2 Million People...Genius Marketing or Suckers

By now everyone either received or at least saw the posts and emails about you being in the top 1, 5 or 10 percent of Linkedin profile views in 2012. If not, here is mine as an example.

Keep in mind you are either one of 2, 10 or 20 million people, respectively, who could have received these emails.

There were even others that went to other countries if you were part of the first number of people who logged in to Linkedin.

Did Linkedin just go after all the ASW's out there? No they went after everyone and probably got more than they thought they would from this stunt. Sure I am adding to it, but there is some genius here to be reviewed.

1) Size matters, but not really
Without a huge customer base, this may not have worked so well, then again, you can come up with any number or percentage of your customers or readers or followers to produce a similar marketing campaign around your brand.

Imagine if IBM did this based on people who tweet about IBM or have attended the most seminars or in a more entertaining light, who has the most IBM giveaways. But would it provide reason for people to look up  IBM or call their sales rep? I am sure IBM has some great metrics to pull this off.

2) Let the people do your work for you
When your followers and readers extol your virtues, that is worth it's weight in gold. This is where size does matter a little bit, but really it is the quality of who follows you, and their followers. Influence, and not the type found in Kred or Klout exactly, helps in this. But even more important is the belief and strength of your brand and company to work with everyone, the lovers and haters, of your brand. And your marketing costs are lower because of the word of mouth.

3) Keep Moving Forward
No doubt out of 200 Million members, Linkedin has enough paying them that cash flow is not an issue, well I hope not. But is that enough? No, they have shut down their Q and A section, which I will miss, and have seemed like a little Facebook and a little Google with their various changes and not quite there changes. But without trying to move forward, you don't stay still, you really fall backwards as others progress beyond you. So this was yet another move forward for them.

Make fun of it all and everyone's gullibility but the bottom line is Linkedin scored a major coup, this time. The one drawback is next time will people care what the email says in the same way? Time will tell.

Pricing is not Social

It seems of late that a number of companies are very public, very social, very internet and web, yet very private about pricing.

What is it about price that makes companies hide behind their BS captcha's that are the "send us your information and we will get back to you with a quote" type?

On one hand, marketing says we need leads, services says each customer is different we can't possibly price it properly. On the other hand, we as a company want to be open, honest and above board with our customers.

Which are you? Which is it? Naturally there is a difference between a license MSRP and a services need but one might think these companies are safe guarding gold the way they act about their price.

If you worry about price, then you have no concept of the sales process. If you do your job correctly, then price, unless you are WAY OUT THERE, is rarely an issue.

Are you afraid your competition will find out? Hello 1950, what is this the Cold War? Your competition knows what you charge or how you bill, maybe not exactly but roughly.

Numerous examples exist, pick almost any company offering products online, not retail, but even there you get that "price available when in your cart" BS. I know, there are legal reasons to do that but still, that is just lame.

In my view this comes down to a silo mentality versus an open collaborative mentality. The open collaborative side does not worry about letting you know the price because their honesty is their integrity. If price really matters to you above all else, then they probably do not want you as a customer anyway.

The silo company has too many levels of "insert some euphemism" to be open and honest with anyone because in their world of CYA it is all about being safe, sound and hold back something from the customer. Old time sales tactic, make them ask me how much feels so great to me to be in control. Ugh. The reality is the power is not yours, by withholding the price, it is mine by ignoring you entirely.


Could social be leveraged to provide a more fluid pricing, similar to how much a Coke would cost in the winter versus the summer? Yes of course. While that may not be fair in theory, it is happening already, mostly because of analytics and testing of theories based on the raw data you and I provide in credit card receipts and online surfing as well as rewards cards.

Do we notice or care? Perhaps. But if we never knew the price of anything at a store would we still frequent it? Probably not, and your company website is really not any different.