Did you get an email like this today?

It is interesting to debate if this was smart of LinkedIn to send this email from a PR/ marketing standpoint. 2 million people recieved the “Top 1% Most Viewed Profile”, others got the 5% email, and 20 million people received the 10% email. Vanity tactics like this remain a staple in terms of a tactic that will generate user participation to share content like this, it makes people feel important + influential (this formula is nothing new). But it would be interesting to see the metrics after today in regards to how many people who aren’t job seekers went back into their account to review their profiles, browse the network, and just kick the tires again. For LinkedIn, while they might catch some negative PR flack for the deceptiveness, they may be the ultimate winners by getting inactive users to rediscover LinkedIn again.

Interesting to watch as others have chimed-in with their opinions…

J.D. Rucker at Soshable rants about the number trickery:

When you really think about it, it’s not as much of an accomplishment as a great marketing ploy by LinkedIn to get their name out there and into conversations on Twitter. Top of mind… The math makes it seem less impressive. Even those who received the top 1% email might not have been as quick to brag about it had they realized they were one of over 2 million users to receive the honor.

Danny Brown has concerns of the long-term effects:

The problem is, ego-stroking this way generally doesn’t work long-term. Now that LinkedIn has placed these “1% leaders” on a pedestal, will they continue to make them feel special with regular outreach? Will they answer their email questions to support quicker than the rest of LinkedIn’s non-1% userbase? If you truly want to sustain long-term benefits and buzz around your brand, it takes more than a warm, fuzzy email as a one-off viral push.

What do you think? Deceptive or effective?

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