Today, search engines have become smarter, so getting a site to the TOP using 100 cheap links won't work — and if it does, there is a risk of penalties from search engines.
It's important to use not only permanent backlinks but also crowd links. Their placement does not threaten search engine penalties and allows you to attract potential clients to your site.
In our previous article, we wrote about types of links for promotion. Now, let's talk about crowd marketing and why this tool should be "in every SEO specialist's pocket."
What Is Crowd Marketing?
Crowd marketing is a way for a brand to interact with its target audience on thematic forums, blogs, and social networks by posting links and recommendations. Its effectiveness is clear: users have long developed "immunity" to ads, but word-of-mouth remains relevant.
*Example of crowd marketing in action
Besides attracting additional customers, crowd marketing has another strong advantage — the site’s position in search results improves. Search algorithms don’t favor purchased links much, so it’s worth analyzing your backlink profile and buying links very selectively.
Crowd marketing in SEO promotion helps to:
- Increase backlink profile weight. Search engines consider crowd links natural, so they can be published in any quantity;
- Improve behavioral metrics and site reputation. Crowd links are placed on thematic resources and forums with many users, so visits from a warmed-up audience improve behavioral factors.
What Tasks Does Crowd Marketing Solve?
Crowd marketing is not just a way to get many people talking about your brand. It’s a thoughtful strategy using different methods and tools to build company authority among potential clients.
- Increases brand awareness. When thousands of people talk about your brand, it becomes more noticeable and memorable.
- Builds a positive brand image. Positive discussions about your brand build trust and reliability.
- Attracts target audience attention. Seeing others talk about your brand sparks interest and increases the chance they become your clients.
- Boosts sales. When people trust your brand and see others buying your products, they’re more likely to purchase from you.
Differences Between Link Building and Crowd Marketing
The goal of both crowd marketing and link building is to attract more users to your site, but they achieve this differently. Link building focuses on the quantity and quality of links, while crowd marketing centers on audience interaction and trust-building.
Imagine the internet as a big city and your site as a store you want to promote. Link building is like putting billboards all over the city. The more billboards and the busier their locations (authoritative sites), the more people see your ads and visit your store.
Crowd marketing means you actively participate in city life: attending events (forums, social networks), joining discussions, sharing useful info, and mentioning your store. People you interact with begin to recognize and trust you, so they’re likelier to visit your store.
Key differences:
- Goals:Link building aims to get links; crowd marketing aims to engage users.
- Methods: Link building uses guest blogging, link exchanges, and buying links; crowd marketing uses content creation, forum discussions, and social media interaction.
- Results: Link building leads to traffic and sales growth; crowd marketing boosts brand awareness, positive image, and eventually profit.
Examples of Crowd Marketing Use
Engaging people to create content about your brand (reviews, comments, social posts), participating in forums with your target audience (sharing knowledge to earn trust and authority), and active social media use (replying to comments, asking brand-related questions, organizing contests).
Platforms for Crowd Marketing
To maximize crowd marketing effects, combine different platforms to engage in discussions.
- Thematic forums: Find forums for your audience and join discussions, sharing expertise. For example, if selling children’s products, participate in moms’ forums.
- Social networks: Create company pages, post interesting content, reply to comments, and ask questions. For example, run Instagram contests encouraging users to share photos with your product.
- Blogs and sites: Find bloggers who write about your audience and offer articles about your brand. Example: “I just bought a new vacuum cleaner from [Brand], and I love it! Powerful, quiet, and easy to use. See all models here [link].”
- YouTube channels: Post videos about your brand, respond to comments, and ask questions. For example, a video showing how to use your product.
- Review sites: Encourage customers to leave reviews, perhaps offering discounts for feedback.
Crowd marketing is a great opportunity to attract an audience and build a community of fans.
Who Needs Crowd Marketing?
Crowd marketing relies on trust and real-user recommendations. It suits businesses needing to quickly grow, test ideas, or monetize content and audience.
- Startups and new companies: Need to attract attention and build an audience fast.
- Niche brands with unique offers: Crowd marketing best shares their advantages with interested audiences (e.g., vegan products).
- Projects testing ideas: User feedback helps optimize products (e.g., online delivery services).
- Content creators: Helps monetize traffic and audience, e.g., through sponsorships.
Who Should Avoid Crowd Marketing?
Despite its organic nature, crowd marketing is not suitable or may backfire for some businesses.
- Companies with negative reputations: It may worsen the crisis if reputation management isn’t done carefully.
- Exclusive brands positioning as premium and rare (e.g., luxury boutiques, expensive watches, jewelry): Crowd marketing can harm their elite image.
- Medical and financial institutions: Should avoid or cautiously use crowd marketing to protect their image (e.g., hospitals can’t promise guaranteed cures; financial firms cannot guarantee profits or loan benefits).
Crowd Marketing Strategies
Good crowd strategies analyze the target audience and place links on relevant resources (forums, Q&A sites, blogs).
Types of strategies:
- Account registration and forum comments posting
- Content mass-building on UGC platforms (User-Generated Content)
- Getting links from sources where competitors already posted
Popular tools for crowd marketing: Google Alerts, Kribrum, BuzzBundle, Mention, and Disqus.
What Are Crowd Links?
If crowd marketing is a promotion strategy, crowd links are a tool to implement it.
Crowd links are backlinks created not by the site owner but by other users, e.g., reviews or comments on other sites, forum participation, blog and article links.
An expert linking to content or products on their site or social media is considered a crowd link — a recommendation from a specialist.
Though more natural than paid or automated links, crowd links alone do not guarantee the results permanent backlinks provide. Using crowd and permanent links together is more effective.
Types of Crowd Links
Four main types:
- Anchorless links
- Non-clickable mentions (text references without links)
- Nofollow links (dilute link quantity and improve ranking)
- Mention links (company mentions without direct URLs but with ranking queries)
Forums mostly host anchorless links — words like "link," "here," or "on the page." Search engines filter anchor-rich profiles, so anchorless links “dilute” control. It’s advisable to have more anchorless than anchored links.
Disadvantages of Crowd Links
While crowd links are inexpensive, attract potential clients, and diversify backlink profiles, there are downsides:
- Visible promotion results appear only after 3–4 months of combined strategy;
- Low-quality forum pages often get de-indexed, causing link loss;
- Thematic forum threads may be deleted, resulting in no lasting effect.
Disadvantages of Crowd Links
While crowd links are inexpensive, attract potential clients, and diversify backlink profiles, there are downsides:
- Visible promotion results appear only after 3–4 months of combined strategy;
- Low-quality forum pages often get de-indexed, causing link loss;
- Thematic forum threads may be deleted, resulting in no lasting effect.
Where to Order Crowd Marketing?
Options include:
- Digital agencies offering full-cycle crowd campaigns, like Idea Digital Agency;
- Specialized crowd marketing sites like Capterra or Infolinks for self-service;
- Freelancers on Upwork, Freelancer, etc., though you should carefully check reputations;
- Create your own fan groups on Facebook, Telegram/WhatsApp, Discord, Reddit, and Instagram.
Full-cycle agencies reduce project failure risks and let you focus on business goals.
Popular Crowd Marketing Services
- BuzzBundle: Finds social media content relevant to queries, products, or company mentions and discussions.
- EMBO Studio: Offers crowd marketing services with personalized pricing.
- Prospero: International service giving access to a large blogger database for collaborations.
- Crowd101: Provides article writing, review and comment posting, and reputation monitoring.
- BrandMentions: Tracks brand mentions online and helps react to negative feedback.
- Referr: Service with personal managers and technical tasks; downside — high price.
Conclusions: Should You Use Crowd Marketing for SEO?
Crowd marketing acts as a catalyst in site promotion — boosting rankings, indexing, and ranking metrics faster.
Using crowd marketing as the sole promotion tool is ineffective. Simply placing crowd links (even on trusted sites) won’t yield high results.
High results come from a comprehensive strategy combining permanent backlinks and crowd marketing.
