Welcome to episode #384 of Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast. Is the future of marketing going to be owned by engineers and hackers? Brands like Uber, AirBnB, Dropbox, Instagram and many more Silicon Valley startup darlings have built magnificent and defendable brands without any of the traditional advertising fare and relying only on word of mouth within the social media channels as a form of awareness and validation. It would lead some traditional marketing practitioners to wonder if these brands have uncovered the true secret to viral marketing, or if there is something much more substantive underneath the hood? There has been a lot of attention on the idea of Growth Hacking. Some call it Growth Hacker Marketing. That is the title of Ryan Holiday's latest business book. These Growth Hackers are engineers, coders and entrepreneurs who don't know (or follow) the traditional marketing path (because it's not something they have studied or practiced). They don't sit in the marketing department or have optics into the CMO's office. Instead, these people spend their entire day testing acquisition strategies and leveraging technologies like split A/B testing, web analytics and social listening tools to get people to try, share and loyally use their products and services. Holiday (who is also the author of Trust Me I'm Lying: Confessions Of A Media Manipulator) took some time to discuss this new form of marketing and what it all means. Enjoy the conversation... Here it is: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #384 - Host: Mitch Joel. Running time: 47:58. Please send in questions, comments, suggestions - mitch@twistimage.com. Hello from Beautiful Montreal. Subscribe over at iTunes. Please visit and leave comments on the Blog - Six Pixels of Separation. Feel free to connect to me directly on Facebook here: Mitch Joel on Facebook. or you can connect on LinkedIn. ...or on twitter.  Six Pixels of Separation the book is now available. CTRL ALT Delete is now available too! In conversation with Ryan Holiday. Growth Hacker Marketing. Trust Me I'm Lying. Follow Ryan on Twitter. This week's music: David Usher 'St. Lawrence River'. Get David's song for free here: Artists For Amnesty. Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels Of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast - Episode #384 - Host: Mitch Joel. Tags: advertising podcast airbnb blog blogging brand business book business podcast david usher dropbox fast company growth hacker marketing growth hacking instagram itunes marketing podcast podcast podcasting ryan holiday the brand called you tom peters trust me im lying uber william arruda