LinkedIn's clever marketing: You're special like 10 million others

LinkedIn has been sending congratulatory emails to 10 million of its users as part of a marketing strategy. (LinkedIn / February 11, 2013)

By Salvador Rodriguez

February 11, 2013, 11:34 a.m.

Did LinkedIn send you an email saying you had one of the top most viewed profiles of 2012? Congratulations!

But wait, LinkedIn also sent that to 10 million other users.

The business-centric social network came up with some clever marketing recently to get users to talk about LinkedIn on Facebook and Twitter.

Over the last few days, the company has been sending out emails to users congratulating them for having one of the top 1% or 5% most viewed user profiles out of their 200 million members.

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The congratulatory email contains a link to an even more celebratory page, complete with a ribbon, a stamp and a "personal" letter from the social network's senior vice president of products and user experience. It also encourages users to share their accomplishment with their friends with a text field that will export a message to their LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

"Hurray! I have one of the top 5% most viewed @LinkedIn profiles for 2012," the pre-typed message says.

And so far, the marketing tactic has worked. Many have taken to Twitter to share the news with their friends and seem genuinely happy to receive the distinction.

Bravo! Our own @henry_addo has one of the top 1% most viewed @linkedin profiles for 2012! linkedin.com/pub/profile/3/…
— Profiles(@CareerProfiles) February 11, 2013

But others have mocked the strategy by either pointing out how many people have received the email or how they never use the social network.

LinkedIn says my #profile is in 1% of the most checked one. Was flattering until I saw that they have 200 million profiles. Do the math.
— InnaKuznetsova (@innakuznetsova_) February 11, 2013

I'm in the top 10% of profiles viewed on LinkedIn even though I never use it. Take that, people actively on LinkedIn trying to get a job!
— Niraj Shah (@TheOtherNiraj) February 11, 2013

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Comments (7)

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houston at 11:03 AM February 26, 2013

After you've connected to MeritShare, remember to forward your online badge and public award certificate to getalifeforreal.com and we'll send you an emoticon signifying great satisfaction. You will also have the opportunity to be spamed and phished and otherwise harassed and tracked like never before. Congrats!

Ed Henrich at 8:57 AM February 13, 2013

The other cool thing they marketed a while back is when you joined. Check your profile URL, so for instance view?id=53824 means that your joined as the 53,824th member

knakao at 7:25 AM February 13, 2013

We think this type of professional recognition is awesome and want to honor LinkedIn’s Top Users. MeritShare will honor the top 1%, 5%, and 10% most-viewed profiles with a MeritShare online badge and public award page. The benefit to the recipient is that a MeritShare award page is more permanent than a post in a social media stream. The MeritShare award page is also optimized for search; many MeritShare profiles with a photo and a badge show up in the first page of Google results for someone’s name.” A personal and professional branding win!

To receive a MeritShare award, just forward the email you received from LinkedIn to kevin@meritshare.com and we’ll send you a special “Connector” award through MeritShare.

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