You may have received or read about the emails that LinkedIn
is sending out. To "celebrate" reaching 200 million members, LinkedIn
has sent a series of emails out to select members, congratulating them
on an achievement and thanking them for helping to build LinkedIn to
what it is today.
This morning, I received mine, with LinkedIn congratulating me for
being in the top 1% of profiles viewed. I assume the same exact message
was sent to me and 2 million other LinkedIn users. I do know that other
people have received emails that were somewhat different, so "profile
views" was not the only category, and the percentages varied.
If you click the Read More button, you end up on a LinkedIn page with
a nice letter from Deep Nishar, Senior Vice President, Products &
User Experience. The page includes a pre-written post that you can share
to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook mentioning your new-found fame.
To most observers, this is a simple email marketing campaign, perhaps
as a response to recent statistics indicating LinkedIn's monthly
activity is not nearly as high as other social networks. Kred issued a
similar campaign recently to users who had hit 1%, 5% and 10% levels.
As a marketing technique, I find this interesting. LinkedIn has
obviously decided to stroke my ego a little bit, but they're not
inherently asking for anything in return. They've provided me with some
canned messages for social media which, presumably, would advertise
LinkedIn a little bit to those I'm connected to.
So, LinkedIn gets to create a little buzz, generates some immediate
activity, and potentially makes some users feel special. Is this a good
long-term marketing strategy?
Buzz is obviously very short-term. No one is going to be talking
about their "achievement" for long. It's also not the kind of topic that
could even potentially expand beyond the initial individual. I
dutifully tweeted the message LinkedIn provided, and I'm sure some of my
Twitter followers noted it. I have not, however, received any retweets
or favorites, and don't expect to. Since there's very little context
with this 1% number, why should anyone else care?
Some recipients may have logged into their LinkedIn accounts to
consider their profiles and maybe even look at the people who have been
looking at their profile. Some people who saw the tweets and Facebook
posts from recipients might have logged into LinkedIn to see what's up.
But again, once the "buzz" dies down, all that gained activity will have
plateaued.
Perhaps
most troubling is the idea that LinkedIn was making an effort to stroke
my ego. This is a dangerous technique for marketers. If you're not
careful, your users will come to expect this special treatment, and then
what happens if you stop? This is actually nothing new from LinkedIn.
Take a look at your profile and look at the right sidebar. The old
profile completeness percentage has been replaced with a graphic that describes
your profile. Apparently, I am a LinkedIn All Star, at least according
to my profile gauge. i know people personally who are far better and
more advanced at LinkedIn than I am, so I honestly question the validity
of this label. And again, there's no context. How is this label
measured? What exactly makes my profile an All Star?
It seems to me that, while well-intentioned, this is yet another
"scheme" from LinkedIn to try and boost their numbers. I would much
prefer to spend more time on developing and improving the platform. What
do you think? Was this a brilliant marketing move, or just another
brainless ploy to increase activity?