Congratulations! You’re special. Kind of.
It’s not exactly the basis for a winning marketing campaign…unless you’re a certain professional networking site. Over the past few days, LinkedIn has used that very message to inspire tens of thousands of users to gush about their personal success on the site on a variety of social networks.
Let’s back up for a minute. Bright and early Tuesday morning, some of us were lucky enough to be greeted from the glaring light of our smartphones with a whopping ego boost of an email. “Congratulations!” the subject line read. “You have one of the top 5% most viewed LinkedIn profiles for 2012.” Well happy Tuesday!
Who wouldn’t open that email? Come on LinkedIn, tell me just how special I really am. Here’s a look at how this clever campaign work.
User is the subject honoree
Copywriting 101 tells us to make the message about the reader. LinkedIn took that elementary tactic and ran with it, turning an email that was ultimately about a platform milestone (200 million members!) into a personalized award for 10 million of its most active users. The email is so personalized that when I open it up I see my own face staring right back at me. LinkedIn’s self-congratulatory message subtly sandwiches this colorful message in grey text: “LinkedIn now has 200 million members.”
Spiffy landing page celebrates OUR achievement
With a click of that contrasting yellow Read More button, we’re taken to a beautiful ribbon clad landing page with a personalized letter from LinkedIn’s SVP of Product and User Experience. In addition to the “this isn’t just our achievement to celebrate — it’s also yours” messaging, we have three straightforward calls to action:
- See the infographic – a graphical look at LinkedIn’s journey to 200 million
- A link or two back to Linkedin – this is where the magic happens
- The ability to share this message on your social network with one click – and holy crap, it worked (more on that below)
One-click social self-congratulations
As of 12:00 am on Wednesday, February 13 no fewer than 60,000 people had tweeted the message, “Hurray! I have one of the top 5% most viewed @LinkedIn profiles for 2012.” Head to Topsy for a live version of the chart below, which offers realtime look at the number of times this preloaded LinkedIn tweet has gone out.
And if my personal LinkedIn network has anything to say about it, the social bait worked on LinkedIn, too; over a dozen of my connections shared the “hooray for 5%” message.
What do you make of this LinkedIn campaign? Did you let your network know that your among in the upper echelons of the LinkedIn hierarchy?
