Mobile apps are huge. I’m sure that this doesn’t come as news to you, but the scope of the endemic may do. Mobile users spend about 89% of their time viewing media via apps when on their smartphones, compared to 11% on their mobile browsers. This means that developing an app for your business can be the difference between a lot of people being exposed to you or a relative handful. This means that laying out a mobile app strategy can be a really good move for your company.

However, the failure rate for apps is very high and there aren’t a lot of them making money. You want your app to provide you with a return on the investment that you put into developing it, but there is a lot of competition out there, with hundreds or even thousands of similar apps to yours vying for the attention of your customers.

Put simply, a great idea is not enough. Your app may be revolutionary in terms of design or functionality, but it is never going to get noticed if you don’t have a great marketing strategy in place for it. One of the best ways to achieve success with your app marketing is via social media and we are on hand to explain the dos and don’ts of using social media to market your mobile app.

Facebook and Twitter

As with all social media marketing, it is important – nay crucial – that you engage and interact with your fans. Creating a strong presence on Facebook and Twitter will give your audience a way to keep in touch with you and is generally the preferred medium for people to offer complaints or suggestions. Make sure that you respond to all posts as promptly as possible (it can be a good idea to set aside an hour of your day to dedicate to this) and always remain professional and courteous.

On the subject of criticism, do not under any circumstances edit or delete negative comments. Whilst criticism can be hard to take sometimes, it is important that you respond to and deal with it in a matter becoming of a professional outfit. People are pretty savvy these days and if they see nothing but glowing reviews about your app then they are likely to suspect that something is up.

However, if they see a mix of good or bad comments and that you are responding to them in the correct way, they will understand that you appreciate all feedback and will be more likely to respect you and your product.

Focus On The Product

When pitching your app to people, don’t prattle on unendingly about yourself and your goals and aspirations. I’ll let you in on a little secret – nobody cares (well, maybe your mum, but she’s only downloading your app to be supportive anyway – mums are nice like that).

Instead focus on being passionate about the app itself. Tell people what makes it unique and different to what is already out there and create a fun and dynamic video trailer of the app in use. Trailers are not just for video game apps and they are a great way to get across, not only how your app operates, but also the feel and personality that you are trying to put across with it.

Make sure that your video is congruent with your app though – if it’s about stocks and shares, then a trailer full of extreme sports and heavy metal may not be the best fit, for example. Make a video that conveys what your app is about, but in a way that doesn’t disrupt your customers’ expectations.

Offer Incentives

Many apps offer small rewards to users that share and otherwise help to promote their app. You may groan whenever some guy that you met on a night out once keeps relentlessly sending you Candy Crush invitations, but it shows that the system works. By offering periodical rewards for sharing on social media, your users will do a lot of the hard work for you.

Also be sure to encourage users to participate in all aspects of your app’s development. This can mean anything from rating it on the app store, to filling out surveys about their experiences with the app, to beta testing. Beta testing is particularly useful as it will help you to build an engaged community prior to the app’s actual release. As long as your app is a good one, this will put across the impression that your product is already popular.

We hope that you enjoyed our guide to using social media to market your mobile app. Do you have an app in development and are you using social media in your marketing? Or maybe you are an old hat at this business and would like to share some of your experiences with us? Let us know in the comments below.

Have fun.