Viral Marketing & the Blogroll
The idea of viral marketing is that it should spread organically, through natural human social networks. When the weblog emerged, individuals and other grassroot agents who didn't have the resources to establish and operate a proper websites suddenly had a medium to start conversations that mainstream media had been ignoring. Indeed, it was one of the earliest manifestations of Web 2.0.
Grateful for the dialogue that the medium had made possible, bloggers created blogrolls. In the sidebar of their sites, they linked to as many other bloggers who were participated in the same discussion as they did.The conversation was more important than the message, and they didn't worry about things like losing readers to things like competition.
Then one day, marketers heard these conversations. They asked why they weren't part of them, and decided to set up their own blogs. Suddenly, the mainstream could no longer ignore these conversations, and Time Magazine Person of Year in 2006 was You.
Now, online marketing blogs abound. To most e-marketing bloggers, concepts such as Linkbait are new, and those in the know are explaining to their peers why why they shoud link to their competition.
What is curious, however, is that so many marketers that have been hoping to capitlize on the viral potential of blog are shunning one of its most traditional characteristics: the blogroll. In post called Why LInking to Other Blogs is critical, the Copyblogger explains:
[...] often, the most relevant bloggers in your field will be your competition. [...] blogging and refusing to link out to other lawyers reflects a similar lack of understanding about the medium. [...] The marketplace is going to sort things out on its own whether you like it or not. If you’re blogging and not linking due to fear of competition, you may be surprised to find that you’re not even in the running.
In the ensuing discussion, I pointed out how ironic it was marketing bloggers seemed to be really enthusiastic about Copyblogger's point, but most of them did not have blogrolls.
Subsequently, Jim Logan explained that he is "a marketer that doesn’t have one. [...] The reason I removed it is because I view it as blog 1.0 kinda thing. I’m not sure a blogroll serves a reader. Links in context are valuable." The Copyblogger himself concurred, saying "I’ve struggled with that one myself, but ultimately, it’s citations within the content that provide value to the reader."
To Jim Logan's credit, there is doubt about the value of links in context. They provide a transparency that is hitherto unrivalled by more conventional forms of media. However, it seems questionable that a blogroll wouldn't serve the reader's interests.
First, readers are looking for information, and a blogroll provides them with a portal to more of it. They can then go and discover the world of your industry for themselves. Se