When launching an app for iOS, Android, or another marketplace, a great social media outreach strategy is a necessity. In 2014, 88% of all marketing professionals were using Social Media Marketing (SMM) to promote their products, and that number was anticipated to keep rising. With the modern nature of application development for smart devices, this means of promotion is especially important. Before you formulate your SMM plan, read this advice to help spark creativity and enhance your promotion tactics.
Have You Created Diverse and Powerful Content?
Before your promotions even begin, you need to be utilizing content across various media. A standalone blog or a YouTube account with no website generally isn’t enough. People learn and are captured in various ways. So, blog, create infographics, compile slideshows, upload videos about your app. Make sure everything you create is powerful, interlinked, and shareable.
The study Digital WOM: Motivating and Engaging Millennials with Shareable Content, shows that Millennials seem to follow businesses mostly on Instagram, and then Facebook and Twitter. And the majority of them have accounts on Facebook.
When determining whether your content is shareable, keep these platforms at the forefront of your mind. If, for some reason, you are not targeting Millennials with your app, you should be able to do some research to find out where your target demographic is spending their time.
Is your content shareable on Instagram? Can you somehow make it more inviting this way? Try throwing hints into your writing, saying things like, “I took a screenshot of this and sent it to my sister who loves X.” The little things will make a world of difference.
This is Why You Should Always Keep Influencers in Mind
Do you know a well-known online businessman or popular writer you can approach to share for you? Can you somehow organically grab the attention of a leader in your niche? If so, you should always focus attention on this. Once an influencer shares your promotional app materials, all of their followers will see it, and the chance of it going viral is immediately increased.
Kevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager, had this to say in his TED talk about Why Videos Go Viral. You will see from it thatfinding an authority or influencer to share web content is the key to successful promotions. Never leave it out of your app outreach strategy.
Universal and Mandatory Advice for All Social Media Platforms
Create incentives for users to share your stuff.
Run a contest or offer a free download to those who share. You’ve seen those social media posts that say, “Like, share, and comment for a chance to win.” Those posts work for creating engagement. It’s a great way to generate new leads, gain new followers, and earn credibility in many social media platforms’ algorithms. The more important you are, the more they will want to show off your content. Engagement is the gauge if importance in this case.
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Provide lots of opportunities to share within the app.
Sharing should be easy. If your user can’t make it happen with a click or two, they won’t do it. So, set the app up with tools that seamlessly connect people to their social profiles. Do the same on pages with promotional content. This ensures ease of shareability and increases the likelihood of your content getting seen by the masses.
Involve users by sharing their photos…
…and encourage users to use them with screenshots of your app or while using it for some real life purpose. When they do, share their photos with your followers. Be sure to tag them and caption with a personalized message. This will instill a sense of appreciation in your users and facilitate an introduction to your app from their followers.
Use hashtags and trends often on all platforms.
Create your own #hashtags and use those that are trending as well. When you do this, users can click through the links to see recent posts from all users on the same topic. You can use original hashtags when you are encouraging your users to share their photos and trending hashtags for most other types of shares.
App Promotion Tips for The Most Popular Social Platforms
Using Facebook to Promote Your App
- Create posts that are related to the app, but not about the app – Facebook users want to see information that provides them with value that they can share with their personal networks. They will not generally be sharing blatant ads with this crowd.
- Connect with influencers – Follow the influencers in your niche. Mention these people in your posts. Comment on their posts by providing valuable information so they and others on their page will like your pages and send you friend requests.
Related: A List of Social Influencers You’ll Surely Love
App Outreach Best Practices on Twitter
- Mention influencers to reach them in your tweets – If you place a period in front of the @ before a fellow tweeter’s username, the post becomes visible to their followers as well (do this: “.@android” rather than this: “@android” for optimum visibility). The number mistake in twitter.
- Use Twitter Cards to boost your app visibility – Twitter Cards help drive engagement and downloads, and allow you the ability to measure the results of your cards with internal analytics.
Google+ is Not Dead
Google+ arguably has the power to give your posts more targeted authority in the search algorithms, and followers will often be notified, by default, of new posts, so don’t ignore this platform. Also, by default, followers will receive notification of your new posts via gmail. This is still a viable traffic source.
Related: A plus for your brand: Generating leads with Google+
No More Personal Networking on Instagram
- Show videos/ images of real people – Instagram’s visual platform makes it easy for people to share personal photos. The Instagram audience likes to see images that make them feel personally connected to a brand. Share office photos and even get more personal if you dare. Nikki in marketing had a new baby? Share a picture of him on your profile.
- Update followers with progress on projects – as you come to interesting points in your project phases, share real-time photos of the progress. Get creative with this portion.
Summary
So, you’re not just sharing a link to your new app all over the web. You need to have shareable content created to help you promote. Use the social platforms that your niche is most likely to be on in the ways that are best suited for those platforms. Integrate this into your next SMM strategy and your app outreach will be a success.
Author bio: Eva Creerson is a content marketing manager at Master Papers writing company. She is constantly exploring new ways to craft outstanding content and promote it. She is also a social media enthusiast.
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