K atie c ouric

The Value of Testing
Testing is not a new concept—everyone from scientists to business owners
have used it. Deliberate experimentation was even the key to Thomas
Edison’s success when he created the lightbulb, and currently it’s
Facebook’s secret weapon. In fact, according to an article on 
Medium.com
,
Facebook usually has ten thousand different versions running to test what
will be most effective for users. Founder Mark Zuckerberg says that
experimentation is the defining strategy of his company’s success.
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The basic principle of testing comes from science where it’s laid out as
“theory, prediction, experimentation, and observation.” In business, the
model is broken down as “plan, do, check, act.” In my system, it’s
“hypothesis, test, pivot.” Essentially, it’s all the same. To create anything,
this is the process that works.
David Oh of FabFitFun says that if you want to grow you have to test.
He urges companies to implement systems and processes to measure and
observe and then act decisively as many times as it takes. His company tests
everything on their website and social media platforms, even seemingly
trivial considerations like pictures and colors (on ads and landing pages),
styles of buttons, catchphrases, and the number of forms for users to fill out.
Think of yourself as a student. Successful people are willing to fail and
learn. It’s the basic process of life. Although gaining one million followers
is an abstract concept, Oh says it isn’t much different than learning to walk.
When we first learn to walk, we fall down. When we’re building one
million followers, one hundred million customers, or $100 million in
revenue, we also have to keep falling until we learn how to do it. You have
to create a regimented process of doing it over and over again. That’s what
successful people do in all walks of life. They test and learn and use their
learning as fuel.

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David believes that the process itself is valuable. It’s important to be
malleable. First you think of something, try it, and then adjust accordingly.
You can learn from a mistake, a mild advance, and a great success. Then
you create varied versions. You do this process over and over again—it’s a
type of perseverance that everyone knows intuitively.
Jonathan Skogmo, founder and CEO at Jukin Media, a company that
currently gets close to three billion views a month and has more than eighty
million followers across all channels and verticals, agrees and says that his
team is testing content all the time. They observe what works and what
doesn’t. They test different content, different thumbnails, and the time of
day they post. Testing is a huge part of the culture at Jukin Media.
Tim Greenberg’s team at the World Surf League does the same. They
put out multiple video assets for all campaigns. Whether they’re doing a
Billabong Pipe Masters or a Pro Tahiti awareness campaign, they’ll put
multiple assets in market with different variations on either the copy or the
format. Then they test those against the same audience. And ultimately,
they run with the ones that are the most successful—the ones that survive
the testing phase.