7 Ways Social Media Can Help You Grow Your App

Updated on :October 18, 2023
By :Slavica Grgic

Let’s be honest, how much of your time are you spending on social media? 

A lot, and according to Statista, each year we’re spending more time than we’ve spent the year before. In 2018, daily social media usage of internet users world amounted to 136 minutes per day, up from 135 daily minutes in the previous year.

There’s no denying that brands started to take the opportunity of social media a long time ago. Today, the focus is on mobile display and advertising. But are you using social media for growing your app?

According to the latest survey by GoodFirms, 41.53% of the people said that they found a new app through an ad on social media. Additionally, 33.87% of the people got to know about new apps when their friends/family share about it on social media.

That’s huge!

However, with so many social media networks to choose from, you have to be selective. Pick platforms that fit the best with your app, your audience, and your goals.

In this article, we’ll go through several ways of using social media presence to help your app grow and acquire more users.

1. Target Research

Before you start using social media networks for promoting your app, you should first decide which networks will you be focusing on. 

In a survey, most people imply that they use at least 4 social media platforms daily. And each social network has certain advantages and consists of a different audience.

To be able to create a successful mobile marketing strategy, you need to have your target audience defined and analyzed. If you know your target audience, you'll know which networks should you use for promoting your app.

Questions to ask when you are researching your target audience.

Source: Udonis

When you're thinking about target research, go through a couple of questions:

  • What is something specific about your app that users will love?
  • What problem is your app solving?
  • Why should a user use your app, not some other from the app store?
  • What is unique about your app?
  • How do you imagine a typical user of your app? Think demographics, education, lifestyle... Does he have children, what does he do for a living...
  • What are some other interests of your target audience?
  • If my app was a human, how would it look? Would your app be a male or female, young or old? What would it wear? 

If you went through this question, you'll have a clear idea of your target audience. When you have that defined, you'll know which social media network to use for promoting your app.

Let's take a look at Snapchat. Snapchat is very popular in the United States, with almost a quarter of American using it in the 2018 – this puts Snapchat ahead of LinkedIn, Twitter and WhatsApp. If your app is aimed at a younger audience, social media network like Snapchat should be a logical choice.

2. Direct Download of the App

With Facebook, you can promote your app in a few unique ways. One of the simplest, but still very effective is using "Use App" as your call-to-action button on your Facebook page.

Kayla Itsiness Fitness Facebook Profile

"Use App" button for Sweat: Kayla Itsiness Fitness

Facebook has some advanced targeting options, so you'll be able to reach your target audience with the right campaign objectives. For that, the most logical choice would be "App Installs" campaign objective. The goal of this campaign objective is quite simple - to get more installs for your app.

You might be lacking ideas when you start promoting your app on social media. That's why you need to take advantage of tools like Facebook Ads Library where you can check out what is the competition doing.

3. Exclusive Promotions

Everybody loves a good promotion, but have you thought of using social media to give back to your users? Not only you can connect with your user base, but you can offer them special offers and discount just because they are following you on social media.

Social media is a completely free way to promote your app to a huge audience, if we don't count the paid advertising, of course.

Revolut Facebook Post

Promo by Revolut Banking App

Revolut - the banking app that now counts more than 4,5 million users can thank their massive success mostly to their smart use of social media networks. Not only they share user-generated content on their profile, but they also keep users engaged with special offers and incentives. Revolut encourages sharing the promos with your friends, thus increasing the social proof and overall growth.

4. Working With Influencers

Concept of working with influencers to promote your app might be hard to grasp, but if you've chosen the right influencers to work with, it can work.

Influencers are, undeniably, a social phenomenon and a huge part of our culture. Although they have a reputation for being "famous for being famous", most of them worked hard to get to where they are. When talking about influencers, we have in mind people like bloggers or models, but actually, an influencer can be a tech journalist, YouTuber or anybody with a huge audience. Of course, your target audience and the following of the influencer should overlap.

Revolut - the banking app, worked with influencers like Zlatan Ibrahimovic to promote their app and banking services. Not only you're promoting your app to the influencers following, but you're also working on your credibility. It's similar to the word-of-the mouth effect because people trust influencers and look at them as friends.

5. User-Generated Content & Testimonials

Content can be often time-consuming to produce. That's where users come into play. User is your best advocates, they are already using your product and they obviously love it.

The motivation for sharing content can be free promo they will get after you share their picture and include their username. They are receiving a free promotion on your profile, and you have more content to choose from.

Pokemon Go App, one of the biggest AR gaming phenomenons, includes a special, dedicated hashtag in their Instagram description. That way, every follower knows which hashtag to use. By using a dedicated hashtag, user can discover content from other users, but they're also promoting your app to their followers. Finding the right content will be easy for you.

6. Analyze your audience

This step is different from the first step where we talked about target research. If you're active on social media and already have a significant following on social media channels, analyze your followers. Your followers are your best advocates, but are they all also the users of the app? If they are not using the app, why are they following you in the first place? Or are the followers on social media users with a higher LTV?

On Facebook, that will be Facebook Analytics. With Facebook Analytics, you’ll be able to visualize people’s progress to conversions through their actions across your Page and website, mobile and desktop. You’ll be able to measure users retention over time. It allows you to get a full view of how people interact with you across your website, apps, Facebook Page, and bots in one report.

7. Social Listening

Lacking ideas? Something isn't working, but you're not sure what it is? You have just released a new update, and you want to know what users think about the new version?

Use social media channels to communicate with users and let them know about the updates you've made. There are dedicated tools for real-time social listening like the Mediatoolkit, but they can often be expensive. With the help of social media networks, you can connect to the users across the world. Encourage them to leave comments, answer every review, even negative ones.

Some social media networks, like Quora, are made exclusively for social listening. On Quora, you can answer and ask questions and connect with like-minded people from the industry.

To Sum Up:

If you already have a mobile app marketing plan, make sure you've included social media in it. And if not, you can always consult a social media marketing agency to refine your marketing efforts. Social media networks are an inevitable part of our everyday lives and we spend more and more time in them each day.

Not only social media networks can help you acquire more users through paid promotions, but they are also helping you build your brand and authority. You'll be able to reach a wider audience and get valuable feedback from users so you can continue doing what you like and know the best - publishing apps!

Slavica Grgic
Slavica Grgic

Slavica Grgic is a Marketing Manager at Udonis. If you asked her a few years ago, she never thought she would end up in the gaming industry. If she is not writing new blog posts or posting content on Instagram or Facebook, she is making sure that everything is picture-perfect.

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