Posted on May 27th, 2013 by admin
This post was written by Artyom Diogtev, Head of Social Media at ComboApp – the Ultimate App Marketing Solution
In the most general sense mobile app marketing strategy falls into a two-tier structure: App promotion within the confines of its app store(s) and its promotion outside the virtual borders of those stores. In regards to the latter, promotion in Social Media websites is a crucial component for any application’s successful promotion. Naturally, on this front Facebook is first up on the list of Social Media websites to utilize.
Its important also to make the distinction between direct and indirect promotional techniques, as there is a clear division between the two. Facebook is not a direct selling tool, not counting the mobile app installation solution its mobile app offers (which isn’t relevant to the scope of this post). With this all in mind and qualified, let’s take a look at all of the Facebook app’s promotional campaign uses, utilities, and the like, beginning from its earliest stages.
Fan Page Creation
The technical aspects of fan page creation aren’t that complicated – Facebook has done a great job to make it simple, but it doesn’t eliminate your through work on the way you present your app on its Fan Page. The major reason why you need to have a Fan Page for your app on Facebook is because for so many people Facebook has become the number one spot on the web to check regularly and consume information as well as discover new stuff and make purchase decisions. Keeping this concept in mind from the very beginning will help you to make the most of your Fan Page.
As you prepare marketing materials for a page make sure that you’ve come up with a good title and description for a page. There is a built-in search tool on Facebook that people do use to google up new stuff and hence a website SEO approach somewhat applies here as well. Your graphical materials for a page should entice people to become your fan page fans. Just like your app’s screenshots on the App Store or Google Play tell the story about your app and why it’s great and useful, your fan page cover image and icon should visually give incentive to `like` your page and begin to dig deeper in other info you present there. Even if you don’t have a video demo for your app, adding a Videos section to the page will allow you to share relevant video clips with your fans. As to the great number of other plugins you can add to your fan page, there is no gold rule. Pick up the ones you believe will help to enrich the page, but try to limit their number under 5. Don’t overstuff your page with information – nobody will bother to check it all.
Update
There are two ways you can update your Fan Page – from a computer or your iOS or Android device via dedicated apps. A frequency for how often you update your page should be 1-2 times a day. Remember that even if people adore your app, they simply have no time to read many Fan Page updates and so your multiple daily updates will go unnoticed. Ok, your next question should be – what? What should I share with people who have become or I hopefully will become my fans? The good approach I’m suggesting – divide the stream of your news in 3 parts – about your app, you / your company / relevant news about the topics relevant to your app.
Updates about your app should highlight the features which you personally believe are awesome about your app. Be creative, use your sense of humor and make sure you come up with a relevant image to attach to an update. There is a number of studies that show that images do invoke greater level of engagement than plain text updates. Before you create a Fan Page, brainstorm what graphical materials you will be able to share daily: perhaps a sketch of some particular features in your app. When it comes to updates about you or your company, be ready to be open. No-no, you don’t need to share your personal stuff, but do share photos of folks who stand behind the app’s development. Essentially people do love stories about other great people and by sharing photos or videos of your team you have a chance to show your fans who you are.
Metrics
Facebook provides a great tool to see how your Fan Page is doing, which updates trigger people’s interest and which do not, where your fans live, their age, what language they speak. This tool should become your daily task to check out, don’t expect great numbers from the day one – it’ll come gradually as you progress your activities on the page. You can see how many `likes` and clicks your particular post with the link to your app on the App Store or Google Play has obtained, what was the level of engagement for your app’s video demo and so on.
There is an important thing to point out – when we compare Facebook audience in different countries – US, UK, Spain, Italy, South America and Asian countries, we see that the cultural differences and how long people in those countries have been using Facebook do correlate with the level of people’s engagement with Fan Pages. In general, people in US and Canada have passed the time when Fan Pages on Facebook were new. These days they are more focused on keeping in touch with their friends and family.
Facebook Ads
Just like a website or an app your Fan Page requires promotion to attract fans. Don’t expect an avalanche of people becoming your fans the moment you’re done with the page setting. Fortunately Facebook has a great platform to launch ads and invite people to become your fans. When you launch ad campaigns, apart from creating an enticing message and picking up clear, vivid, self-explaining image, you need to turn on your imagination and pick up the targeting audience for your ads – think of people who may find your app useful: what age, gender they are, what interests they may have, where do the live and so on. For each ad you’ll be able to define specific audience you want to see your ad and potentially to become your fans. There is an approve procedure in place and hence expect a delay in several hours between a moment you’re done your ads and it actually goes live. Of course you need to meet the Facebook standards to ads and especially one of them, which isn’t obvious, that claims that if the image you’re using for an ad contains text, it should occupy less than 20%.
Promoted Posts
This is another way of generating interest to particular Fan Page posts and the page itself. Once your Fan Page reaches the 100 fan threshold, you can pick up specific posts on your page to spread it not only to your fans, but their friends as well. Do it wisely, pick up important messages like your app’s new update, price drop, new major release and so on to spend your promotional budget on. One of the advantages of Promoted Posts over Facebook Ads is that you can launch it via Facebook Pages apps for both iOS and Android and hence you can launch a timely sensitive promotion from anywhere. For each post you define a budget you’re willing to spend on it. The ad will be on air within next 72 hrs since you launched its promotion and you can pause it any moment.
Like Button
This is a must-engage tool for your app’s site Facebook plugin, for which you can easily obtain a source code from your Fan Page’s admin panel. Once you have a Like button for your app’s website, you’ll get an extra channel to attract people to your app’s Fan Page on Facebook.
Cross Promotion
Your app’s Fan Page on Facebook should not exist in isolation from other marketing channels you utilize. Its URL should be on your business card, in your email’s signature, on your website and on other Social Media channels` profiles as well.
For more head on over to Combo App – The Ultimate App Marketing Solution
