He wakes up and finds himself walking in his apartment, holding a packet of cigarettes in his hands. What the hell is going on, he thinks.

He sees his girlfriend looking at him curiously.

- Hun, where have you been? Why are you holding those cigarettes? You don’t smoke…

- Yes… I… I mean, I went for a walk, and then Chris called me on the phone and asked me to get him cigarettes for him.

- Really? Can’t he buy his own cigarettes?

- He said, just in case, because sometimes when we hang out here he runs out so he doesn’t need to go out and buy more.

Geez… what a lousy excuse

What do you make of this situation? What do you think the guy was on?

I’ll unveil the mystery. It was a psychological experiment. The guy had been hypnotized and told to walk out of his apartment. He was handed the cigarettes and told to walk back in. Then he was woken up. He didn’t know what he was doing and why he was holding those cigarettes.
The experiment consisted on testing his reaction when he found out he had no idea what he was doing.

Would he admit he didn’t know or would he make up a story to rationalize his behavior?

Empiric evidence show that statistically, 6 out of 10 people tend to do the latter.

Psychological experiments show that 6 out of 10 people will agree with their peers even if they know they are right and everyone is wrong. On experiments where the accomplices agree on a false visual perception, 6 out of 10 subjects tested end up agreeing with their peers even if their eyes tell them that the longer stick is not the one everyone else claims.

This is incredibly dangerous. It means that given the right propaganda and public opinion manipulation, 60% of the population can agree on ideas that are contrary to their beliefs. Like, I don’t know, go to war with France, the UK, Russia, and wipe out a few million jews in the process.

Why is this relevant to SEO?

Listen up. I’ll tell you in one sentence why this is relevant to SEO, and more specifically to Linkbait Development: Human Beings are not rational, they are rationalizers.

Given a certain belief they will do anything they can to find rational arguments to support it. Even if they know they are wrong, they will end up convincing themselves, so they can fit better on that social group they want to be a part of.

This is what you want to keep in mind when you work on your linkbaits. What tribe am I targeting? What is their view of the world? What do they think about global warming? Are they pro Mac? Are they pro Google? Are they pissed at Matt Cutts about the whole paid links circus? Do they consider Danny Sullivan a Hero? Do they consider John Reese a hero? (not comparing Danny ) Do they like sports? Are they conservative or liberals?

Please please please think about this when you work on that headline, when you work on that description, when you work on that post. Because if you don’t something horrible will happen: your linkbait will fall on deaf ears, discredited because it is a subversive threat to someone’s symbolic system.

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  Do you feel that your best content slides through the social sites without getting the attention they deserve? Do you spend hours researching to write valuable posts only to see a trickle of traffic, a handful of votes, and no new subscriptions? What are you missing? Why are you not pushing those buttons in your audience’s brains?Muhammad Saleem wrote a post on Copyblogger about utilizing cultural cloaking devices to make a connection with social media participants:

The hooks used in these articles are celebrities that your average person (however educated or uneducated) knows of or has heard something about and can on some level relate to.

Lyndon, from Cornwall SEO took it one step further and stated (wisely):

Connecting on a cultural level is vital if you want to attract a reader. This doesn’t mean your article has to have a mass appeal, just the headline. Your article can focus in on a subject that has nothing to do with the “icon” you have mentioned in the headline. It is merely a device.

In my headlines I introduce recognisable imagery to instill a curiosity factor in a reader. Something that seems a little ridiculous or a little silly. Maybe I follow the Monty Python school of headline writing.

A thought occurs. It’s the imagery rather than the word that is important. It is what a reader imagines in their mind. Once you connect as a writer, to someones imagination, then you have won the battle.

It’s all about finding the door into a readers head.

It’s the imagery rather than the word that is important. What a great thought. I would add: it’s the music too.

Haruki Murakami, a great japanese author whom I strongly recommend, explains in an interview:

I am a writer who learned everything from Jazz. […] When I sit in front of the keyboard, I think I am staring at a piano and then I start playing. […] I still look up to Miles Davis as a model of constant self renewal. I take that and adapt it as a literary model.

Spot on. So we have images and music in our minds. And it all grows from that? What a concept.

It reminds me of an interview I saw on TV (okay I admitted, I also watch E). It was the writer of the popular TV series The OC, Josh Scwartz. He said he started writing the script for the show with one scene and one song on his mind. It was this:

The final episode of Season One. That’s what inspired him. Josh and his team wrote one of the most successful teen drama shows on the last years inspired by this vision. He could see the emotional impact of that scene and it all grew from that. Isn’t that exactly what Lyndon is saying?

So if you are still there, thanks for not bailing out on my post. I sincerely appreciate you putting up with me. In exchange for your time I will give you a pointer that has the potential to increase dramatically the traffic you are getting from social media sites: Before hitting the Publish button read your headline and put yourself in your reader’s shoes. Does it make you smile? Does it intrigue you? Does it make you angry? If the answer to all of these questions is “no” then you need to keep working on it. Find an original angle. Make a connection with something your readers are familiar with.

So why did I include Tom Cruise in my headline? Well I don’t know, maybe “to instill a curiosity factor” in my readers? Is that too manipulative? Do you feel baited? If so, please allow me to bait you one extra mile and ask you to post your formal complain in the comments section.

By the way, do you need a linkbait writer?