Growth Hacking

The context of this piece is growth hacking, which the author has defined as what is strategic and highly creative in the process of rapidly increasing brand visibility on social media. This visibility is achieved by using low-cost and unconventional methods. What follows is a list of experiments and tactics that growth hackers might use.

This first list encompasses methods that can be considered under the umbrella of 'viral marketing. ' In these methods and tactics, the growth hacker is essentially conducting experiments to find out what kind of conditions make a video, a post, a tweet, or other piece of content 'go viral,' or what is sometimes termed 'ingress growth. ' 'Viral' is in some respects a pejorative term— it implies that the growth is wild, unpredicted, uncontrollable — and in this sense, only something like a kitten video or a meme is truly viral.