As I browse through the internet on Reddit, Facebook, Quora, and Twitter, I’ve come across the term growth hacking, or growth hacker, more and more frequently. This lead me to ask myself, what is growth hacking?

It’s a term that is thrown around that refers to people (usually marketers) who use non-conventional marketing techniques to grow a business in a quick way, regardless of the way it’s done. Generally, growth hackers are different from the traditional marketers in that they use the tools available to them and this usually implies free or very low-cost options. Being a lean technique, growth hacking is a very attractive option for start-ups since it aligns with their goals: high growth rates and low cost. They (growth hackers) leverage social media well, know how to increase search engine optimization, implement a number of different tests and campaigns – similar to marketers. However, since it originated mostly with technology start-up companies (notably Facebook, Twitter, Quora, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other) most growth hackers will also know how to develop and code.

Given that growth hacking has proven so effective and successful for these companies, which were once unheard of but are now internationally known, it seems that this could be an area of expertise that is not only incredibly valuable, but also necessary for small-medium sized companies that still have a lot of room to grow. Especially if they’re on a budget. Since I’ve yet to seen “Growth Hacker” as an official role however though, I wonder if there will be more and more popping up in the coming years and if it will be promoted to an official position that start-ups and small-medium businesses start hiring for.

Source:

• http://www.quora.com/What-is-growth-hacking

First of all, what is click bait? Click bait is the term used to described headlines that are created to attract attention and to provoke readers into clicking a link that leads to a different webpage, usually an article. Some examples of click bait articles have headlines which read like this:

• 8 Reasons Why You Should Treat Your Parents Well. Number Three Will Make You Cry.
• Local Hunter Comes Face-to-Face with a Bear. What Happens Next Will Blow Your Mind.
• These Odd Looking Buildings Will Change the Way You Look at Architecture Forever.
• 4 Techniques Which Make You A Better Talker. Which Technique is Your Favorite?

Companies like Facebook is guilty of being littered with those types of articles, from websites like Buzzfeed, Upworthy, The Onion, among many others. Personally, I find them annoying because they flood my newsfeed. However, there must be a reason for why they keep reoccurring online. Do click bait headlines work?

It depends. It depends on what the goals of your company or website is and how you define if it “works” or not. According to WordStream, if you are looking to just generate views, then  it will increase your page traffic. If you want more engagement with your content: likes, shares, comments – it will get you more. However, as they also point out, and this should not come as a surprise, click bait can deteriorate your brand’s reputation.

The reason, or the science behind why it works comes down to curiosity. According to this article published in the HootSuite blogs, we “suckers for the unexpected” and that click bait headlines both pique our interest and curiosity while motivating us to click the link.

Unless you work at Facebook, the two terms, Facebook and work seem to clash. Words like procrastination and unproductive pop into our heads. However just earlier today, there were rumours that Facebook is testing a new product called “Facebook@Work”. The product would be exclusive from regular Facebook and “the service would allow users to message their colleagues, connect with other people in their professional network, and collaborate on work.” As the Wired article also states, there are already credible competitors such as Google, LinkedIn, and Saleforce.com in the software-for-enterprise space. However, what the articles fail to address is that something like Facebook@Work already exists, and it’s called Yammer. Yammer, which was purchased by Microsoft in 2012 for over $1 billion, is sometimes referred to as “Facebook for business”. From the colours to the user interface design to the way the newsfeed (or ticker) functions, Yammer looks like a product of Facebook. Although casual users may not know about Yammer, businesses and social media professionals would definitely know about it and might already be using it. To illustrate just how similar Yammer is to Facebook, check out the image below:

Yammer, sometimes known as Facebook for business.

Beyond Yammer (Microsoft), other companies like LinkedIn already dominate a large chunk of the professional space. Do you think that Facebook@Work would be a flop, or a legitimate product for businesses that will catch on?

Sources:

• http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/facebook-prepares-a-business-product/?_r=0
• http://www.pcworld.com/article/260517/what_is_heck_is_yammer.html
• http://www.wired.com/2014/11/facebook-at-work/

With Facebook’s organic reach trending on a decline, is Facebook still an effective way to market your company without paying for Facebook ads and boosting posts? According to Facebook, “organic reach is the total number of unique people who were shown your post through unpaid distribution. Paid reach is the total number of unique people who were shown your post as a result of ads.” 

Facebook announced back in 2012 that it would restrict its organic reach to about 16%. However, it didn’t stop there – roughly two years later in February 2014, social@Ogilvy found that organic reach actually declined even further  to around 6%. It is becoming quite clear that the trajectory is downwards and won’t be changing, so we can expect organic reach to be zero in the near future. This leaves many businesses, big and small wondering if Facebook is still an effective way to reach their audience. It is, if you pay for your ads, but not really if you plan on reaching your audience organically since only such a small portion of your followers will see your content.

It seems that it would be natural for the reach to be restricted and decline as Facebook’s popularity and user-base grew: more people means more posts and more posts, which can be overwhelming for users, so not every post or story makes it into peoples’ news feed. However, with the decline being so drastic, with organic reach going as far down as 2% for larger Facebook pages (500 000+ likes), Facebook is starting to look very unattractive for businesses and marketers as a way of free advertising. With the ball in their court, it appears that Facebook is cornering businesses into paid advertisements: pay and your followers will see your posted content, do not pay (going the organic route) and the content will go unnoticed. Gone are the days of free ads, we are now entering an era of Facebook that will require companies to pay for their ads and boost important posts. We are seeing (part) owned media being turned into paid media in front of our eyes.

The decline of Facebook’s organic reach. Source: https://social.ogilvy.com/facebook-zero-considering-life-after-the-demise-of-organic-reach/