How to Launch Your Mobile App on Social Media
There is a good reason why a growing number of startups are going mobile-first. According to the most recent statistics, mobile users are expected to contribute 63.4% of all internet traffic for 2019. Owning a mobile app, or at least a mobile marketing strategy is thus critical.
With apps like Instagram and Snapchat, social networking has been moving steadily towards the mobile space. A social media marketing strategy can thus be incredibly profitable for your mobile app launch.
Planning for the right marketing assets
The first step in your app marketing process is to build the right marketing assets. There are a couple of reasons why you should not take your followers from your social media page directly to the app download page on the iOS App Store or Google Play Store.
Firstly, these app store pages are not ideal for selling your product. As an app owner, you do not have complete freedom to decide the ‘Call to Action’ (CTA) message or where your download buttons will be located. Also, analytics plays a pivotal role in any marketing campaign and helps advertisers understand their campaign performance. Taking users directly from the social media page to the app download page can deprive your marketing team of valuable analytics data.
It is a good idea to create several prototypes of your landing page and test usability and performance with respect to click-throughs and conversions across various social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. With a limited marketing budget, this strategy will help you understand what works and what doesn’t.
What should your landing page include?
A successful marketing strategy is not possible without targeting the right medium. In the case of a mobile app launch, conversions are likely to be higher when the campaign is targeted at users accessing their social media over smartphones. This makes the process of transitioning to the app download page seamless.
Smartphones have lesser real estate than a web page and this constraint should also define your marketing message. Cut down on all the fluff in your communication. Studies show that the human brain processes video several times faster than they do text, and consequently, visitor engagement on videos is much higher. Your landing page could replace text with explainer videos to engage your viewers and communicate your marketing message with limited real estate.
Your landing page must also include a link to the store pages for your app. One way to avoid clutter is by detecting the user’s device and displaying the relevant CTA. For example, you may hide the Google Play Store button from a user accessing your landing page from an iPhone.
Social media launch strategy
Once your marketing assets and landing page are ready, the next step is to come up with the right social media strategy. There are a couple of factors that come into play here — the demographics you are trying to reach, and the kind of marketing assets you wish to promote (videos, photos, news text, etc.).
Social networks like Instagram and Snapchat are popular among young adults and millennials while older people prefer Facebook. There are similar demographic preferences among various genders and geographies. Pick the top platforms that appeal to your audience and focus solely on them. However, your app launch strategy should also depend on the marketing assets you want to promote. A text-based promotional strategy would work better on Facebook rather than on Instagram.
The next step is to pick the right time of the day to launch. User activity fluctuates through the day and finding the right time to post on each of your selected platforms can make or break your campaign.
Finally, it is worth remembering that launching your app is only the first step. A successful campaign involves a real-time engagement between the target group and the business. Allocate adequate resources to handle visitor comments and queries from prospective customers – being responsive not only keeps the specific user happy but also demonstrates an earnestness which drives further conversion.
Analytics & repeat
The final step in the launch process is to know how well you performed. As we pointed out earlier in this article, analytics is incredibly useful in a marketing campaign and is the main reason why you should have a landing page for your campaigns. Not all app launch campaigns turn out successful. Analytics help you gain deeper insights into what worked and what didn’t. This will help you build a better strategy should you choose to relaunch.
Have you recently launched a mobile app over social media? Share your experience in the comments below.
