All roads lead to branded content that both highlights capabilities, products, services, case studies, and the mad talent therein via explicit links back, allowing social media trappers to lure their followers and people in their professional or social media space to not only be discovered but to also link away from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, and even Tumblr back to where the source content lives.

Most trappers these days call themselves “content marketers” and what they do is “content marketing.”

And, if they’re doing their jobs well enough, their goal is to both set their own traps but also to make these traps “contagious” enough that this content is shared, retweeted, reshared, liked, and favorited — essentially like a floor entirely festooned with mousetraps to the point where setting off just one would have the effect of setting them all off.

While most social media trappers, AKA content marketers, write content that is meaningful to them personally, professionally, or in relation to the work they do or have done — their experience; many tend to surf trends.

They’ll figure out what they want to catch in their trap and then create content — also known as bait — that is most compelling to that audience. The vertical’s catnip, if you will. While this can surely be an authentic pursuit where you use your continued knowledge and understanding of your clientele to create better and better traps — the elusive better mousetrap — this sort of trend-surfing can also be “abused” by ginning up the appeal based on what’s going on in the news, on reddit, on Buzzfeed, or what’s trending on Twitter or Google at the time.

The most successful trappers who are really better at attracting and driving traffic than they are at building long-term trust relationships tend to be the best social media hijackers. They do things such as mis-tagging their social content via mis-categorization or by using hashtags or keywords that are much more popular and timely than they are accurate.

Even though the old reliable “keyword stuffing” from the nascent days of SEO are pretty much deceased, the strategy is still popular with social media trappers.

Even more, the content-creation for content marketing can trend-surf as well.

Since time began — or at least since blogs began (actually before then, newspapers, television, radio, and all the rest are either breaking something new or surfing the wave of interest that results) there has been an entire economy of bloggers who work to create content as quickly as possible in response to breaking news — this is just the natural extension of it. It required fast-and-dirty writing and the willingness to get something out there first and maybe do some editing after.

It always benefits a social media trapper if they can secure a place on Google News, the trendiest of all news aggregators on the web.

At the end of the day, however, content marketing is not good enough on its own and neither is trend surfing. At the end of the day, all of these things are just more and more elaborate and compelling lures — it’s all baiting the trap.

What do you have planned for when the trap is sprung? Punji trapping pit? Steel jaw legholds? A snare? Drag noose? Twitch-up? Deadfall? Conibear?

Maybe a catch-and-release cage trap — non-lethal (but you need that meat!) Maybe a glue trap, then. Well, you obviously don’t want to literally trap your prospects, do you? But what is the figurative marketing trap? The email list, of course, a Feedburner RSS subscription, or maybe signing up for a free white paper, a sign-up form, or even just a contact form.

Otherwise, everything’s ephemeral. More like signing up for a safari in Africa and bringing your Nikon in lieu of digging elephant-sized holes and covering them up or — better — bringing a .470 Nitro Express elephant gun; however, that’ll take us to hunting and this is about trapping.

One of the downsides of trapping is that most game is too smart for traps; another issue is that traps are mostly good for small- to medium-sized varmints; you’ll also only just get what you get; finally, the trap doesn’t always hold or you might not be able to rush around making sure all your traps are freshly-baited and attended to — it really is a full-time job.

Glossary of Terms:

1. Social Media Trapping: A marketing strategy where social media platforms are used to lure audiences to specific branded content or websites.
2. Content Marketing: The creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.
3. Hashtag Strategy: Utilizing specific hashtags to increase the visibility of social media content, attract targeted audiences, and enhance engagement.
4. Branded Content: Content produced by an advertiser or marketer that reflects the brand's values and message, designed to build connections with the audience.
5. Trend Surfing: The practice of creating content that aligns with current popular topics or trends to attract attention and engagement.
6. Content Bait: High-quality, appealing content designed to attract and retain the attention of a specific audience.
7. Social Media Hijacking: The practice of misusing hashtags or trends to gain visibility for content in social media.
8. Keyword Stuffing: Overloading web content with keywords to manipulate a site's ranking in search engine results, now largely outdated and penalized by search engines.
9. Google News: A news aggregator service provided by Google, offering a continuous, customizable flow of articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines.
10. Feedburner RSS Subscription: A tool for bloggers and podcasters to manage their RSS feeds and track the usage of their subscribers.
11. Email List Marketing: Collecting email addresses from website visitors to send them marketing materials directly.
12. White Paper: An authoritative report or guide that informs readers about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter.
13. Contact Form: A web form allowing visitors to communicate with the website owner, commonly used for gathering leads.
14. Punji Trapping Pit: Metaphorically, a marketing strategy that involves creating a 'pit' or a deep level of engagement where the audience falls in and becomes deeply involved with the content or product.
15. Snare: In marketing, this refers to a strategy designed to catch the audience's attention unexpectedly.
16. Twitch-up: A sudden or unexpected marketing tactic that captures audience attention.
17. Deadfall: A strategy where outdated or irrelevant content is removed or replaced to maintain engagement.
18. Conibear Trap: Symbolically, a marketing strategy that is designed to catch and hold the audience's attention effectively.
19. Catch-and-Release Cage Trap: A non-aggressive marketing approach that offers valuable content or incentives without obligating the audience.
20. Glue Trap Marketing: A strategy that aims to make the audience stick to the brand or content through highly engaging and interactive tactics.