A-Lister Tactics: How to get 200 trackbacks for a single post

Categories: Social MediaPosted on October 10th, 2007

I personaly know many of the A-listers, and some of their tactics and tricks. In this post, I will analyze how they do this so you too can aspire to be a leader on digg or techmeme.

Step 1: Find a topic that you’re not an expert at
Step 2: Assert your knowledge and domination over the topic
Step 3: Be outrageous, be absolutely “polar” in a “gray” topic
Step 4: Try to insult or attack a specific vertical or industry (bonus points for insulting the SEO industry)
Step 5: Tell everyone
Step 6: Back it up, don’t step back
Step 7: Do it again!

If you do this right, you could get 212 tracebacks for a single post, or wait, and deploy at the right time and get up 267 trackbacks for a single post. Alexa confirms a traffic boost to the domain.

I’ve been in training this last week, and part of this week, and I’m learning that data, research, and backing up by assertions with facts, figures and information will be a daily part of my job –then to be vetted by other people who know the topic as well or better than I. Although appropriate, as a former blogger, I’d often give me ideas and opinions based upon my personal and professional experiences, I’m looking forward to balancing both.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 3:27 am and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

A direct stab at somebody in particular?

Posted by Tyler on October 10th, 2007 at 3:33 am

One person really sticks out, but he’s just the loudest one donig it, there’s many others

The example given is nothing personal, just an observation from an outsider.

I’ll repeat that again, it’s not personal, just an observation.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on October 10th, 2007 at 3:39 am

Hmmm… love the assertions backed by data. Thanks for the chuckle this morning.

Posted by Bryan Eisenberg on October 10th, 2007 at 3:42 am

Aha, I see Jeremiah. We had our own similar rinse and repeat scenario in South Africa a few months back: see this.

A well known SA columnist David Bullard attacked the blogosphere and then set up his own blog. Pretty sneaky tactic.

Posted by Tyler on October 10th, 2007 at 3:56 am

Jeremiah - great post - I thought that creating fact-driven posts would reduce issues, with the person to which you mention, it increased them for me.

I love hunting down facts for an article - I think of myself as columbo on those days

The best time is when I have an idea that something is wrong and then can back up my hunch with raw data.

I can only imagine the wealth of data you are now sitting in front of - you might never sleep again!

Posted by allen stern on October 10th, 2007 at 4:31 am

All PR (Pagerank) is good PR or Here’s the new boss, the same as the old boss…

When I first started reading Jeremiah Owyang’s latest post, I thought it was going to be a humorous take on bloggers and their tactics. But when I got to really thinking about it, the 7 steps he outlines as tactics……

Posted by Squint (a Lightpierce Communication Channel) on October 10th, 2007 at 5:08 am

Allen, you rock bud, too bad we didn’t get to meet up in NY

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on October 10th, 2007 at 5:26 am

I was appalled by the Web 3.0 post. Sure, it’s driving traffic to his site, but it was so gratuitously self-serving, it genuinely lowered my impression of him…

Posted by Jim Tobin at Ignite Social Media on October 10th, 2007 at 5:27 am

Controversy always seems to work. When I posted about Donald Trump or Britney Spears, it gets the most attention.

Posted by Dan Schawbel on October 10th, 2007 at 5:54 am

you going to blogworld? sshhh - but I am going to be a speaker!

Posted by allen stern on October 10th, 2007 at 6:13 am

That’s called “Doing a Dvorak…”

Posted by Mark Cahill on October 10th, 2007 at 6:15 am

This is exactly why I don’t read A-Listers. THere full of BS.

Posted by Geoff Livingston on October 10th, 2007 at 6:28 am

Allen, Yes, I’ll be a speaker at blog world expo in veags, I can’t wait to see you again!

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on October 10th, 2007 at 7:39 am

Hahaha. Jeremiah, this is your best post so far this year.

It’s doubly ironic when you refer to training regarding facts and numbers. HAH! We don’t need no facts!

Posted by ian lurie on October 10th, 2007 at 1:11 pm

BLOG STUPIDHEAD DUMB POOP BLOG!!!!!!!!!!…

Made you look! That headline made no sense, of course. But you looked. That seems to be the way to get attention in the blogging world these days. When top-ranking Yahoo folks make the astonishing claim that fewer downloads will make a page load faste…

Posted by Conversation Marketing on October 10th, 2007 at 2:03 pm

[...] smarter than me complete my thoughts in the comments section.Sure, you can be confrontational, and link-bait to generate traffic, but I like the notion of what Stephen Marino, of Ogilvy’s 360 Digital [...]

Posted by Era of Conversation - New Media Marketing Day Recap | Verge New Media on October 10th, 2007 at 3:11 pm

[...] PS: I got thinking about this because of Jeremiah’s post about gaining trackbacks. [...]

Posted by Marketing » BLOG STUPIDHEAD DUMB POOP BLOG!!!!!!!!!! on October 10th, 2007 at 7:11 pm

Why wouldn’t this be true in the online world, as it is in the off-line world? Bad publicity is still publicity, right? If it weren’t for disparaging headlines or those who act in “extremes” and get ridiculed for it, we would hardly know some of our tabloid celebrities. Doesn’t surprise me that this is the past to online “celebrity” (as measured by trackbacks) as well.

Posted by Jennifer Davis on October 11th, 2007 at 12:02 am

[...] than me complete my thoughts in the comments section. Sure, you can be confrontational, and link-bait to generate traffic, but I like the notion of what Stephen Marino, of Ogilvy’s 360 Digital [...]

Posted by Era of Conversation - New Media Marketing Day Recap | b-roll.net TODAY on December 16th, 2008 at 4:24 am