A bit different than what I normally ready but I wanted to expand my horizons and reach for something different, I wanted to upgrade my repertoire when it comes to marketing my own 'products' (blog, twitch, ko-fi, etc) coming from no marketing within my own background I needed to start simple, light almost an overview of marketing and I picked up Growth Hacker Marketing by Ryan Holiday
Here are my thoughts on this quick read.
I honestly did not know what to fully expect from this read especially since 'Growth Hacking' is a relatively new word (and possibly a new buzzword?) but I can honestly say I don't feel as if I retained anything or learned anything from 95 percent of the book. The five percent of the book is where I feel that I was able to really take something away from the book along with the resources that were provided in the back of the book.I mentioned that Growth Hacking is relatively a new term, so to explain - Growth Hacking can be mostly found in startups with small budgets and the team is usually comprised of marketers, developers, engineers and product managers that focus on building and engaging with the user base of the business.
Which the thought of Growth Hacking sounded perfect because streaming and blogging (aka content creator) can be/is a small business unless you hit partner status in Twitch but that is a different topic.
With that mindset, I was focused on ways to grow but what I did receive was how Growth Hacking was applied to other social media/businesses to help them grow or what didn't work. There were terms introduced that were important such as Product Market Fit, and also provided options on how to reach out to uses which some of them are a bit archaic or did not apply (to what I was specifically looking for)
Withing this short read of 110 pages including the Afterword (where most of the takeaway info is), Notes, Acknowledgments, etc. I felt as if the information in the meat of the book was more examples of the growth of companies who used the early stages of Growth Hacking.
All in all, after reading GHM I didn't take away anything from the majority of the content but its saving grace was the resources in the back of the book, the true gold.
Do I recommend this book?
I have mixed feelings about recommending this. My initial response is 'No' because I personally feel that the content isn't as educational as intended but it does give you an insight to growth hacking marketing but not your traditional marketing tips/etc. For those that have no background in marketing or even advertising, I wouldn't recommend this book.On the other hand, if you already have a general idea of marketing this could possibly give you a more focused idea on how to level up your current marketing plan or idea on things that you can add to your plan. I would recommend taking a look at Growth Hacker Marketing.
Although I didn't get the information that I was looking for I am going to do a little more digging and research to get a better introduction to growth hacking and of course check out the resources to see
how well it supplements the content in the book.
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