7FOR PUBLISHERS AND CONTENT MARKETERS

GROWTH HACKS

1GO FOR FULL

A/B/C/D TESTING

A/B testing has been a standby during the product development phase of marketing for a

long time. Using your readership on the Internet, you can dial that up to 100. Run the

same story with different headlines or graphics on any number of social sites.

Make adjustments for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, but then take it further.

Take your story to Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube and more of the most popular social sites.

Here’s a list of 21 social sites with huge reader-ships that you may have overlooked.

2MAKE IT EASY FOR

READERS TO POST UGC

User generated content (UGC) is critical for growth hacking. It takes some of the pressure

off you to generate content, it turns readers into fans, and it brings in a ton of referrals as people

tell everyone in their network about their published story. This has proven hugely

successful even for traditional news sites like Forbes and the Washington Post.

Start by adding pages that are branded a little differently to make clear this is a space that

readers can call their own.

3KEEP YOUR VIDEO

VIEWERS IN-HOUSE

YouTube is a great resource, but people viewing video there consider it to be a YouTube video — they may not associate the content with

your brand. Use YouTube for viral videos, but use business-oriented video hosting sites like Wistia, Ooyala or Brightcove to drive viewers

to your sign-up page or to collect user data for your email marketing tools.

4REPURPOSE, REUSE

AND RECYCLE

If it’s good for the environment, it’s good for publishers.

The Internet is a hungry beast that must be fed constant-ly. You can’t generate and curate all the content yourself. Use sites like Canva to turn stats from your blog into in-fographics. Turn infographics into SlideShares. Animate

the SlideShare for an explainer video. Interview people on your team for a podcast that can then be broken down into

animated gifs. Keep the Internet fed and give more people a chance to interact with your stories in ways that

are memorable to them.

5TEACH WHAT YOU KNOW

Online education is huge and growing rapidly. Open up a new revenue stream that can introduce your brand to an entirely new

generation of readers. Both young readers who aren’t satisfied with their educational options and older readers who want a chance to learn something new are turning to online learning

and telling their friends about their accomplish-ments. Create simple, project-based modules on sites like Udemy that make it easy for students to

share what they’ve done in their networks.

6TARGET THE TOP

INDUSTRY INFLUENCERS

There are many ways to find out who has a huge following online and market directly to them.

For example, Realtime by Bit.ly identifies trending posts and who is creating them.

Interview these influencers, comment on their blogs and feature topics that get their attention.

This is one of the best growth hacks because influencers change all the time. Getting them on your side will get you access to untouched

markets quickly.

7IDENTIFY YOUR

LODESTONE

Every business has a lodestone indicator that shows which actions users take when they become engaged in your business.

For Facebook, when someone adds seven friends in less than 10 days, they are likely to become an active user. For Dropbox, it was the simple act of putting at

least one file into one folder and moving it to a device. Each business is unique, so you will have to look at

your user data to discover your lodestone.

Look at metrics like network density and visit frequen-cy to help you determine what an engaged user does.

Then encourage new users to do those specific actions.

Here is an intro to how successful grow hackers found their lodestones.

TO SUSTAIN GROWTHThese seven growth hacks are just the beginning of an exciting time for your business as you gain large num-

bers of new users. Growth hacking can happen in fits and starts, so be ready to handle the influx of new readers

when they come. Don’t lose the opportunity to make them feel welcome with personalized emails and special offers

for signing up on your site.

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