Cashmob For Links
I saw this over the weekend and thought it was clever. Someone organized a cashmob – read more on them here http://www.cashmob.com/ - to benefit a local business and it was mentioned in the local paper. Complete with a link to the organizers website.
His website is totally unrelated to the local business (a pizza place, which is actually a franchise) but the link from the newspaper is not going to hurt them at all.
I think that cashmobs are a good idea, especially for business’s like record shops where many of the attendees may not even be aware of the business before the mob. They can give local business a boost and if they like the service it could turn those one off visitors into regular customers.
Normally cashmobs are organized through facebook but with a bit of ingenuity (and coding) I imagine you could do the planning on your own site or on some central site where you then link out to the website for the business and your own site.
I haven’t really thought of all the ways you could get links, if you are a local web company you could certainly get your name out there. If you are in a service industry you could get some new local customers as well. Any links you do get should be good value as they are local ones and are unlikely to come from places that have been hammered with link requests. You could also build new friendships and relationships, the people who join cashmobs tend to be technologically savvy and have money.
Getting links or new customers of your own while also helping a local business is not a bad thing is it?
I am sure you can think of some ingenious ways to get links or new contacts using cashmobs, share your thoughts in the comments please.
Or is this too much on the dark side of link building?
