In a recent interview, online marketing consultant Brent Csutoras gave some advice that all social media marketers should take to heart, don’t rush your social media link bait. Of course, like most things, this is easier said than done. Many of you have been in a situation where you felt you had a great offer or article and set your bait only to face disappointing returns. Even great content can be a let down if you rush to get it in front of the wrong set of eyes.

So how do you ensure that your bait will work? Research. Lots of research. Research should be at the core of every marketing campaign. If you begin your communications efforts by researching your market, you can avoid making mistakes and rushing your social media bait.

To begin you should pick the right community to use. Many social media networking websites provide descriptions of their purpose. These should tell you if the site reaches the type of people you want to reach. If the site does not have a description, explore the site to better understand the common interests of its users.

Once you’ve identified the sites that are most useful to you, spend a good deal of time on each site (or hire someone to do it) conducting your own research. Become familiar with the community. Figure out what appeals to them and how they communicate with each other. Make friends and be social with them. Get a network going and tend to that network. By taking the time to become part of their social networking community, you will be better prepared to create effective social media bait.

During your initial research and experience with the social network website, determine the type of bait that has been successful in the past. What type of message appealed to this particular community? What didn’t work? Make a list of ideas that can be accessed later to help you brainstorm.

Once you have a list of potentially effective ideas, pick the one that seems most valuable to that particular social media network and keep the others for future use. When developing this particular link bait, make sure it’s valuable, that it meets an interest or need. You want to make sure you become a source for quality information, not screaming hype, that way you can build trust and users will respond to your bait in the future. Plus, if you provide quality information, people will link to you. Here are some tips for developing successful content:

• Don’t clutter your site with advertisements. Have a few selected advertisements, but let your content shine.
• Have links to related posts on your site.
• If you’d like them to comment make the RSS features prominent.
• Make sure your article has a title that focuses on the viral point.
• Have a clean description that follows up on the title, but provides more information.

After you develop your link bait, get your friends involved. That’s the benefit of establishing relationships prior to laying link bait. Once people get to know you, they are more likely to be interested in helping you or learning more about you.