While on the journey of growth one can easily misinterpret a gimmick to be a strategy. There is a thin line between marketing gimmicks and a marketing strategy. And that’s what a thought leader is aware of. They know the tricks to market their brand but without putting it out as a selling tactic. Let’s understand some marketing gimmicks that can harm your brand.

HASHTAG USAGE

Hashtags are a great way to improve visibility and reach for any brand, regardless of the social media platform. Hashtags have the power to garner instant interaction and the potential of converting leads. Use your own unique hashtags or use the existing ones effectively to bring new users to your brand.

However, in the herd of hashtags, it is imperative that you use appropriate ones. Like in SEO, stuffing a blog post with keywords is a complete nay, similarly stuffing a post with hashtags is a big NO.

There is a huge possibility of getting your brand negative publicity with wrong hashtag usage in no time. Hence while using hashtags ensure that they resonate with your brand or post in some way.

CLICKBAIT ARTICLES

Paving your way towards becoming a thought leader and eventually a brand, takes time and involves the trust of your loyal readers and followers. And you would not want to throw it away over a clickbaity heading with no content to corroborate that heading.

Clickbait articles can be misleading which is not good for your brand. For instance, if you write a clickbait headline but the content of the post doesn’t relate to or connect with the headline, it will leave the reader disappointed and betrayed.

This reader would not want to come back to your site. Though clickbait articles get you traffic, it isn’t healthy in the long run. Being a brand you don’t just want users but engaged users.

NEWSJACKING

Using the current affairs or the latest trends to generate and create content is a brilliant way to garner engagement on your site. Not only it is one of the most effective marketing gimmicks but is a sure shot way to steer a trending topic towards your brand. However, this is a road you ought to tread carefully. One wrong post and your brand could suffer a blow.

The one thing to keep in mind during newsjacking is to talk on the topic with respect to your brand. In other words, cover the topic while sharing your brand’s perspective, put out your insights and opinions considering the trending topic while keeping intact the voice of your brand.

BLACK-HAT LINK BUILDING

Being a freelancer or a soloprenuer, the onus of establishing the brand is on oneself. From content creation to SEO to link building to promotion, everything for the brand has to be done by you.

And hence it is easy to fall prey to black-hat link building exercises. Dropping post/site links in comments on other sites or intentionally or unintentionally using it to improve visibility of their website.

Marketing gimmicks bear results only for a short span of time. Google has become pretty cautious of such practices and keeps on adding a new algorithm and updating the existing ones to keep the search results organic while focusing on healthy engagement.

As a thought leader, use the tools at your disposal but with caution and always with the goal in mind to establish your credibility. Because that’s what leads to lifelong growth. On the journey of blogger to thought leadership through#LeaderChatter all April. Come back for more!