Once a mobile app development company has finished its work, the product – a mobile app – enters the market. With hundred thousands of other apps already existing and with tens of new releases appearing every day. The necessity to stand out from the competitors and attract customers – read ‘to get sales’ - becomes the main concern for the business. With many tools at hand, social media deserve special attention.
Using Social Media for Mobile App Promotion
Of course, creating an effective, app-centered website will help in informing the public about your app and in generating leads, with Angry Birds or the Montessorium company (developer of the Intro to Math and Intro to Letters apps) serving as good examples. However, little can compare with social media promotion in its effectiveness rates. No other advertising tool can open your app to such a wide public: Facebook has finally hit 2 billion-user mark, YouTube can boast 1,5 billion, Instagram announces 700 million registered users in 2017, with Twitter having 328 million.[i] Overall, the statistics has counted 2,46bn users of current social media in 2017.[ii] In 2016 78% of social media users accessed their accounts via a mobile device[iii], and this number is constantly growing. Realizing a mobile application marketing strategy with the help of social media is open even for businesses with minimal budgets. The main thing in turning social media into a real golden mine attracting potential customers is to take into consideration both do’s, which will tell you how to make your mobile app promotion effective from the commercial point of view, and don’ts, which would turn your clients-to-be off. Building Your Campaign in Social Media: Knowing How-To - Constantly maintaining the interest of the audience Actually, this is the main idea of having a page on a social networking website - to provide your subscribers, i.e. your target audience, with valuable content. Posting regularly is essential but another essential point is what you are posting. Following an engaging content strategy is a crucial challenge for a business after the development cycle is over and a mobile app development company has delivered its work result, because the presented information, on the one hand, must be tightly connected with the app and its mission; on the other hand, it must differentiate the app from a long list of similar applications. Keeping the balance between originality and focus on the functionality of the app is a task, which some companies have resolved with success. A bright example of creating truly engaging content is the Runkeeper app. Instead of sharing information, typical for running apps, like ‘X completed a 10km run’, they have created a community via their social media pages by posting tutorials, dedicated to running and preparation for this, providing tips and tricks, sharing success stories of their customers, giving motivational quotes to their subscribers and much more. Yes, their content is still about running, but it is presented in a way, which makes every customer feel part of a group, which is sharing the same interests and values. Another successful example of a mobile app, which has managed to stand out from the crowd with the help of their social media app marketing strategy, is Lyft. Lyft is a ride-sharing service whose functionality is so much similar with Uber. Nonetheless, Lyft is leading its own social policy based on their principle of ‘fixing transportation with humanity and technology’.[iv] They are trying to engage their customers in a warm-hearted conversation by quickly responding to comments in a friendly manner, posting stories from their customers, thus trying to create for their customers a feeling of not just getting a service but receiving a positive and pleasant experience. - Giving a reward According to the study carried on by IPG Media Lab and Kiip, 84% of customers prefer rewards, offering direct benefits, to all other forms of ads, be it videos or images or small banners.[v]
Moreover, rewards add 10% of brand favorability, whereas intrusive ads cause more damage than beneficial effect.[vi]
Some mobile apps have included rewards into their social media policy and have gained significant profits. Dropbox is a good example of providing additional cloud storage for its users via its strong and structured referral program. The app has integrated the referral program into their social media promotion model: each of user’s invited contacts who signs up for Dropbox and then downloads the app gets 500MB of free space, with a possibility to get up to 16GB of bonus space through referrals via Facebook and Twitter. Giving an incentive to their customers to spread word-of-mouth recommendations has laid the foundation for Dropbox success: a breath-taking jump from 100,000 to 4 million users in 15 months, i.e. a 3900% growth.[vii] - Using all forms of social media promotion The times when content posted on social media websites was limited to textual and visual forms are gone. Videos are getting an essential part of a successful promotional campaign, with businesses having their active Youtube accounts and using other social pages for sharing their videos. Turning more and more often to videos is not surprising; taking into account that online video viewing generates 74% of online traffic.[viii] Evernote, a social media marketing productivity tool, shows how to implement this approach effectively: their Youtube channel contains not only videos of their app in action or product tutorials. They are promoting videos of their customers using the app effectively, thus transmitting a message of how Evernote simplifies life. Watching real-time users adds credibility to the brand, which results in an increase in customers. - Staying creative Your mobile app promotion will be successful if you manage your social pages constantly and provide your customers with the content they are searching for. Nevertheless, to make your app success rocketing, you need to think out of the box. Having a perfect vision of the current trends, following the promotional activities of competitors - and then doing something directly opposite is a hard task for marketers, but when it is solved with wisdom and (often) humor, it can bring about great results. When Taco Bell, American chain of fast-food restaurants, was launching its mobile app, it did not create a buzz about it in social media in a conventional way. On launch day, every social account of Taco Bell went black, leaving only the hashtag #onlyintheapp written in white with a link to a downloadable version of the app. The hashtag quickly got into trends and was used over 5,000 times on Twitter.[ix] Wrap Up While talking about the necessity of having pages on social media websites and keeping them updated regularly is excessive, nonetheless, it is important to underline that such pages are numerous - and most of them are pretty much the same. In a highly competitive environment of mobile applications, with a necessity to distinguish yourself from an array of other apps, social media provide you with this opportunity. A creative approach, focused on the functionality of the app and empowered by a desire to build loyal and long-term relations with customers (whether through a system of rewards, by forming a community of like-minded people, providing material with added value or by using another app marketing strategy) can result in a stronger credibility of the app and in increased profits.
[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/ [2]https://www.statista.com/topics/1164/social-networks/ [3]https://www.statista.com/statistics/371003/global-social-media-access-by-device/ [4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymE6hh1-Kc4 [5]https://www.ipglab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/MomentsThatMatter.pdf [6]https://www.ipglab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/MomentsThatMatter.pdf [7]https://www.referralsaasquatch.com/dropbox-customer-referral-program-by-the-numbers/ [8]http://www.insivia.com/27-video-stats-2017/ [9]https://www.inboundauthority.com/uncategorized/lessons-taco-bells-onlyintheapp/
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