5 Growth Hacking techniques for social media

Growth Hacking was created in Silicon Valley to get startups to soar. Thereafter, it turned into the best resource for the world’s top companies. Netflix, Facebook, Uber, and Airbnb are just some of them.

But what’s Growth Hacking?

It’s a pool of small-budget marketing tactics and strategies to boost company growth. It works through a quick testing and implementation process. 

Growth Hacking was created by marketer Sean Ellis for a better approach to leads. It focuses on every step of the sales funnel.

Therefore, the growth methodology applies to various marketing strategies and branches. Besides Email Marketing, the Growth Hacking mindset can also be applied to: SEO, Content Marketing, Advertising, and Social Media Marketing.

Social media, in particular, are fertile ground for Growth Hacking because they’re always current with new features to harness. A brand that implements Growth Hacking can quickly grow its audience on the right platforms.

But “social growth” isn’t just about more followers, which in itself, doesn’t amount to much. Rather, it’s a matter of building an engaged audience that’s relevant for your business and eager to hear what you have to say.

With this in mind, let’s see how to apply Growth Hacking techniques and strategies to social media.

Let’s look at some great techniques to accelerate business growth through social media. But before that, here are some things that will help you know when you’re ready for Growth Hacking.

Growth Hacking means you must have something to say

Social media are part of nearly everyone’s daily lives, which is why brands want to be there. Many companies, however, don’t realize that “being there just because” is useless: to grow, you must have something to talk about.

If you have nothing to say to your community, then you won’t get anything out of using social media. 

Know your audience’s social media platforms

Here’s another key issue—some companies think that the highway to visibility involves opening an account on each and every social media platform:

Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, Tik Tok, etc.

Such an approach is scattered, costly, and, above all, totally useless! Your ideal customer (the one most likely to buy your product or service) is typically on 2–3 social networks, max. He or she probably doesn’t even know about other social media platforms, except by word of mouth.

Tik Tok and Twitch are the social media of the hour. You might be tempted to put your company on these platforms, but do you know who gathers there? Tik Tok’s audience is mostly made up of young people between the ages of 12 and 20, while Twitch typically collects millennial males between 18 and 34.

If this doesn’t match your ideal customer, then there’s no reason to open an account on these networks. So before Growth Hacking social media (before doing any marketing, actually, as a general rule of thumb), conduct an in-depth study on the buyer personas and the target audience of various social media platforms.

Growth Hacking is creative, yet rigorous

A Growth Hacker designs, implements, and supervises Growth Hacking strategies. He or she must have both a creative approach to business growth challenges and be rigorous in the phases of testing and performance analysis.

There are excellent tools to measure the performance of Growth Hacking on social media networks. These social media platforms provide business profiles with detailed statistics on users and their conversions. Traffic, on the other hand, can be tracked with Google Analytics (a free tool!).

Growth Hacking social media works if you monitor your results at every step.

These Growth Hacking techniques are necessary to get results on social networks. Let’s move on to the actual tactics.

1. Use video content

Video content is one of the best ways to engage your social media audience. 68% of marketers say videos have a better return on investment than Google Ads.

Videos are perfect for explaining how a product works or how to use a service (they’re good for customer support, too). However, they can also be used to engage followers in brand activities, strengthening the customer-company relationship.

2. Create “soap opera” content

No joke. Growth Hacking is truly creative, and this technique proves it.

Soap operas and telenovelas stand the test of time because they harness human curiosity to secure a loyal audience that eagerly awaits the next chapter.

As a Growth Hack, use this principle by creating regular content (blog posts, videos, etc.) that unfolds as a series. Get good at igniting your followers’ curiosity on what happens next. You’ll need this at the end of each episode.

3. Pay attention to trends and search volumes

If you want to attract the right audience that’s engaged, then create content on trending or sought after web topics.

But look out: the new trends that you pick must be relevant to your industry, or else you’ll end up with two problems:

• you won’t attract your target audience
• your content won’t relate to the product that you share

4. Distribute video content clips on other social media

This hack will save you a lot of time, while keeping your audience engaged on different platforms.

Whenever your create a new video, for example, on your YouTube channel, take the chance to release mini clips of the content on your various social media accounts. This way, you’ll leverage the content, bringing your followers from other platforms to that channel.

5. Create an exclusive ebook or online event for your followers

Borrow this tactic from traditional marketing to Growth Hack social media: create a lead magnet that grabs the attention of not only your followers but also the followers of your followers who happen to match your company target.

This can be an ebook or an online event like a webinar, depending on what best matches your business and audience. This tactic will make it easier for you to convert your social media fans into new customers.

The answer depends on your type of company and your target audience. But it also comes down to your goals: what do you hope to achieve by Growth Hacking social media networks?

Invest some time in tracking your goals and defining your KPIs. Then start testing creative solutions that fit your company and your audience.