One of the core factors of getting your website to the top of the search results is getting other websites to link to it; this is seen as a "vote" of confidence for your site. The more websites you can get to link to you, the better. One good way of doing this is in offering great content and then spreading the word around that it exists, and other websites, finding this content useful (or funny, controversial, etc) will link to it.

With the dawn of bloggers and social networks, there are some new strategies in town. One of these is to create content that panders to the ego of the potential site owners that will link to you. On SEOMoz there is a good article about this:

• Twitter users, forum posters and bloggers all like to link to things that will make their visitors/audience appreciate them and come back to them
  
• Social media users want to vote on things that excite them, inspire them or amuse them (the last one appears particularly strong). The ease of consumption plays a big role here, too - the faster something is to digest and enjoy, the more Stumble thumbs, Diggs and votes it earns. More complex pieces don't earn that ability with the same ease.
  
• Site owners, particular those in the SMB or personal website arena are incented to link to stories and content that backs up their point of view or re-inforces a long-held or long-argued position.
  
• People everywhere want to link to things that show off how cool/impressive/important/interesting they are

Read the full article here.