In the last post, we talked about how PPC works and understanding the various levers that impact your ROI for paid advertising. Today, we’re going to talk about Organic Growth, which is particularly useful for a start-up company, also known as growth-hacking.

Organic growth means growing your user base, and driving traffic to site without paying any money. And how do you do that? Here are several ways:

1. Content Marketing – 

Content marketing is all about generating highly relevant content for your user-base. For example if you have a cooking-blog, (a delishcious site written by a friend who is currently based in buenos aires, she moved over for love :), aside from recipes on site, one can also write about methods of cooking such as slow-cooking using a slow-cooking pot that would roast your beef stew in 12 hours, or how to use an air-fryer (include this is in your xmas wish-list this year, it’s worth it) to fry chicken wings, without a drip of oil. Relevance is the keyword here when it comes to content marketing. You can include a post on calories-count, or benefits of olive oil to reach out to the health conscious readers. Content marketing requires planning ahead, consistent and authentic article not only drives user to your site, but keeps them coming back for more.

2. Forum participation, information sharing is caring – 

Another way to grow your user-base organically is to participate on other blogs/forums/sites, compile a handful of sites that you can share your views on. Quora and Reddit needs no introduction for tech-start-ups. Find out about other forums that are more specialised to your product/service. If you do have a food-blog for example, suggesting someone on secret nooks for handmade-cocktails on Yelp would reach out to more audience that would be keen on your recommendations.. that’s how I find out about Pearl’s Deluxe burger in LowerNobHill downtown SF, worth every greasy onion rings.

3. Integrate your social media channels – 

From Twitter, to Facebook users to Google + page, LinkedIn) and about.me, I suggest you plan a weekly post to engage your fans. When using these social media channels to update your fans on new features or content, be human when sharing information through these channels. Eg. you just bought a new standing desk for your office, why not share it with all, or you find out about that book that can be converted into a furniture called Bookniture, it’s highly functional, and you can pre-order it from Kickstarter. It looks great and it doesn’t break your bank account, your fans would love it in their home/office too, share it!

You might think, “but I run a fashion retail company, and all my post on Pinterest should be about clothes? no? No. you can create a separate board on Pinterest – and call it “things we love aside from clothes”, your fans would love to see those pics you took when you were on vacation in Maldives, who wouldn’t?.

Now the next question is how do I manage 5-6 social networks and schedule multiple post at various timings? You can use Hootsuite, or SproutSocial to integrate your social networks and automate scheduling different post for different timings, especially when you have customers/users in different time zones.

4. Be viral in your post,

One of the best examples of viral content on Instagram is @miserablemen, brain-child of an e-commerce company selling men’s clothing online – genius. More viral content examples here, and here, and motivational quotes for Mondays.

 5. Let your readers be your ambassadors

This is easier said than done, but with great content on multiple channels to share and engage with your fans, post one relevant post every three days, you’ll have organic growth. Learn more about growth-hacking here..

6. And if you are a start-up company and have a million things to do at hand with little money –

..here’s a list of freebies to use to growth-hack your way through one step at a time.