I came across a wickedly clever form of “link bait” today from a company called Banner Blindness.

(In case you’re not some marketo-blogging tech-geek, let me explain: link bait is basically a way of baiting other sites to link to you. Sometimes it’s written linkbait, and some people in the blogosphere would happily spend hours debating over whether the space should or should not be included. Quite frankly, unless you paid me a boatload of cash, I couldn’t care less.)

Basically, their link bait is a series of YouTube videos of sketch artists drawing pictures of leading bloggers such as John Chow, Darren Rowse of problogger.net, and Seth Godin. (Any marketer worth their salt should be able to recognize Seth’s bald head a mile off - it glistens, even on paper.)

I love their frankness about the reason they made the videos: “These were created with the intention that the person being drawn will post it on their website.”Way to tell it like it is! Although they are selling their service, so I guess it’s just smart business. And let’s face it, if and when any of those bloggers post it on their blog, I’m sure that would help generate business for Banner Blindness in a big way.

What’s also smart about their technique is that the smartest marketers (you know who they are) will write blog posts about it, and even share the YouTube videos with their readers, creating a viral effect which may just help their business and also improve the chances of the video arriving at its final destination, as it were.

I think Seth Godin would approve.

What do you think of this technique? And have you seen any good link baiting strategies recently? Your comments are not only welcome, but are eagerly and warmly demanded.

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