2. t
Social Currency
It’s all about social status and the fact how your
app influences the way other people perceive
its users.
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3. Social Currencies can be build by:
1. Exclusivity!
2. Giving an early access !
3. Rewarding achievements
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4. 1. Exclusivity
When launching an app, create a sense of
exclusivity by:
• offering app (or its exclusive features) for free to those who
have subscribed to a mailing list
• giving a limited access to some app features for a short
period of time
• presenting additional insights and tutorials about the app to
first users
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5. 2. Giving an
early access
If you want to make your users feel awarded
and distinguished from the app crowd, offer
them an early and very limited access to your
app. Make them feel like trendsetters!
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6. 3. Rewarding
achievements
Create a reward system within your app and
link it to users’ achievements. You will
encourage them to improve their performance,
spread the word about it and most of all, use
your app on a regular basis!
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7. Triggers
Don’t let users forget about your app! Give
them reasons to remember how awesome it is
by sending nice but not intrusive reminders.
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8. Trigger people to use your app by:
1. Email reminders!
2. Push notifications
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9. 1. Email reminders
Send notifications each time someone interacts
with your users inside the app. This will
inevitably make them open it to see what’s
going on.
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10. 2. Push notifications
Keep people engaged by encouraging them to
take specific action within your app. Keep
reminding them how useful or entertaining your
app is! Just don’t overuse it.
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11. When adding triggers to your app, find
a method that is unobtrusive and feels
the most natural. You don’t want to
spam your users or scare them off!
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12. Emotion
Apps designed to induce (positive or negative)
emotions are more likely to diffuse virally.
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13. Everything from excitement and amusement to
anger and anxiety will lead to spreading the
word about your app. Great examples of those
are games.
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14. Emotions which your app induces will
help to build a community around the
app which at the same time will
become a natural stream where your
app will be a No. 1 topic!
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!
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15. Public
It’s about getting your users to spread the word
about your app. Make this step an effortless
one and your app will be more likely to go
public.
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16. Your app can gain more public
presence by:
1. Mates invitations!
2. Brand sharing
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17. 1. Mates invitations
A good practice is to encourage users to invite
their friends to start using the app. If they enjoy
it, it’s very likely that they’ll rush to share it with
their mates.
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18. 2. Brand sharing
Using branded sharing is the easiest way to
keep users and non-users familiar with your
app. Add a simple “via [your app’s name]”
message appended to each share on emails,
Facebook, Twitter and other social media.
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19. Make sure that the ‘Public step’ is a
non-invasive part of building your
brand recognition process. If it’s too
intrusive, it will make more harm to
your app than good.
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20. Practical value
If your app adds a practical value to people’s
lives, you’ll have a better time to make it viral.
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21. Improve your users lives in any way and they
will be not only thrilled to keep using the app,
but to talk about it as well.
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22. Unless your app is a game, it should
solve a real-life problem and add
value to your users everyday lives.
!
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23. Stories
Storytelling itself is a great way of direct and
indirect brand marketing. Any app can be
promoted by storytelling. You just have to tell
the right story.
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24. Stories are easy to tell and easy to remember.
If your app’s story is compelling enough, your
app will be more likely to spread viral.
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25. Your users will share a story about the
app if it says something significant
about themselves too - for e.g. how
the app improved their lives, helped
with dealing with everyday issues.
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26. Last but not least
Not all of the ‘STEPPS’ are required to make
an app viral, but surely taking all of them will
increase the chances for your app to become
recognizable to wider audience.
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27. Last but not least
The key is that those steps were built within
the app, not taken afterwards when the
development process is finished!
Virality may seem like an ad-hoc action,
but in fact it’s a carefully planned process.
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28. Last but not least
Above all, keep in mind that virality takes
time. Stay patient and don’t give up!
Remember that ‘Flappy Bird’ went viral after
months of nearly no downloads and no
interest.
Good luck!