an image of what beauty is. However, this has left 70% of women feeling like they are not represented by media and advertising.
Dove spoke directly to the feelings of its target audience, engaging with them about the brand’s value and encouraging them to take pride in being themselves.
Strategic delivery helped reach women worldwide.
2. Gillette: “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be”
When: 2019
Campaign Outline:
In January 2019, Gillette launched a social media campaign aiming at a modern interpretation of manhood.
The short film posted exclusively on YouTube depicted several cases of men struggling with traditional masculinity that Gillette itself used to glorify: the fear of showing their emotions, sexual harassment, and bullying others.
Then the film shows several examples of positive masculinity, such as standing up for others, caring for your loved ones, and so on.
The campaign was clearly inspired by the #MeToo movement.
On their Instagram, the company also posted positive male role models with short stories about their journey in the world:
- Organizers.
- Community leaders.
- Non-profits’ CEOs.
In addition to that, the company promised to donate “$1 million per year for the next three years to non-profit organizations executing the most interesting and impactful programs designed to help men of all ages achieve their personal best.”
The Numbers:
- The short film that launched the campaign has over 30 million views.
- The #GilletteAd hashtag reached more than 150 million people in one month, according to Awario (disclosure: I work for Awario), a social listening tool.
- The Instagram posts related to the campaign gathered around 800 likes and 50 comments, which is higher than usual for Gillette.
Why Did It Work?
This campaign managed to tap into an extremely relevant and widely discussed issue.
It juxtaposed the previous branding of Gillette with a new one and showed the willingness to change.
At the same time, it was also quite controversial – some people didn’t agree with how the short film portrayed men and thought that it was offensive.
They even started a #boycottgillette hashtag. However, it only took up around 3.5% of all the conversations around the campaign on social media.
THIS is how you use your brand. THIS is how you engage with your audience. Gillette being aware of mostly having a male audience and using their influence as a global brand to make a change for the better. other companies take notes pic.twitter.com/KCdxKDLji0
— 💭 (@spidervesre) January 15, 2019
3. BuzzFeed x Friskies: Dear Kitten
When: 2016
Campaign Outline:
If there’s one thing the internet loves, it’s cat videos.
Buzzfeed and Friskies tapped into this sentiment with their “Dear Kitten” videos, in which an older house cat teaches a kitten how to be a cat.
The Numbers:
- The launch video has been viewed on YouTube more than 32 million times.
- 12 follow-up videos have been viewed upwards of 3 million times each.
- The campaign led to viral TikTok parodies, with the hashtag #DearKitten receiving more than 3.6 million views.
Why Did It Work?
You don’t have to have genius-level insight into the human psyche to understand why this campaign was so successful. It has cute cats and a funny script.
4. Apple: The Shot on iPhone Challenge
When: 2015
Campaign Outline:
The world’s most popular smartphone manufacturer, Apple, takes great pride in the quality of images that can be captured on its devices.
To highlight the great photos that it can take, it launched a competition that asked iPhone users to “capture the little things in a big way.”
Photographers were then invited to share their images on Instagram and other social media sites using the hashtag #ShotOniPhone.
A panel of judges then selected 10 winners from tens of thousands of entries, which were then featured on Apple’s website, the company’s Instagram, and on 10,000+ billboards in 25 countries.
It has since become an annual campaign for the brand.
The Numbers:
- The first round of the campaign had more than 6.5 billion impressions.
- It was mentioned by 24,000 influencers, with a 95% positive comment rating.
Why Did It Work?
User-generated content (UGC) is a low-investment way for companies to promote their brand on social media, but this isn’t the reason for this campaign’s success.
Instead, Shot on iPhone encouraged people to discuss the campaign, which closely aligned with Apple’s reputation for creativity, lifestyle, and innovation.
It encouraged existing users to participate in product launches and built a sense of excitement about being part of the iPhone community.
Additionally, it gave iPhone users a sense of being part of something cool, which everyone likes.
5. Starbucks U.K.: #WhatsYourName
When: 2019
Campaign Outline:
Starbucks U.K. partnered with Mermaids, an organization to support transgender and gender-diverse youth, for a #WhatsYourName campaign focused on trans rights.
The campaign builds on a well-known aspect of the Starbucks experience – having your name written on the side of your cup – by committing to respect the names that customers want to be called by.
In addition to that, Starbucks started selling a mermaid tail cookie to raise funds for Mermaids.
Social media users were encouraged to use the hashtag on Instagram to tell about their experience with gender.
The Numbers:
- The YouTube ad gathered 605,000+ views (with less than a thousand YouTube subscribers).
- The Instagram post gathered 1,000+ comments, with an average comment rate for the Starbucks U.K. Instagram profile being around 40 comments.
Why Did It Work?
The team behind the campaign created a simple, clear campaign hashtag.
And they led with their values, which helped this campaign make a real, emotional impact.
Many brands avoid politicized topics, but ultimately, your employees and customers want you to take a stand.
Specifically, they want companies to lead on issues of diversity and community.
6. Spotify: #YearWrapped
When: 2019
Campaign Outline:
Three years ago, Spotify launched a campaign where its users could see the most important musical highlights on their website.
The special webpage Spotify Wrapped showed you your most listened artists, genres, songs, and other fun data discoveries.
You could even see how the music you listened to coincided with your life events that year.
Once you went through all the data analysis, Spotify suggested you share these highlights on social media, specifically Twitter and Insta Stories, and tag your favorite artist of the year.
The Numbers:
- According to Twitter, the campaign has been mentioned in at least 1.2 million posts in the launch month.
- More than 60 million users engaged with the in-app story experience.
- There were nearly 3 billion streams from Wrapped playlists.
Why Did It Work?
Spotify combined two big psychological triggers in this campaign: personalization and FOMO.
Firstly, the app provided a personalized story for each user – you could see how your music taste developed through the year and what songs accompanied you in your life.
Secondly, by enabling and encouraging sharing on social media, Spotify amplified the campaign’s reach.
People naturally wanted to show off their highlights to their friends, thus making more people eager to try this experience.
7. Netflix: Wanna Talk About It?
When: 2019
Campaign Outline:
Recognizing the importance of mental health and overcoming traumatic experiences, Netflix launched Wanna Talk About It?, a weekly Instagram LIVE series and accompanying website that addresses topics ranging from sexual violence and abuse to gender identity and suicidal thoughts.
It features stars from several Netflix movies and series, it was initially launched at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Numbers:
- Wanna Talk About it? Works with 150 organizations in 45 countries, offering information, videos, downloadable guides, and nonprofit helplines in 26 languages.
Why Did It Work?
The global lockdown was a difficult time for many people. Unable to leave their homes, streaming services were a major source of entertainment.
With this campaign, Netflix addressed the mental health issues many were suffering through, giving them celebrities to whom they could relate.
8. Daniel Wellington: #WheresWellington
When: 2016
Campaign Outline:
Swedish watch manufacturer Daniel Wellington was one of the first brands to recognize the power of social media influencers.
The company sent free watches to some of the most-followed individuals on Instagram, with the only requirement being that they post one photo on their feed using the hashtag #WheresWellington. Followers were then asked to guess the location where the photo was taken.
This, in turn, generated a significant buzz around the brand, which increased in popularity with teenagers and young adults.
The Numbers:
- The Where’s Wellington content saw significantly higher engagement than the watch company’s normal social media posts.
Why Did It Work?
By gamifying visual content on social media, Daniel Wellington gave followers a reason to engage with its posts, whether in the form of a like, a comment, or a share.
Guessing formats is a simple yet powerful way to encourage interaction on platforms like Instagram, while a branded campaign hashtag makes it easy to track success.
9. BuzzFeed: Tasty
When: 2016
Campaign Outline:
You’ve probably seen these quick and easy recipe videos popping up all over your Facebook news feed.
BuzzFeed’s Tasty videos are essentially cooking shows for the social media generation.
These videos, typically lasting less than two minutes, deliver on-trend recipes to a highly engaged audience.
The Numbers:
- Nearly 15 months after launching, Tasty published 2,000 recipe videos, giving the brand a steady stream of new content.
- Videos reach around 500 million users monthly.
- 100 million Facebook fans.
- In September 2016, Tasty generated more than 1.8 billion views of its videos. BuzzFeed now has a team of 75 people dedicated to producing content for Tasty.
Why Did It Work?
For starters, there’s the content.
“It taps into a simple truth: People love tasty foods and the kind of foods that remind them of their childhood, comfort food, or food that reminds them of an experience,” according to Frank Cooper, BuzzFeed’s chief marketing officer.
But more importantly, Tasty and Proper Tasty have exploded on Facebook because the content is tailor-made for that platform.
The videos are optimized for Facebook’s autoplay feature, which starts playing videos without the sound on. You don’t need sound to see, for example, a 45-second guide to making a cheese-stuffed pizza pretzel.
Within 24 hours, that video had 37 million views, 650,000 likes, and 750,000 shares. (It’s now up to 117 million views.)
10. Houseparty: Fortnite Trivia Challenge
When: 2020
Campaign Outline:
How much do you think you know about Fortnite? 🤔
Maybe it’s time to quiz you!
— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) April 10, 2020
Epic Games combined two of its most popular offerings in the online game – Fortnite and the now-discontinued social networking app Houseparty – to create a trivia challenge.
Members of the Fortnite community collectively answered more than 20 million trivia questions about the game to unlock a special in-game skin for all players.
Running from April 10-16, it received thousands of engagements on Twitter.
The Numbers:
Why Did It Work?
Gamers are nothing if not loyal to their favorite video game.
By adding both a community element and gamification, Epic was able to generate significant engagement with its tweets about the campaign under both Fortnite and Houseparty accounts.
And by offering a tangible, exclusive, and limited-edition reward, it encouraged sharing and participation.
11. Getty: The Getty Museum Challenge
When: 2020
Campaign Outline:
We challenge you to recreate a work of art with objects (and people) in your home.
🥇 Choose your favorite artwork
🥈 Find three things lying around your house⠀
🥉 Recreate the artwork with those itemsAnd share with us. pic.twitter.com/9BNq35HY2V
— Getty (@GettyMuseum) March 25, 2020
The Getty Museum is home to thousands of works by some of history’s greatest artists, including Rubens, Monet, Rembrandt, and Cezanne.
In 2020, the Los Angeles-based Museum took to Twitter and other social media platforms, challenging people to recreate famous artworks with just objects from their homes.
The Numbers:
- The initial tweet saw more than 10,000 retweets, close to 3,500 quote tweets, and over 25,000 likes.
- Thousands of recreations were submitted, including some recreating renaissance art with lasagna noodles and a vacuum serving in place of a harp.
Why Did It Work?
It was the pandemic’s beginning, and people were bored and looking for a creative outlet.
Getty’s Challenge allowed them to demonstrate their sense of humor while creating a positive diversion.
12. Greggs: #VeganSausageRoll
When: 2019
Campaign Outline:
Greggs is a British bakery chain loved by the Brits.
In January, they introduced their new vegan sausage roll, with a clever video ad parodying Apple ads.
However, it’s not the ad itself but the events that made the campaign memorable.
Piers Morgan, a controversial public figure, retweeted Greggs’ announcement and expressed irritation at the existence of a vegan sausage roll.
That made both pro-vegan roll and anti-vegan roll British people join the social media battle of the year!
Greggs responded to Piers Morgan along with 9,000+ other Twitter users.
And they didn’t shy away from responding both to sausage roll lovers and haters with witty remarks.
Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns. https://t.co/QEiqG9qx2G
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 2, 2019
As a result, the vegan sausage roll became one of the most popular Greggs products that year.
The Numbers:
- On Twitter alone, the Greggs vegan sausage roll conversation saw over 516 million impressions, according to Brandwatch.
- The announcement tweet was retweeted more than 15 thousand times.
- Greggs jumped 9.6% in sales in the first seven weeks of the launch.
Why Did It Work?
Even though the success of the campaign partly happened because of an organic retweet and not an action planned by Greggs, it once again shows us the power of influencer marketing.
Even a negative opinion expressed by an influencer draws an incredible amount of attention to your brand.
Plus, if it’s an influencer that most people hate, you only win due to this retweet.
Another lesson to take away from this campaign is the advantages of being witty on social media.
Greggs’ funny responses to haters are what won over a new audience, and it’s a good practice not to take yourself too seriously on social media.
13. Planters: The Death of Mr. Peanut – #RIPPeanut
When: 2020
Campaign Outline:
Perhaps one of the most bizarre social media campaigns: The beloved mascot of Planters snack food company died at the beginning of January.
His death was announced with a tweet and later explained in a video ad posted to YouTube.
Apparently, Mr. Peanut sacrificed his life to save his commercial co-stars, Matt Walsh and Wesley Snipes.
You could win some snacks by replying to a tweet with a #RIPPeanut hashtag.
The brands and regular social media users alike played along with the campaign, and it even got a mention on SNL.
Goodbye, Mr. Peanut. Very few people understand how delicious our relationship has been: https://t.co/0BP3h2j5mr #RIPeanut pic.twitter.com/q6QxXJfArX
— Dr Pepper (@drpepper) January 24, 2020
The campaign was inspired by the reaction to celebrity deaths on social media.
It aimed to repeat the same level of engagement that Tony Stark’s death caused in “Avengers: Endgame.”
Later Mr. Peanut was reborn as a Baby Nut and now happily tweets from the Peanut Jr. account.
The Numbers:
- The tweet announcing the death of Mr. Peanut gathered almost 50,000 retweets.
- The hashtag was used more than a million times on Twitter.
Why Did It Work?
still can’t comprehend that this really happened at an ad agency in the last few weeks pic.twitter.com/hX5UNbjVb0
— rob trench (@robtrench) January 27, 2020
The campaign’s premise was so crazy that it immediately became a meme.
Many comedians and funny Twitter personalities “were making jokes about Mr. Peanut’s departure.”
This specific brand of internet humor makes certain things go viral – and it worked.
14. Airbnb: #GoNear
When: 2020
Campaign Outline:
Another pandemic-birthed campaign, Airbnb introduced its Go Near campaign as an initiative to promote local travel and help the economy recover from the lockdown.
The travel industry was particularly hard hit by the pandemic, and the short-term rental company launched the campaign on social media using the #GoNear hashtag to remind people that there are lots of fun destinations near where they live.
The Numbers:
Why Did It Work?
Recognizing not just its own livelihood but the income of the people who depend on it as a revenue stream, Airbnb reacted to the pandemic quickly.
The company deeply understood its audience’s needs and created data-driven content to address them.
Airbnb also focused on creating personal connections that humanized the brand at a time when many were feeling isolated.
TikTok
15. P&G: #DistanceDance
When: 2020
Campaign Outline:
@charlidamelio Stay home & do the distancedance. Tag me & the hashtag in your video. P&G will donate to Feeding America & Matthew 25 for first 3M videos #PGPartner
Created during the pandemic (seeing a trend here?), Proctor and Gamble took to TikTok with a campaign designed to encourage social distancing.
Under the hashtag #DistanceDance, the company teamed up with social media and former competitive dancer Charli D’Amelio to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.
For the first 3 million videos posted to the short-form video apps, P&G donated to Feeding America and Matthew 25 Ministries.
The Numbers:
- The hashtag has generated more than 18 billion views to date.
- Charli D’Amelio’s video received almost 7 million likes and had more than 143,000 comments.
Why Did It Work?
Recognizing that to reach a younger audience, they needed to reach them on their platform of choice, P&G jumped fully into this TikTok campaign.
Partnering with an established influencer helped the company reach an audience it would otherwise have struggled to connect with.
The give-back component also created a feel-good reason to participate in the hashtag challenge.
16. UN Australia: #EmpowerMoves
When: 2021
Campaign Outline:
@unwomenaust #EmpowerMoves is the dance that’s also self-defence. Join the movement today #UNWomenAust ♬ Good Things (R3HAB Remix) – Wafia
United Nations Australia embraced the full potential of the short-form video site by creating a basic self-defense “dance” for women.
Consisting of four basic self-defense movements, #EmpowerMoves is intended to give women and girls the confidence and support to protect themselves and shape a strong and equal future.
This campaign follows on the heels of another UN Women Australia campaign, “When Will She Be Right?,” which seeks to accelerate progress toward gender equality.
The Numbers:
Why Did It Work?
TikTok has been home to popular dancing videos since its inception.
UN Australia capitalized on this by working with choreographers and celebrities to create movements that not only look good in time with the music but can also keep women safe.
It also serves as a rallying point for women who will no longer take a back seat to men or accept being a victim.
17. Harvard Business Review: Special Coverage: Coronavirus
When: 2020
Campaign Outline:
Because it’s so commonly used as a professional networking site, it’s easy to forget that LinkedIn is a social media platform just like Facebook or YouTube.
Harvard Business Review recognized it could fill a valuable role during the height of the pandemic by offering resources about the coronavirus.
Gathering many resources in one convenient place, they provided a credible source of information at a time when misinformation was running rampant.
The special coverage included information about developing work-from-home policies, responding to new variants, and helping find a new normal.
The Numbers
- The HBR has almost 14 million followers, many of whom benefited from this information.
Why Did It Work?
From fears of microchipping to governmental conspiracies, the sheer amount of outright false information about COVID-19 was staggering.
On top of this, this was uncharted territory for businesses of all types.
Leveraging the credibility of its parent institution, HBR provided quality, factual advice for dealing with a wide variety of pandemic-related issues.
Key Takeaway
While many of the campaigns featured here had COVID-ties, that’s about the only thing they had in common. Otherwise, they ran the gamut of platforms and audiences.
But something else tied these brands together: They all found innovative ways to appeal to their targets. And they gave something in return.
From the video game skin in the Houseparty Fortnite Trivia Challenge to the entertainment of the Dear Kitten videos to the mental support of Netflix’s IG live series, they all provided value for their audience.
Keep this in mind as you strive to create your own social media campaigns. And who knows? Maybe next year, you’ll be featured here.
More Resources:
Featured Image: metamorworks/Shutterstock
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SEO
4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples]
Many popular link building tactics produce low-quality links that don’t improve SEO performance.
Even if these techniques make an impact, it’s often for a short time, and Google can easily devalue them down the line.
Here are four tactics for building high-quality links that help you stay ahead of your competition, expose your brand to new audiences, and are less likely to be devalued in future algorithm updates.
Digital PR is the process of creating content that appeals to journalists and promoting it to them.
If they like the content, they’ll write a feature about it or include it in a piece they’re writing. This can land you many high-quality backlinks from big sites and news publications for free.
Examples
In the months following ChatGPT’s release, Fery Kaszoni and his team at Search Intelligence compiled statistics about Open AI’s popularity since launching ChatGPT and compared it to other popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
The result? 60+ free link placements, including mentions on Yahoo News (DR 92), The Wrap (DR 84), and Time magazine (DR 92).
In another campaign, Fery and his team calculated how much money beloved video characters would earn in real life. This campaign earned 20+ free links including a DR89 link from British newspaper, The Daily Express.
How to do it
Successful Digital PR requires some creativity, but this is the process in a nutshell:
- Find a trending topic
- Create relevant newsworthy content around that topic
- Tell journalists about it
For example, AI has been a major topic of conversation in all industries since it launched. Any new data or insights about it would go well in news cycles while it remains a topic of interest.
Once you have a topic, you need to come up with interesting content ideas that are relevant to your business.
This is the hard part. It’s really a case of brainstorming ideas until you land on something you think could be interesting.
For example, here are a few random content ideas for a company that sells furniture online:
- Have AI refurnish rooms from popular TV shows in new styles.
- Have AI design a new item of furniture, create it, and sell it.
- Ask 100 interior designers if they’re worried about AI taking their jobs, share the data.
After you find your winning idea, create the content, give it an attention-grabbing headline, and write a press release about the most interesting insights.
Then, promote your content to journalists. You can try services like Roxhill or Muck Rack to find journalists who might be interested in your content.
You can also use a tool like Ahrefs’ Content Explorer to find sites that have recently published content about your topic and reach out to them.
Here’s how to do that:
- Enter your topic into Content Explorer
- Filter for pages published in the last 90 days
- Filter for pages on DR70+ websites (big sites that you probably want links from)
For example, if we do this for the topic of “chatgpt,” we see thousands of well-known websites that have recently published about ChatGPT including Business Insider, Tech Republic, and Wired.
Data journalism is a way of enhancing or creating newsworthy content by analyzing unique data sets. It can fall under digital PR, though it typically requires more detailed research.
This technique works because reporters love a good statistic they can either quote or write an opinion piece about. Be the source of such data, and you can earn many high-quality links anytime your data becomes relevant to trending news topics.
Examples
Data journalism can be quite simple. For example, in another case study from Search Intelligence, Fery’s team used Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer as a data source for a cybersecurity PR campaign.
The study reveals the top UK banks where customers seek help with fraud, allowing journalists to report on which banks are more secure than others.
The data fuelling these insights is keyword search volume. That’s it.
This method doesn’t take very long, doesn’t need a data scientist and can very easily be replicated in other industries where search popularity can unearth interesting insights.
In another example (and perhaps one of our all time favorites), marketing firm Yard created a data study comparing the CO2 emissions of various celebrities and ranking the worst offenders.
If you follow celebrity news, there’s no way you missed reports of Taylor Swift’s private jet emissions being among the highest compared to other celebrities.
Every single one of these news stories originated from the data study.
When the study was first released, it went viral and earned links from almost 2,000 referring domains within the first month.
But that’s not all.
This topic trended in news cycles again when rumours spread that Taylor Swift attended a Jets game to bury the original negative publicity about her private jet usage, earning Yard a well-deserved second round of links.
Today, this post has 1,861 links from 1,155 referring domains, 77% of them are dofollow, and 38.4% are higher than DR 60.
Talk about drool-worthy results! That’s high-quality link building done right.
How to do it
Successful data journalism is similar to digital PR but relies on the intriguing, data-backed insights you can unearth.
In a nutshell, the process looks like this:
- Find a data-driven content angle that gets links and media attention
- Gather data to provide new or updated insights on the topic
- Tell journalists about your findings
Start by considering “your money or your life” content angles that everyday folk care about. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking too narrow or pitching ideas only a small demographic may understand.
For instance, cybersecurity is not a sexy topic journalists or their readers will likely care about. There’s also not a high degree of literacy about the topic among the general population.
But everyone cares about whether their bank is secure and how safe their money is.
This concept needs no explanation and that’s exactly why data that helps answer the question “how safe is your bank?” worked exceptionally well as a link building tactic in the example above.
You can also use Content Explorer to gather more ideas like:
- Evergreen yet stale topics that you can update with more recent data
- Data you can visualize better or repurpose into a different content format
- Trending angles in other industries you can apply to your industry
For example, on the topic of ChatGPT, we found Rand Fishkin’s post claiming usage has declined 29% between May and August 2023 and that 30% of its usage is by programmers.
You don’t need original ideas to succeed. If you’ve got the data to back it up, you can easily take the angles of a “useage patterns” or “most popular audience segments” and apply them to popular tools in your industry.
Some decent data sources you can start with include:
- Search data: Like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer for uncovering interesting search patterns.
- Historical data: Like Google Trends for highlighting growth or decline patterns over time.
- Scientific research: Like on Google Scholar or in specific research journals.
- Public niche data: For instance, Yard’s study used the CelebrityJets Twitter page.
- Proprietary data: From within your (or your client’s) organization.
When you find an interesting insight or pattern worth sharing, write a press release about it and share it with journalists who frequently report on the topic.
Statistics pages are curated lists of facts and figures in a particular industry. These pages attract evergreen links for as long as the statistics remain relevant.
It’s one of our favorite link building tactics. Here’s how we’ve used it quite successfully over the years.
Example
We first launched a detailed list of SEO statistics in 2020 and it has been naturally earning high-quality links ever since.
Currently, the page has:
- 5,787 backlinks
- 2,282 referring domains
- 82% “dofollow” links
- 37.7% from DR 60+ websites
While we used some outreach techniques in the early days, most of the success has come from the page’s ability to maintain top position rankings for competitive keywords.
Do it right, and this tactic remains wildly effective for earning links naturally for many years.
How to do it
Start by entering a few broad topics related to your website into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. For example, we might enter the following for Ahrefs:
- SEO
- Content marketing
- Link building
Then navigate to the Matching Terms report and apply the inclusion filter for things like stats, statistics, facts, or figures. Make sure your filter is set to include any of these phrases.
Then it’s just a matter of checking out the results to find a relevant topic you want to write about.
We went for “SEO statistics”:
Once you pick your topic, it’s a just matter of curating linkworthy stats and publishing them on a page.
While you can earn some seed links with early outreach efforts, long term success comes down to keeping your content updated with the latest data. That’s the best way to compound performance year on year, earning many high-quality links with no ongoing outreach needed.
Relationship-based link building prioritizes long-term relationships with journalists, writers, and editors.
It is an effective addition to digital PR campaigns as you can shortcut the time it takes to find the right people to distribute your content.
Better yet, you can be a journalist’s first point of call when they write a story on topics you or your clients are experts in.
Example
Imagine having journalists contact you asking to feature your clients in upcoming stories. That’s exactly what growth marketing firm, EngineRoom, has achieved.
A journalist from Mamamia (DR 78) made a call out on Sourcebottle, the Australian equivalent of HARO, seeking expert advice on immigration law. EngineRoom’s link building expert, Don Milne, responded and won the story along with a high-quality link.
Then, the real magic started.
Instead of ending things there, Don also shared a client list with the journalist in case they ever wanted to collaborate on future stories again.
Sure enough, a few weeks later, the journalist reached out, asking to connect with another client in the drug rehab space to develop a story on heroin addiction. The client is featured in about 30% of the completed article with detailed quotes from the founder and (of course) a link back to their website.
No pitching. No outreach. Just a genuine partnership and collaboration now earning multiple high-quality links for their clients.
How to do it
This technique is all about the follow-up after you collaborate on your first story with a journalist.
If getting the first foot in the door is where you’re stuck, you can check out our detailed guide on relationship-based link building by Irina Maltseva, the former Head of Marketing at Hunter.
Once you get that first story, make sure you keep the relationship going.
If you have a list of websites or clients you represent, create a professional document with a mini bio about each client. Make sure it’s also easily searchable for writers in a hurry and makes your contact details clear and easy to access.
Then, share it with journalists, writers, and editors you collaborate with so they can refer to it in the future if they need an expert on a specific topic for their content.
Final thoughts
Earning high-quality backlinks can be much easier than many people realize and cheaper too! All the examples shared in this post earned free link placements on high-authority websites and with minimal outreach.
These techniques have more staying power. They are also far less likely to be seen as “link manipulation” or devalued in future Google updates.
And, if you get your content angle just right, they also have the potential to be earning links many months, if not years, down the track!
Got questions? Ping me on LinkedIn.
SEO
Google To Curb Microtargeting In Consumer Finance Ads
Google is updating its policy limiting personalized advertising to include more restrictions on ads related to consumer financial products and services.
Google’s personalized ads policy prohibits targeting users based on sensitive categories like race, religion, or sexual orientation.
Over the years, Google has continued updating the policy to introduce new limitations. The latest update to restrict consumer finance ads is part of Google’s ongoing efforts to refine its ad targeting practices.
What’s Changing?
Google will update its personalized ads policy in February 2024 to prevent advertisers from targeting audiences for credit and banking ads based on sensitive factors like gender, age, parental status, marital status, or zip code.
Google’s current policy prohibiting “Credit in personalized ads” will be renamed “Consumer finance in personalized ads” under the changes.
Google’s new policy will state:
“In the United States and Canada, the following sensitive interest categories cannot be targeted to audiences based on gender, age, parental status, marital status, or ZIP code.
Offers relating to credit or products or services related to credit lending, banking products and services, or certain financial planning and management services.”
Google provided examples, including “credit cards and loans including home loans, car loans, appliance loans, short-term loans,” as well as “banking and checking accounts” and “debt management products.”
When Does The New Policy Take Effect?
The updated limitations on personalized advertising will take effect on February 28, 2024, with full enforcement expected within six weeks.
Google said advertisers in violation will receive a warning at least seven days before any account suspension.
According to Google, the policy change aims to protect users’ privacy better and prevent discrimination in financial services advertising.
However, the company will still allow generalized ads for credit and banking products that do not use sensitive personal data for targeting.
What Do Advertisers Need To Do?
Google will begin enforcing the updated restrictions in late February 2024 but advises advertisers to review their campaigns for compliance issues sooner.
Advertisers should carefully check their ad targeting settings, remove improper personalization based on sensitive categories, and adhere to the revised policy requirements.
Failure to follow the rules could lead to account suspension after an initial warning. Google will work with advertisers to ensure a smooth transition during the ramp-up period over the next six months.
Featured Image: SurfsUp/Shutterstock
SEO
Google Discusses Fixing 404 Errors From Inbound Links
Google’s John Mueller responded to a thread in Reddit about finding and fixing inbound broken links, offering a nuanced insight that some broken links are worth finding and fixing and others are not.
Reddit Question About Inbound Broken Links
Someone asked on Reddit if there’s a way to find broken links for free.
This is the question:
“Is it possible to locate broken links in a similar manner to identifying expired domain names?”
The person asking the question clarified if this was a question about an inbound broken link from an external site.
John Mueller Explains How To Find 404 Errors To Fix
John Mueller responded:
“If you want to see which links to your website are broken & “relevant”, you can look at the analytics of your 404 page and check the referrers there, filtering out your domain.
This brings up those which actually get traffic, which is probably a good proxy.
If you have access to your server logs, you could get it in a bit more detail + see which ones search engine bots crawl.
It’s a bit of technical work, but no external tools needed, and likely a better estimation of what’s useful to fix/redirect.”
In his response, John Mueller answers the question on how to find 404 responses caused by broken inbound links and identify what’s “useful to fix” or to “redirect.”
Mueller Advises On When Not To “Fix” 404 Pages
John Mueller next offered advice on when it doesn’t make sense to not fix a 404 page.
Mueller explained:
“Keep in mind that you don’t have to fix 404 pages, having things go away is normal & fine.
The SEO ‘value’ of bringing a 404 back is probably less than the work you put into it.”
Some 404s Should Be Fixed And Some Don’t Need Fixing
John Mueller said that there are situations where a 404 error generated from an inbound link is easy to fix and suggested ways to find those errors and fix them.
Mueller also said that there are some cases where it’s basically a waste of time.
What wasn’t mentioned was what the difference was between the two and this may have caused some confusion.
Inbound Broken Links To Existing Webpages
There are times when another sites links into your site but uses the wrong URL. Traffic from the broken link on the outside site will generate a 404 response code on your site.
These kinds of links are easy to find and useful to fix.
There are other situations when an outside site will link to the correct webpage but the webpage URL changed and the 301 redirect is missing.
Those kinds of inbound broken links are also easy to find and useful to fix. If in doubt, read our guide on when to redirect URLs.
In both of those cases the inbound broken links to the existing webpages will generate a 404 response and this will show up in server logs, Google Search Console and in plugins like the Redirection WordPress plugin.
If the site is on WordPress and it’s using the Redirection plugin, identifying the problem is easy because the Redirection plugin offers a report of all 404 responses with all the necessary information for diagnosing and fixing the problem.
In the case where the Redirection plugin isn’t used one can also hand code an .htaccess rule for handling the redirect.
Lastly, one can contact the other website that’s generating the broken link and ask them to fix it. There’s always a small chance that the other site might decide to remove the link altogether. So it might be easier and faster to just fix it on your side.
Whichever approach is taken to fix the external inbound broken link, finding and fixing these issues is relatively simple.
Inbound Broken Links To Removed Pages
There are other situations where an old webpage was removed for a legitimate reason, like an event passed or a service is no longer offered.
In that case it makes sense to just show a 404 response code because that’s one of the reasons why a 404 response should be shown. It’s not a bad thing to show a 404 response.
Some people might want to get some value from the inbound link and create a new webpage to stand in for the missing page.
But that might not be useful because the link is for something that is irrelevant and of no use because the reason for the page no longer exists.
Even if you create a new reason, it’s possible that some of that link equity might flow to the page but it’s useless because the topic of that inbound link is totally irrelevant to anyting but the expired reason.
Redirecting the missing page to the home page is a strategy that some people use to benefit from the link to a page that no longer exists. But Google treats those links as Soft 404s, which then passes no benefit.
These are the cases that John Mueller was probably referring to when he said:
“…you don’t have to fix 404 pages, having things go away is normal & fine.
The SEO ‘value’ of bringing a 404 back is probably less than the work you put into it.”
Mueller is right, there are some pages that should be gone and totally removed from a website and the proper server response for those pages should be a 404 error response.
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