Growth Hacking Go-To Guide: What, How, When And Where
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You actually cannot hack growth. Why? I cannot make you eat fruit muesli if you just cannot stand fruits. However, let me have you go around this.
Hacking What?
“Growth hacking is a marketing technique developed by technology startups which uses creativity, analytical thinking, and social metrics to sell products and gain exposure” - Wikipedia
Due to the lack of money and experience in a startup growth hacking combines traditional marketing techniques, analytical insights and product development methodologies with a focus on innovation, scalability and creativity.
Growth Hacks from across the web
- Twitter: Digging into data and looking for their most engaged users it became clear that the on-boarding process lacked (ADD your own link) efficiency. Josh Elman @joshelman and team integrated a registration mechanism based on the idea of gradual engagement where user had to follow 5-10 people before getting “into the product”.
- BranchOut: In order to simplify the registration process BranchOut integrated a simple Facebook Connect during sign-up. They always integrated a mechanism to vote on which friends they would prefer to work with which could be shared on their wall as well (for everyone to see)
- Airbnb actually hacked together a promotional tool for hosts to post their rentals on Craigslist. So basically they piggybacked on Craigslist and build a fundamental user base that sorted to get the ball rolling on a global level.
- YouTube: Allowed MySpace users to embed their videos on MySpace.
- StumbleUpon: They actually just decreased the tone of the language within their sign-up. The result has been a 100% increase in conversion rate from a visitor to a new user.
- Facebook digged into their data and discovered that users that had at least 7 friends in 10 days showed way higher engagement rates. Therefore they went deep and improved the user experience that enabled the user at every corner to add and invite friends.
Below you find the best primer I could find which summarizes the topic pretty well. The author actually talks hands-on with five technology experts and gets their take on growth hacking really stands for
Part 1: Growth Hacking Defined Part 2: Real Examples of Growth Hacking in Action Part 3: What You Actually Need in Order to Hack Grow Part 4: Growth Hacking and the Future
Meet the Growth Hacking Wizard behind Facebook, Twitter and Quora’s Astonishing Success by Mark Fidelman @markfidelman
How do you find insights like Facebook’s []“7 friends in 10 days”](http://www.quora.com/Growth-Hacking/How-do-you-find-insights-like-Facebooks-7-friends-in-10-days-to-grow-your-product-faster) to grow your product faster?
The 5 Phases of Growth Hacking by Ryan Holiday @RyanHoliday
Building It Is Not Enough: 5 Practical Tips On User Acquisition by Brian Balfour @bbalfour
How to get massive traction & usage to your product by Oguz Serdar @OguzSerdar
Conversion: The Most Important Internet Metric of All (Revisited) by Bill Gurley @bgurley
Scaling Reddit from 1 Million to 1 Billion–Pitfalls and Lessons by Jeremy Edberg @joshelman
Key Ingredients To Make Your App Go Viral by Carla White @carlawhite
Eight Ways To Go Viral by Uzi Shmilovici @uzisho
Hands-On Twitter Growth Hacking by Ted Nash @nashy
What are some top strategies for conversion optimization?
Viral Marketing Lessons Learned by David Skok @bostonvc
What You Need To Get Started on Growth Hacking How To Become A Customer Acquisition Expert by Brian Balfour @bbalfour