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Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

That means that technical marketers are not growth hackers, they are good marketers who are keeping up to date with what's needed to do their job.

But it's more than that. A growth hacker invents hacks as a way to grow - clever, non obvious methods that drive adoption.

Things like the Reddit sockpupperts, the Dropbox two-sided incentive system or the Yammer variation of the Freemium business model are all things where a combination of technical AND commercial knowledge was the thing that drove the companies success.

That isn't technical marketing - it is elements of business model design, integration architecture and startup accounting.

If you think of a better name, excellent - but "technical marketer" undersells what is happening here.

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It's called marketing, those are just new techniques. The goals are still the same, the things that work well are just changing a lot.

Remember the distinction a few years ago when marketers using the internet were called Internet Marketers? How many people in marketing don't touch the internet with any of their campaigns now? Now that's just called marketing.

It's perfectly fine to be interested in the new marketing techniques being developed, especially if you're the HN crowd. That's not what I'm saying.

You aren't understanding marketing if you can't see that "growth hacker" is a branding play. It's good to learn to recognize when marketing techniques are being used to appeal to your demographic if you want to get any skill at using it for yourself.

It's called marketing, those are just new techniques.

Yes, and what Mel did was just programming[1], and calling it hacking was just rebranding by ESR to fit into his idea of what a hacker should be.

I stand by what I'm saying: You don't learn to reverse engineer Craigslist's forms in marketing courses.

[1] http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html

There are no fields where the newest practical techniques are taught in courses. Those are invented in the field and trickle down.

I'm not saying it's not impressive or not being done by the best marketers. Not at all. I thought that was clear. There all talented people in every profession, that's what people do.

I'm saying that it won't be called "growth hacking" in a short time and it will go on the buzzword bingo card and will only be used ironically. And I wish the community who read about these great marketers saw through the pandering and childish "growth hacking" term as a (successful and well done) branding attempt.

It's about obsession and love for growth, whether optimization or acquisition either by growth hackers or technical marketers.

Everything else is secondary.

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