Apps are now part of our everyday life and so are social media platforms. Like everything we share our experience with apps on social media. Apps no longer need to rely upon big budget media ads and traditional marketing manoeuvres to gain traction. They can find a low budget, more targeted, highly audience-specific and robust marketing channel through social media platforms.
Mobile app development cost in 2021 can still make a big hole in the IT budget of any company. The low cost and highly targeted specific social media marketing can be very effective to prevent the escalation of the app budget.
As an app marketer how can you make your app known to the wider audience? Since there are already close to 7 million mobile apps in the market, getting visibility is the biggest challenge. On top of that, only a few hundred apps across multiple niches get maximum traction and too many apps simply fail to survive as a business. According to credible statistics, around 25% apps after being downloaded are never used again.
So, making the app discoverable to the target audience remains a big challenge. This is where the role of social media proves to be important. There is no surprise in the fact that more than half of app users now know about useful apps through interactions with their family, friends, or social acquaintances.
Importance of Social Media Marketing for Mobile Apps
The vast majority of online activities of people happen to take place on social media platforms. Naturally, mobile app marketers cannot do away with the importance of social media channels. Social media opened up new marketing approaches involving the regular app users as brand ambassadors and giving more stress on user reactions and self motivated reviews than traditional marketing content. In a nutshell, social media brought the fresh promises of organic marketing on the table.
Social media platforms display a thriving presence of people from all walks of life and for too many this can be termed as “no holds barred” engagement to vent out their feelings, thoughts and reactions on everything around them. According to Pew Research, 52% of adults over the web now use two or more social media sites.
According to Statistica 70% of the people in U.S. is engaged at least with one social media account. Marketers can hardly afford to stay aloof to these platforms where entire population is engaged.
Almost all statistics referring to the apps from both consumer as well as B2B segments tell us how social channels play a decisive role in the app marketing strategy of business brands. Around 57% of consumers openly admit to the influence of social media in shaping their perception of business brands. In fact, now social media influences buying decisions more rigorously than traditional TV ads.
Most effective ways to market your app on social media
Now that you have understood the importance of social media platforms in marketing your apps, you must know that barely making social media pages and posts telling about your new app is not enough. While every app marketer is utilizing social marketing methods to push discoverability, how creatively you use social channels to gain maximum traction, matters most.
Here we are going to explain some of the time tested social media marketing methods that app marketers should focus upon.
Paid Social Media Advertising
Paid social ads are a lot less expensive than the traditional media ads but are really effective in pushing acquisition numbers quickly. You can use social media ads for app install across all major platforms. But you should pick the channel that is more effective and the channels where you can connect most of your target audience. For a brand the Google Ads, YouTube ads Instagram Ads and Facebook ads may not be equally effective.
Google Ads
Google Ads lead the pack as it drives nearly 50% of the app downloads. Pushing organic search through SEO is still effective but many apps found Google Ads to be more effective for faster pace of user acquisition. The detailed paid app analytics covering all major KPIs is another reason fueling the success of Google Ads. Google Ads are highly effective to showcase your app not only on search engines but also across multiple niche websites with similar audience,
YouTube Ads
YouTube Ads having the power of a robust and mainstream media platform has already become a competitor to traditional media and television ads. On YouTube the app publisher can create a dedicated channel and create numerous promotional videos and engaging “how to” videos to enhance traction and downloads.
Facebook Ads
Since everyone has a Facebook account, any app can find their audience on this popular platform. Facebook Ads and sponsored content help your app to gain quick traction among the target audience. Facebook basically showcases the sponsored content and ads based on target demographics and thus you have better chances to engage the right audience.
Instagram Ads
Like Facebook, Instagram is another effective channel for sponsored content and ads. Instagram also publishes ads based on audience demographics and helps you reach out to the right audience. For several app niches Instagram happens to be the trending channel.
Creative Use of Social Media Business Pages
Across social media platforms you have thousands and thousands of social media forums, pages, and groups where you can build smart campaigns with popular social media marketing tools to reach out to the target audience and draw attention to your new app. But targeting such vast choices of social media outlets can really be problematic. You need to target pages and groups that precisely represents your app niche.
While creating the social media page for your app, you need to be creative enough to stand out easily from the rest. From the appearance of your page with visual content to the creative and engaging content, you need to deliver the right mix of style and substance to draw attention and boost engagement.
Some of the creative ways to decorate your app page on social media platforms include the following.
- Create your page design to showcase the best aspects of the app.
- Always use engaging copy showcasing the actual value proposition of the app and how it stands out from the rest.
- Ensure creating the right contrast of colours while minimising visual distractions and cognitive load.
- Share interesting content related to the app that directly doesn’t sound like ads.
- Create engaging contests involving user inputs and user generated content.
- Use the app icon with different visually engaging and meaningful wallpapers.
- Promote the social media page extensively among the target audience.
- Engage in conversation and make regular presence with interesting content.
Tell the Brand Story Instead of Making Sales Pitch
As most human beings by their very nature are more interested in narratives rather than dry facts, your app marketing needs to capitalise on this principle. Where from the idea was generated, how it was rooted into the lives of people and issues they faced in real life contexts and how the app idea brought a fresh approach to solve these problems, these are the things you need to explain in telling the story of your brand.
While using storytelling technique to showcase the becoming of the app, you need to be rational throughout while not missing the sensitive ways of connecting your audience. The brand stories that are motivational in nature are most successful. Insist on showcasing the social value associated with your app, the teamwork put behind the app and the aspirations that your app strives to fulfill for users and the team of creators behind the app.
Lastly, use simple expressions and linguistic tone and throw some intuitive graphics to accompany your text meaningfully. Social media platforms are popular for storytelling and your app can take on this opportunity.
Use User-Generated Content
Making users brand ambassadors is a popular trend these days thanks to social media platforms. Instead of hiring celebrities from the movie and sports world to tell about a mobile app that hardly matters in their own lives, common folks can tell more persuasively about their experience. This is where user-generated content plays a key role in the successful marketing of mobile apps.
A real user posting a content about his or her experience with the app in a real life situation can be more engaging than so-called tall words describing the app. As we have already mentioned at least one fourth of all app users get to know about the app they use from their friends, family and colleagues, user generated content can make a positive impact on the app user acquisition.
According to a study by market research firm Nielson, the vast majority of customers across any niche prefer listening to recommendations from peers instead of commercial ads. In the context of apps, user generated content posted on social media platforms often can make a significant difference in user acquisition. Make sure the user generated content posted with interesting images, videos and legible text showcasing the real life benefits of the app.
Make Reviews & Ratings Your Alley
In the context of mobile apps, reviews and ratings really play an impressive role in influencing the audience perception and opinions about an app. To help users decide on the popularity of a mobile app, reviews and ratings can really be shaker and mover. In the Google Play Store, the apps come with real time analytics for app ratings and reviews. This helps users making decisions quickly about going for a new app.
Mobile app marketers should go deeper into this user feedback data and take steps to get more positive reviews and better ratings that can increase new user acquisition. Remember, instead of sounding self-flattering with all positive reviews, you should also accommodate negative reviews and humbly reply to the issues faced by the users. This often instill confidence in the users about your app.
Conclusion
Obviously, there are several other effective methods and tips that equally deserve a place here in this discussion. Actually, we tried to focus on areas that are either effective in turning around the state of things quickly or the ones that still requires more emphasis in the marketing scheme.
