Yesterday I posted about a Romanian company, TrustyPig, ripped off a local Des Moines web startup SmartyPig. After that, I made a call to action – for a Social Brand Hijack. It had ten steps – the first being to blog about it. In this post I’ll highlight how your blog post should be structured for the best effect. I’ll assume that your blog already has a basic SEO strategy in place. If you do not, Ask Me how you can do that.
To see how this works, I’ve attached a screenshot of the Google results of my attempt at brand hijack via blogging. Notice I’m #2 behind the target brand when searching on Google less than 24 hours after posting – exactly where I want to be. Also notice the message I’ve attached to the brand. Success.
Brand Hijack – Blogging
Use the brand “TrustyPig” in the title
If you have a proper SEO strategy for your blog nothing will help more than this. In my case my title shows up in three key places. First it is in the URL, Secondly it shows up in the title tag, and third it creates a header tag with the keyword on the post. These are the first three things Google looks at, which makes it very important.
Plant keywords in your post
In our case our keyword is the brand which we’d like to hijack. Litter your posts with mentions of the brand. Instead of using “them”, etc, use “TrustyPig”. Also wrap these keyword mentions in bold and italics. Google is able to pick these out of the content because you have placed emphasis on them.
Use ALT and TITLE Attributes
In my brand hijack post, I used two screenshots from Troy Rutter. In the external links I used our keyword in the TITLE attribute that links to his images and placed our keyword in the ALT attribute of the IMG elements that are showing his images. You should do the same with any images or screenshots you attach – as well as adding the title attribute to every outgoing link you have.
Link, Link, Link
Cross linkage between all of our blog posts will make each more relevant than the other. At the end of your post, add a heading (use a header element with our keyword) “More on TrustyPig” or however you want to word it. Then list all the links using their keyword rich titles (and don’t forget to add the TITLE attribute to your links). Here’s a list of posts to link to.
Social Media
Ask your readers to post this all over the social media landscape to build link love and traffic generation.
DON’T LINK TO THE TARGET
Don’t give the target brand any extra external links. We want to hijack their SEO by increasing ours. Links to their website will only create an external link in Google’s eyes – which is good for the target.
If you have any more questions, leave a comment or check out the html on my brand hijack post
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
And what is the exact aim of this effort of yours? Isn\’t SmartyPig able to defend themselves and protect their brand?
@Van The aim is for the community to help SmartyPig fight back. We are a tight entrepreneur community in Des Moines and this is how we help each other. A “Brand Hijack” is an attempt to attach a message to a brand – and we want “TrustyPig” to be associated as a distrustful company that steals.
There’s not much SmartyPig can legally do since the ripoff comes from Romania… Why not help out? The community has more power as a collective than the company defending itself on their own.
So can you tell me what is the purpose of your campaign when it was already explained by the admin of TrustyPig? By the way, the design and layout of TrustyPig is being remade now. So your so-called efforts are not needed anymore. If you want to advertise your site please don’t use viral marketing if you know what I mean.
Best regards. Paul.
@Paul -
And how was this explained by the TrustyPig “Admin” again? They didn’t respond to any of our inquiries and deleted all the comments we left on their blog.
This “so-called effort” is still needed – to protect people from a shady company. I am not doing this to “advertise” my site and this is not “viral marketing”. This is us defending a local company. This is social retaliation for blatant theft.
Thanks for the comment. And just because you are a TrustyPig affiliate – doesn’t mean you need to defend them.
Hey Paul,
Why on earth would you defend trusty pig / trustypig.com? It is clearly a blatant rip-off. Do you seriously not know the purpose? Come on now Paul, the purpose is to defend a local Des Moines company that has honest marketing efforts.
If you want to help Trusty Pig go leave positive comments on their site. I am sure they won’t delete yours. (Unlike all other comments)
@Paul
What? Are you seriously defending what TrustyPig did? TrustyPig stole SmartyPig’s intellectual property; that is illegal. If I am wrong about this, I would certainly be open to reviewing any evidence you can provide that TrustyPig had the right to steal SmartyPig’s intellectual property.
Even if TrustyPig changes its format after getting its hand caught in the cookie jar, that does not excuse its attempts to trade on the goodwill SmartyPig has so painstakingly created. Andy is doing what he is doing, as are several others in the Des Moines community, to protect one of our own from losing valuable intellectual property to what is apparently a company with few qualms about taking property without paying for it.
I wonder how TrustyPig’s customers feel about dealing with a company that believes it can take property which does not belong to it and simply claim no-harm-no-foul when caught?
Brett
Hi, Andy! I never deleted your post on my blog but it’s not allowed to post any links especially if you try to advertise your site on my blog.
I will post the candid reply to you and what I think about such people like you on my blog today. Stay tuned for that!
Also I will post the explanation from the admin regarding your accusations. Everybody knows that it was unintentional from the admin’s side and he even wasn’t aware the design was stolen. Anyway, the details are on my blog today if you’re still interested and is ready to read the point of view that is different from yours. I’m not posting the link because I respect the other people’s blogs unlike others.
Best regards. Paul.
I am not trying to advertise my site on your blog. I am trying to alert your readers that your affiliate chums are thiefs.
So if I go to Wal-Mart and steal a video game, can I claim it was unintentional?
Looking forward to your reply. I’m sure it will be littered with affiliate links to TrustyPig
@Paul – I am sorry, I had thought you deleted my comment – but it was a different post. My apologies.
simply put… nice work Andy (and crew)!
Keep Cooking!
Andrew
@Andrew – Thanks!
Stealing ones right has a certain punishment.This blog is interesting.
Even if TrustyPig changes its format after getting its hand caught in the cookie jar, that does not excuse its attempts to trade on the goodwill SmartyPig has so painstakingly created. Andy is doing what he is doing, as are several others in the Des Moines community, to protect one of our own from losing valuable intellectual property to what is apparently a company with few qualms about taking property without paying for it.
getanewbrowser.com – great domain name for blog like this)))
getanewbrowser.com – now in my rss reader)))
Hi, cool site, good writing ;)
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