How to leverage social media to drive downloads of your app

Social media is a powerful tool to drive app downloads and grow a following for your brand. Whether you are the app developer, the marketer or both, you always want to reach your audience in the easiest location to “purchase now” or in this case “download now”. Facebook and other social media apps make it easy to click on an advertisement and hop directly to the app store for a download. This mobile marketing tool makes social media a prime platform for growing your app’s user base. Let’s focus on some core strategies for building your social media followings and converting them to app downloads.
Building Social Credibility
Social media credibility comes in 3 forms. The first is your following, the second is your content, and the third is your responsiveness. Without these three pillars, you will begin to lose credibility with your audience. There are countless celebrities and brands out there that have a Twitter account, and all it shows is their automated Facebook and Instagram updates (Insider tip: never connect your Facebook to auto-post to your Twitter, it’s sloppy and indicates that you don’t give attention to that social platform). To build social media credibility use services like Crowdfire to follow and unfollow (for Twitter and Instagram) interested and targeted audiences. This can open the door for rapid growth. While it may be time-intensive, it is a low-cost option in the world of social media tools.
There are also mobile marketing tools to help you with your content scheduling and strategy. Scheduling is an absolute requirement for consistency. Buffer and Hootsuite are both good options for this. Both of these tools provide plug-ins and easy access to services like Feedly, which can help you quickly find the content of interest to your audience.
When it comes to customer service in the social media world all eyes, typically turn to Twitter and Facebook. Be sure to check these platforms daily to respond to questions and inquiries. One of the best ways to build credibility is communicate with your followers, connect with them and respond promptly. Facebook puts such an emphasis on this that they show off your responsiveness right on your Facebook page.
Facebook Targeting
There are many ways you can promote your app to drive downloads on social media but here are two ways you may not have immediately put in your strategy.
Facebook’s mobile retargeting allows you to find and advertise to the people that previously visited your website. With mobile retargeting the visitor to your site may have previously been on a desktop but now conveniently sees your ad in their mobile Facebook app. This can be a very powerful mobile marketing tool for converting interested customers to new downloads.
Facebook’s custom audience feature allows you to reach people who you know may be interested or have given you information before. Do you have an email list? Upload it to the custom audience feature and serve them Facebook ads to keep them reminded about your app, informed on updates, provide sneak peaks, and offer incentives to download. Facebook describes the convenience of their custom audience feature, “If you have contact information for customers, you can upload your list to Facebook. We recommend having at least 100 people on your list for a Custom Audience. You can upload a file with customer contact info, log in to your MailChimp account, or use info from your app or website.”
H2H not B2B
How do you connect with your audience on your personal social media handles? Probably not like a marketer. Leave the marketing speak for the boardroom and talk to your audience like humans, not consumers. People appreciate a brand that speaks like they do. It is easy to write pitches, and talk up your product but go beyond that level of conversation and talk to your audience as if you were talking to your friends. Remember that these are real people and start talking human-to-human – not business to consumer.
Reward and Incentivize
So you are now connecting with your audience, you are regularly posting, you are answering questions promptly, and you even speak to your audience like they are people, not consumers. Great! One last tip to drive home the connection between your brand and your social media audience is to make them feel special. Reward you social media downloaders with an exclusive social media promotion. Depending on the construct of your app this can come in the form of in-app currency, an extra level, bonus points, discounts, etc. Show your social media audience that you appreciate them by incentivizing their download. Change up this promotion regularly and track user behavior in your CleverTap analytics to grow and design a promotion that resonates with your audience.
Social media is the ever ever-changing marketing machine, but with the right strategy and the voice of a human (not a marketer) you will start off well above the curve and help drive organic growth and downloads of your app.