I saw a post last week on LinkedIn that caught my attention.
It was a “humblebrag” post from a chap who shared a photo of a senior gentleman drinking a pint in a pub.
The story with the image went along the lines of: This chap had struggled using the pub’s app to order his drink, he hadn’t been out for a year and the staff were not helping him.
The good Samaritan who wrote the post then bought this chap a pint and got talking to him.
The post went viral with hundreds of thousands of likes, comments, shares, etc.
From what I could see, all the comments were congratulating our hero for helping a pensioner in need.
Being the sceptic I am, 2 things stood out to me:
1. Why are you taking a photo of him while his back is turned?
2. Why are you telling this story on LinkedIn?
My suspicion was that the answers would be:
1. He didn’t take a photo at all.
2. He wanted the post to go viral and cash in on the kudos.
My scepticism proved me right the next day when I saw a similar post a few other times with the same photo and a slightly different story each time. Cue some severe eye-rolling.
I then wrote my own post with the same image but with the aim of humour and, of course, educating others who may have seen the original.
You can see it here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/leeshore_copyandpaste-activity-6800816013840646145-o5sC
At the time of writing, it’s had 10,112 views! 71 likes. And 11 comments.
Quite frankly, it’s above and beyond the most engaging post I’ve ever written on LinkedIn.
And I write a lot!
At best, I generally see around 1,500 views.
So, what did I gain from all this engagement?
Nothing. Not a bean.
That’s not why I wrote it, of course, but it did get me thinking about our email campaigns.
The proof is always in the pudding.
I could write an email tomorrow with the sole aim of achieving a 25% open rate! (massive)
But if that email brings in no leads, is it a success?
No, of course not.
So much emphasis is put on views, reads, likes, etc, these days.
We only ever want to be judged on results!
Did you make more money from the campaign than the cost of running the campaign?
If not, something hasn’t worked.
If you did, great, let’s go again!
I’ll tell you how many opens we achieved.
But I won’t then try and convince you that’s a result.
Lee Shore
26th May 2021
