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Posted By:
WaltVerastegui
394 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://mashable.com)
Category: Social Media
Am I alone on this one? What does everyone else think?
8 Comments
Comments
Dude, Linked In? Facebook. And friend me, Obama!
I'm all good with Facebook, Myspace, but for some reason, for LinkedIn it just seems...I don't know, likes it's kind of being used for the wrong reason, (maybe). Maybe latter I'll be fine with it, who knows. Maybe I'm just cranky this morning.
Walt: Of COURSE it's being used for the wrong motivation. It's called manipulation.
...now we're getting somewhere. What do you mean by "manipulation" KnightCrawler? (Don't worry, I won't turn this into a political debate which isn't my cup of tea, I just wanted clarification from your comment.)
:-)
I agree. It's the timing. If Obama had been on LinkedIn before the campaign, I would have thought that was pretty cool. To have some staffer-in-the-know add his profile this late in the game ... I'm not impressed.
Now it is interesting that he's using the LinkedIn channel to speak to small business. Today's featured question in Startups and Small Business is from Obama ... "How can the next president better help small businesses survive?" In four hours, he's gotten 386 answers. Most responses seem to be honest answers to his question. I'd say the response and the press he's getting far outweighs the effort it took to set up the LinkedIn profile and send out a release. Smells like ROI.
Over the weekend, I did a post regarding Obamas web strategies. Of several candidates, his site is the only one I found using a 301 on the / to www. Site is also rolling out new subdomains (for each state) systematically, filling up more positions in the serps than others.
Regardless of why he is doing it, LinkedIn comes as no surprise.
I mean 'Manipulate' in the sense that one does things so as to motivate others to behave in a way that the person gets the outcome he wants, or that solicits a calculated response from others. This behavior is, thus, selfishly motivated and is not reflective of who the manipulator actually is (but then, again, in another way, it is quite reflective of that person's character...)
In other words, no sincerity required.
Now this is a regular practice in sales, marketing, etc. (as well as in other aspects of culture and society). And that's fine because in that arena, everybody knows that something is being sold. It's business. In the political arena, however, people are truly looking for something other than a sales hustle, they are looking for sincerity. Which is exactly why the yellow light went off in you when you learned of this and why you wrote the article.
You felt like you are being played. Because you are.
I knew there was a reason why this didn't settle with me. Great point KC.