Zero to hero: 5 one-minute business growth hacks for when you’re under pressure

Denis Duvauchelle is the CEO & co-founder of Twoodo, the ultimate online collaboration tool.

We all need to get our hands dirty from time to time. When obstacles come up, let nothing stop you from getting what you need!

It’s times like these that made us come up with growth hacking ideas around our problems, or gave us the incentive to go out a research more. Here’s a list of five growth hacking tips – the fastest growth hacks we learnt under pressure.

Growth Tip #1: Contact anyone on LinkedIn

In advance of an event (a conference, for example) you may want to get in touch with someone important in advance. But what if they don’t accept you on LinkedIn?

Add the event/event organizers as somewhere you have worked/volunteered (a stretch of the truth!) and when you go to send someone an “add me” inmail you can connect with them via the event. You will have the opportunity to send a short email – limited, but it can be the little push that makes all the difference.

Growth Tip #2: Find anyone’s email address

If you are looking to get to someone who is crazy important, inaccessible, but has his/her own website… use Betterwhois to see the owner of the website, which is usually their active email address. It’s faster than guessing or Googling.

Here is Upworthy as an example:

It might not work all the time, but it’s worth a shot.

Growth Tip #3: Instant content

Write about everything you are doing, take photos of what you are doing, make videos of what is going on. Film all your events/pitches and take the time to post them on YouTube and Vimeo. Stick them up on Instagram, Flickr or your website. Microblog to your company blog.

Make sure you put extreme adjectives like “awesome” or “best” in the title – they are proven to attract more clicks than modest titles. These are all great resources to compile into great tailored content later on.

Growth Tip #4: A competitor is shutting down? Launch a campaign

When you hear there’s a buyout of a competitor/competitor is shutting down, launch a campaign. Immediately. This can be as simple as going to Twitter and sending out regular tweets like so:

“Do.com is closing down! Check out www.twoodo.com as an alternative – we’ll import all your data! #do #taskmanagement”

“If you are wondering what to do now that #do is closing down, why not try www.twoodo.com – we’ll arrange a smooth transition #productivity #do”

Plus, upload a fun picture to Facebook/Pinterest/Instagram/Flickr with the same hashtags.

This next step shows why an image on Twitter is so significant.

Growth Tip #5: Increase Twitter click rates

Increase twitter click/retweet rates by 94 percent by attaching images to your tweets. Facebook, LinkedIn and G+ automagically reveal an image from what you are posting. This creates a saturation in people’s feeds and makes it hard to be seen.

However, on Twitter you have to specifically add an image – and it really stands out in your follower’s feeds. Our favorite is Twitpic.

Remember, these are great growth hack tactics for the appropriate times. Practice these methods at the right moment and you could give your company the added boost under pressure. Too much of the same might come across like a spam, so strategise wisely.

Awesome resources for other fast growth hacks:

• Roy Povarchik blog – Twitter hacks
• Ankur Nagpal – “Virtual Scarcity”
• Jon Yongfook – “21 Actionable Growth Hacking Tactics”
• Matt Wolfe – “7 Weird Ways to Grow a List Really, Really Fast”
• Aaron Ginn’s series on growth hacking – “Defining a Growth Hacker” (part 5)
• Ross Simmonds – “10 Quick Growth Hacks in Your Business in 30 Days or Less”

What are your favourite one-minute growth hacks?