We are vane creatures.
LinkedIn has been on a roll, lately. They seem to have come to grips with their status as a resume- and professional-connection-distributing social network (even though they still look too much like Facebook). They are beating The Street’s profits and revenue expectations and they haven’t had any major scandals lately. 2012 was a good year for them and they’re starting off 2013 with a bang by getting many of its most active members to promote the service by promoting themselves.
In a perfectly designed email, LinkedIn informed their top members last week that they were in the top 10%, 5%, or 1% of the most viewed profiles. Everyone wants to be wanted, and what says “I want you” more than a view of a LinkedIn profile? The “award” email prompted users to Tweet their success. Being in the top ranks of a professional social network is something that can make people smiling with pride and eager to rub it into the faces of their less popular workmates, friends, and family.
It was a marketing ploy and it worked wonderfully.
With over 200 million members, that means that the “awards” were given to over 20 million people. Nothing says “look at us” like giving people an opportunity to say “look at me”.
We could not find statistics on how many people actually Tweeted about it, but it was certainly a high number considering the depth of the recipients and the format of the award. Here is what some of the Tweets from the last hour look like:
Hurray! I have one of the top 1% most viewed @linkedin profiles for 2012. — Wish I was this popular in high school. goo.gl/0kAh5
— David Mihalek (@Mihalek) February 11, 2013
Not sure how that happened. Hurray! I have one of the top 1% most viewed @linkedin profiles for 2012. linkedin.com/pub/profile/13…
— Andrew Griffin (@GriffUK) February 11, 2013
Hurray! I have one of the top 1% most viewed @linkedin profiles for 2012. Not sure what this gets me. linkedin.com/pub/profile/1/…
— John Kiriakou (@JohnKiriakou) February 11, 2013
DrAlex: Hurray! I have one of the top 1% most viewed @linkedin profiles for 2012 linkedin.com/pub/profile/17… THX SO MUCH EVERYONE for your interest
— Dr Alex Concorde (@DrAlexConcorde) February 11, 2013
Wonder if this is true… from LinkedIn:Hurray! I have one of the top 1% most viewed @linkedin profiles for 2012. linkedin.com/pub/profile/0/…
— John Morgan (@johnmorganhk) February 11, 2013
Hurray! I have one of the top 1% most viewed @linkedin profiles for 2012. I fell for their fishing email too! linkedin.com/pub/profile/0/…
— Chris D’Alessandro (@dalessandro) February 11, 2013
Hurray! I have one of the top 1% most viewed @linkedin profiles for 2012. Thats after 8 years of being with LinkedIn. linkedin.com/pub/profile/0/…
— Q Habib (@qhabib) February 11, 2013
Feel weird tweeting this, doing it anyway. Hurray! I have one of the top 1% most viewed @linkedin profiles for 2012. linkedin.com/pub/profile/7/…
— Barb Youchah (@byouchah) February 11, 2013
How many other people got this email? “Hurray! I have one of the top 1% most viewed @linkedin profiles for 2012. linkd.in/X02uNR“
— Lauren Luxenburg (@LaurenC_Lux) February 11, 2013
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“Look at me” image courtesy of Shutterstock.
I’m not sure if ‘Vane’ is intentinally misspelled in the subheading or not…. FYI