Growth Hacking a Global Community
Sarkkinen, Laura; Rauhala, Marita (2015)
Oulun ammattikorkeakoulu
2015
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2015052810966
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2015052810966
Tiivistelmä
As technology is developing at a fast phase people are engaging in community activities more and more online, either by extending their offline social life or by creating themselves a whole new parallel life as a member of virtual community. Companies behind communities are rivaling for attention and need to come up with increasingly clever tactics to attract and engage new members.
In this thesis the relatively new phenomenon of growth hacking, the use of unconventional methods in order to reach rapid growth, is being researched through benchmarking three different case companies: Spotify, Google Student Ambassador Program and BuzzFeed. Social and community theories are used to support the study and to find solutions on how to engage new members and keep them active. The aim is to provide the commissioner, ZEF, new ideas and inspiration and to justify the use of growth hacking as a marketing tool for a new global online community.
The research is qualitative and uses desktop study and literature sources as its tools. Highly valuable sources of information are the personal interviews and discussions conducted with community specialist Dr. Tiago Ferreira Lopes and Google Student Ambassador Mr. Ha Luong. Main findings of the study include the relationship between growth hacking and data, and the potential of growth hacking when implemented correctly. Another important notion is that by finding the few right key people to concentrate on the audience multiplies. Thus growth hacking tactic does not necessarily have to focus on masses. When it comes to engaging community members, a vital finding was made: an online community cannot be built without member contribution. What a company can do is to build suitable frames to support the activities through which members create the sense of community.
In this thesis the relatively new phenomenon of growth hacking, the use of unconventional methods in order to reach rapid growth, is being researched through benchmarking three different case companies: Spotify, Google Student Ambassador Program and BuzzFeed. Social and community theories are used to support the study and to find solutions on how to engage new members and keep them active. The aim is to provide the commissioner, ZEF, new ideas and inspiration and to justify the use of growth hacking as a marketing tool for a new global online community.
The research is qualitative and uses desktop study and literature sources as its tools. Highly valuable sources of information are the personal interviews and discussions conducted with community specialist Dr. Tiago Ferreira Lopes and Google Student Ambassador Mr. Ha Luong. Main findings of the study include the relationship between growth hacking and data, and the potential of growth hacking when implemented correctly. Another important notion is that by finding the few right key people to concentrate on the audience multiplies. Thus growth hacking tactic does not necessarily have to focus on masses. When it comes to engaging community members, a vital finding was made: an online community cannot be built without member contribution. What a company can do is to build suitable frames to support the activities through which members create the sense of community.