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One of my esteemed colleagues (stop blushing, Charles, you know it’s true) has written a great post about the Super Bowl and Search Marketing. I’ve decided to follow his lead and take it another step deeper by asking a poignant question: How does pop culture affect link popularity?
The short answer is that they tend to fuel each other, but not always. The long answer can take on a myriad of factors to explain the chicken or the egg theory, thereby sparking a heated debate. The bottom line, like all things that are link-related, is that if something is truly not worth talking about, then no one will talk about it. The standard for what is actually “worthy” for online conversation varies from topic to topic and something that one person deems to be a “hot topic” (such as the Britney Spears saga) and what another person deems to be far more important (the election) depends on what the person values and where they are in life.
Pop culture (whether it’s Hollywood, sports, viral commericals, etc), by its very nature, shifts from day to day as to what is important and what is not. The internet is fueled by conversations that follow this trend. Can those of us who are obsessed intrigued with celebrities imagine what it would be like to go to our favorite gossip site and read the following post (or something similar):
Thanks for visiting. At the moment, we have completely run out of things to say. Please check back at another time when we think of / hear of something that will actually be worth your time. Thanks again!
Panic. Horror. Not to mention the frantic Google searches to find out just what is going on and what other sites are picking up the slack.
A great example of a widespread popculturish phenomenon occurs every year on a seemingly quiet Sunday night. The Super Bowl always leaves us with lots to talk about and this year was no exception. With the exception of the Giants pulling out what could be considered the greatest upset in the history of the Super Bowl (way to go Eli), the standard question that was asked around the water cooler/ coffee maker/ copier the next day was this: “What did you think of the commercials?”
This year, a MySpace page was put up to house all the super bowl commercials so that everyone who missed one or all of them could go and take a look at them at their leisure. From a link popularity perspective, this has been hugely successful. The day after the Super Bowl, links to this page numbered around 630. Not bad. Not bad at all. This morning, a mere two days later that number has more than tripled to 1,960+ links. While taking a look at these links, the majority of them are coming from (surprise, surprise) blogs. There was the sprinkling of corporate and sports-related sites, but predominantly, blogs have taken the lead in pushing the link around the Web. Additionally, the page is ranking first (behind the news results) for “2008 super bowl commercials,” 18th for “2008 super bowl,” and 13th for “super bowl commercials.”
Another thing that happened that is being debated in the office, but not really online is the alleged “f-bomb” that Terry Bradshaw dropped on the pregame show. Most people say that he said “bucket head” while others swear (no pun intended) he made a remark about a hat being big enough for Howie’s f—ing head. I’m not here to settle the score. My point is that many sports experts have contended that this is not what happened and is quieting the conversation rather quickly. But people are curious.
On YouTube, there is a video entitled “Terry Bradshaw says F bomb during Super Bowl, maybe” and when I first heard about this, I jumped over to watch it. At the time (Monday), 268 people like myself were trying to figure out what all the commotion was about and had viewed that same video. Today, two days later, that video has been watched nearly 473,000 times. The number of inlinks to that video? Only 11. Surprising? Not really. The general chatter on the internet has died down and people have discovered that the conversation really doesn’t matter anymore. We’ve now turned to more important things.
The moral of the story is that Terry Bradshaw should enunciate just a bit better. The link lesson of the story is to ask yourself a simple question. Would I read this? How does this affect my business/ services? The answer could be very revealing and your efforts surrounding it should be matched up accordingly. When planning link bait or social media campaigns, the “worthiness” of the topic will make or break your success. YouTube benefited from Terry Bradshaw; MySpace got the limelight when it came to the commercials.
There are a number of other experiments that I will be investigating because people are so fascinated with pop culture in general, but in the meantime, topics surrounding the Super Bowl have generated some serious buzz, but in very different ways.
