I’m starting a new experiment tonight that I’d like to have some fun with over the coming weeks, but there’s a catch – I’m going to need some help from you, my critical-thinking, curious readers. Essentially, I want to launch a viral linking campaign with some pretty loose guidelines for the links. I’ve constructed this in such a way that I (or anyone else who’s interested) will be able to monitor the progress of the experiment as it (hopefully) spreads across the blogosphere.
The Finer Points
The experiment, henceforth referred to as “The Indie Virus,” has two goals:
- To bring exposure to lesser known blogs (especially those outside of Technorati’s top 100)
- To explore the metrics behind a viral linking campaign launched by the “little guys” (less popular blogs)
Instead of rehashing the ideas here, I’ll send you on over to Copyblogger to see how this thing progressed in the comments. I think people are skeptical, but the bottom line is that this is just a casual experiment. Launching it doesn’t really cost a thing, so why not try it? I’m just hoping for enough results that I’ll be able to crunch a few numbers. Consider it an experiment in marketing with blogs.
The Rules
Participating in The Indie Virus is easy. All you’ve got to do is link to lesser known blogs from within a post (or two, or eleventeen), but you have to make sure that the anchor text of your link is The Indie Virus. This is critical, because in order to track the experiment, I’ll be searching for the phrase “The indie Virus” on common engines like Technorati, Google, and Yahoo! Oh, and also, make sure that you link directly to a post WITH A TRACKBACK and not to the site itself – it speaks louder!
So, a sample link would be coded up like this:
<a href="...">The Indie Virus</a>
Got it?
The Kickoff
Since I came up with this thing, it’s only right that I kick it off with the first link. Today, I came across a site that combines intelligence, insight, and design in a clean, interesting package. Among the gold at this site is an article that I think is perfect for the spread of The Indie Virus [ed: link removed]. Go check it out, and then go and spread The Indie Virus yourself!
And if you want to be wicked cool, send a trackback to this post in your inaugural Indie Virus post. Have fun with this one, and I’ll keep you posted on the results.