LinkedIn pulled off quite the quick-witted move when announcing their user growth and Q4 profits. The social networking site for professionals used a “Congratulations” email marketing campaign, which offered praise for the user’s performance on their site. LinkedIn users who appeared in a high percentage of their searches received this thank you email, in the form of a formal invitation including an embedded image of the user:

“Starting today, we’re sending personal emails to many who have been instrumental in helping us reach this milestone to recognize their part in our journey,” according to a company blog post.

This was quite the skillful move. Not only did it differentiate the email message from multitude of spam sent everyday, but it delighted the receiver by flattering their ego. The user was notified of their standing as a member of the top 5 or 10% of the LinkedIn community. When reader clicked the “read more” button on the  complimentary invitation, they were taken to what resembled a thank you note. This note was accompanied by the most shrewd aspect of LinkedIn’s email campaign, the share button.

LinkedIn: Bold Marketing Tactics Pay Off

The prompt read “A Stat This Delightful Deserves to Be Shared”, and of course easy buttons allowed for quick sharing on Facebook, Twitter and you guessed it LinkedIn. This move seems to have paid off in a big way. According to AllVoices.com “As of Monday evening — a full five days after the emails were sent — the message was still being tweeted out by LinkedIn users at a rate of at least once every sixty seconds.”

It’s a bold move to send what could be seen as glorified spam to 20 million of your users, but this time it has proven highly effective for LinkedIn, creating lots of buzz across the Internet.