Yesterday I came across a post on LinkedIn posted by Andryi Burkov Global ML Team Leader at Gartner.
His post stating this “I FIRED a good employee AND she turned out to be UNHAPPY about that. And here's why. She was a good employee, very humble and professional. Great team player. Everybody liked HER. But I decided to FIRE her for the sole purpose of posting about THAT on LinkedIn. It turns out that LinkedIn members LIKE posts where someone does SOMETHING stupid then explains why it wasn't stupid. I did this because I'm an unhappy attention seeker looking for LIKES for my banal thoughts. Do you agree”
Our Analysis of his post content
he was asking if people agree. However this could be constructed in marketing as psychology marketing which involves engaging your readers in an emotional space where they either identify with the content or disagree with content as it reminds them unpleasant or pleasant experiences within the workplace with bosses, or on a personal level about themselves it could be anything such as weight issues or marital issues or pleasant holiday or a moment of pleasure they had.
Businesses use this technique in marketing to sell their products or services or to acquire notoriety and generate awareness about their businesses.
Using psychology marketing on social media platform can generate a big amount of likes and increases profile views and popularity hence with time generate customers engagement and possible deals and closure.
In the author post the way the post content is written plays a big part and the actual content is sickening suggesting that the author suffers a serious lack of confidence and enjoy hurting others to satisfy self and reinforcing the negative feelings of selfishness and lack of self-esteem or self-worthiness.
The author responses to comment provided an interesting view point about his personality and what responses he expected from his readers has his sole purpose was to generate a huge amount of LIKES in the first place.
He managed to generate a staggering 3250 likes and 1828 comments which in terms of marketing it is a good result. However the comments are mostly on the disagreement side and some are harshly written such as our comments and some are in agreement and some recommend that he is actually fired for pulling such a stunts and stupidity for a team leader managing staff within the company he worked for.
What strikes us at Girlfridayz with his responses one minutes he is in total agreement with our first comment and say he could not imagine someone in his right mind to do this and they would be insane
Next between a friend or colleague who kindly telling him he should not have posted this whom he replied you right, he is thinking of his reputation kind of after thought and then state it is too late it is posted.
Next when people question if it's true or fake the actions mentioned in the post just to generate like he does not answer and let people second guessing.
Next when someone suggested that he should Be FIRED for pulling a stunt like this he replied and if it was true? Leaving it as that.
This suggests that the content is true he did fired a good employee and using it at leverage to gain notoriety or popularity for the company he works for or for himself is motive are unclear but one can easily deduct his personality trait by the content of his post and comment replies.
Clickbait Psychology Marketing
However this type of psychology marketing post generally have a negative effect for the company involves and give the company bad press so to speak hence a damaging exercise for the company he represents.
The amount of LIKES strongly suggest that 3250 people is in agreement with firing a good employee for posting on social media and using it is as leverage to boost their status or notoriety or popularity that frankly quite sickening and does not instilled trust, valued employees, and can make employees feel devastated, devalued, stampede on so others may gains.
Even though the comments demotes the controversy post as foolish, stupidity and disagreement is evident, however, the numbers of likes outweigh the comments by far as the post clearly state DO YOU AGREE hence putting a like equal agreed.
This is clickbait psychology marketing and it is considered a bad practice of it usages.
Effective Psychology Marketing
He could have achieved the same result using psychology marketing in a much more positive way by writing it this way generating empathy as opposed to ill feelings.
Example emphatic content psychology marketing.
[A good employee was fired and the office is upset over this I fell compel to seeking your views.
She is deeply unhappy about her dismissal which we think it is unfair and she was not given a fair chance. She was a good employee, very humble and professional a great team player and everybody like her.
She was solely fired for the sole purpose of posting that on LinkedIn. The company lost an asset over some stupidity.
Do you agree]
This type of post as demonstrated above would generate comments and likes in a more positive manner and would bring feelings of empathy for the person who was unfairly dismissed and give more credit to the person reporting the injustice and seeking agreement that it is unfair and an injustice was done.
In conclusion
My example of psychology marketing shows how effectively it can be used correctly and instilled trust in the company also suggests that the employees in general are valued for their hard work and disengages the author from the content but concentrate more on the unfortunate decision made by someone senior in the company without highlighting who done such a stupidity and keeping confidentiality as this is a sensitive matter posted publicly on a social media platform.
If you agree with my article please do comment I would love to know your thought and share it with your peers if you like it.