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Using Social Media to Drive App Sales – Case Studies

Submitted by on February 28, 2011 – 11:46 amNo Comment

In a world of Twitter frenzy and Facebook fanaticism, it’s no surprise that app developers have entered the world of social media in an effort to showcase their brands and drive app sales. In a world where “content is king” and the development of relationships on the internet is a highly valued commodity, developers understand the opportunity social media provides for them to enhance the essence of what they do and build their following over time.

We often think of developers as super-smart nerds who sit by their computers 24/7 painstakingly trying to solve the world’s problems via their trusty hand me down home computers. While smarts definitely play a role, today’s app developers are trendy, intelligent and attacking social media the way it should be… by getting to know their audience and offering value to their customers.

One such social media maven is Jennifer Noonan, of appsNminded. Jennifer creates fun and engaging mobile apps and has utilized Facebook to skyrocket her business. With over 3000 fans, and a recent milestone of 2,000,000 downloads for her iTune apps, we asked Jennifer a few questions to find out how she became such a success story:

Q: Which social media site do you recommend to app developers to help them drive their app sales and why?

A: We are really big fans of Facebook.  It’s a quick and easy way to directly talk to your users, keep them updated on new projects and engaged with your company on a daily basis.”

Q: Did you ever have an “aha” moment when running your social media campaign that helped catapult the success of your business?

A: When we realized the success of using Facebook to communicate with our fans, we decided to put more focus on building our Facebook page and that has really helped drive sales and grow the business.”

Q: What would you tell our readers is the biggest “no” as it relates to social media and interacting with people in this environment?

A: I would steer clear of over messaging, so you don’t burn out your fans or followers.”

Q: If you could give app developers one piece of advice on how to drive app sales through social media, what would it be?

A: Create a dynamic facebook page and keep the material fresh, offer cool promotions and always treat your fans well!”

Obviously Jennifer understands a thing or two about how to achieve lasting success with social media.

Finding much success on the Twitter side, we find Phyllis Cheung, owner of My Wedding Concierge, a wedding blog search engine which features complementary iPhone and iPad Apps.  Called by Glamour.com as the Google for brides, My Wedding Concierge has utilized Twitter to skyrocket the sales of their wedding apps. With PhyllisCheung at the helm, this wedding app selling machine has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and on popular platforms such as Glamour.com and INC magazine. Here is what Phyllis had to say about her success on Twitter:

Q: How has your interaction with people on Twitter positively affected your wedding app sales?

A: My interaction with my followers on Twitter has increased my wedding app sales because I have a very niche following.  We discuss trends, where the wedding industry is going, and most important of all, we get to know each other.  By being socially interactive with them, wedding vendors help me drive app sales because they recommend our apps to their brides.

Q: If you had to say in one sentence what is the most important factor to achieving success with social media, what would it be?

A: The most important factor to achieving success with social media for us has been interacting with our followers on a daily basis and growing our followers organically.

Phyllis Cheung understands the power of communication and interaction, which is essential to social media success. Matt Maroon also understands what it takes for developers to enhance their app sales.

Matt Maroon started Blue Frog Gaming 4 years ago and has been involved with social gaming since the start. His company moved to the Facebook platform about 3 years ago. Their success has been astounding with a company fan page following of 11,000, along with 52,000 fans for their main app (Starfleet Commander) Facebook page. Due to his continued success, I asked Matt some questions so he could help fellow developers understand what it takes to leverage social media to drive app sales.

Q: To what do you attribute your social media success?

A: I would say our success came from trial and error experimentation backed by analytics. We are continuously trying new and better messaging for our viral channels and using metrics to test them against each other. For instance when a user invited a friend to our game, we’d multivariate test a few different messages. Even a 5% improvement is worth the effort when you’ve got 10,000 messages being sent a day. We were shocked to find that tiny little changes to text, like the difference between “Play now.” and “Play Now!” could be highly significant.

Q: What is one piece of advice you can give app developers who are just starting out with a social media campaign?

A: So my best advice would be to measure everything. It’s easier than ever to multivariate test strategies using the various analytics suites. Know what actions are driving people to social behaviors, and know the effectiveness of those behaviors. Be scientific, come up with theories as to why one call to action works better than another, apply it to other areas, and test for similar improvements.

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As you can see, the common thread among all of our experts is to provide value to their audiences. Whether through retweeting, multivariate testing, pertinent discussions, or cool promotions, whatever you offer to allow your fans to interact and generally “have fun” on your page will boost your overall bottom line over time.

How has social media helped to drive your app sales?

Care to join us in a chat on the subject? Tune in to www.facebook.com/gigcoin at 12PM EST on Thursday, March 3, where we will ask questions and hold a fun and interesting discussion on how app developers can utilize social media to gain success. Some of our expert developers will be there to share their tips and tricks as well.

Join us!

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