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Socialize your app to drive app discovery and user engagement
1. Uncover The Mobile Black Box
Socialize Your App To Drive
Discovery and User Engagemen
Isaac Mosquera
Director, Mobile
@imosquera
#sharethis
1
2. ShareThis
ShareThis is the largest sharing platform reaching 211
million people over 120 social channels on 2.4 MM sites.
That’s 95% of the web!
2.4MM PUBLISHERS
85% OF ONLINE AUDIENCE
120 SOCIAL CHANNELS
2
3. A few things about me
Co-founder of Socialize, a social mobile SDK, recently
acquired by ShareThis, Inc
Co-founder of PointAbout, a mobile consulting company, acquired
by 3 Pillars Global. Developed apps for enterprise customers
Co-founder of AppMakr.com, DIY website for building 100%
native apps
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4. Connect. Engage. Increase.
CONNECT
ENGAGE
INCREASE
Did you know?
Did you know?
The mobile web is twice as
social as desktop.
Adults spend an average of
141 minutes a day using
their mobile devices
Did you know?
50% of the US population
will share on smartphones in
2014
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7. CONNECT – Know your Audience
What is your app all about?
Who is your target market?
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8. CONNECT – Matching Social Channels
CHANNELS
Arts & Entertainment
Category should match
Technology
the social channels in
your app
Health
Family and kids
Food and drinks
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17. ENGAGE – THE RIGHT TIME
Average Shares per Day
Engage your MOBILE
Audience at the Right Time
SU
M
TU
W
TH
F
SA
Average Shares by Time of Day
12am-5:59am
6am-11:59am
12pm-5:59pm
6pm-11:59pm
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18. ENGAGE – Engagement Types
Other ways to keep users
engaged
@UserName
#hashtag
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19. ENGAGE – MULTI-SCREEN PLATFORMS
• Device
Device
• Tracking across platforms
Importance of Multi-Screen Engagement
• Content availability in different
formats
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21. INCREASE – SOCIAL CHANNELS
SHARES BY CHANNEL
Don’t forget mobile specific
channels such as SMS that
garner almost half of all
shares on mobile.
Other
23%
45%
Facebook
SMS
11%
12%
9%
Email
Twitter
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22. INCREASE – You can only improve what you measure
Most Shared Content
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23. Help your users help you
Track failure as much as
you track success
24. USE CASE - EVALUATING DJ LOBO’S SOCIAL CYCLE
DJ Lobo is NYC’s #1 Tropical Music
DJ for La Mega 97.9, mixing top
hits from
salsa, tipico, bachata, merengue, ra
ggaeton, hip-hop to house.
CONNECT
ENGAGE
PROBLEM:
Looking for a social solution to
• Unlock content that only lives within the
app and not on web
• Build a community within the app
• Track trending content
INCREASE
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26. ENGAGE
Like
DJ Lobo keeps his users engaged by
creating a feedback loop by sending
notifications to users who have
shared, liked or commented his music.
NOTIFICATIONS
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29. TAKEAWAYS
Gain the trust of
your users
Make sharing
easy
Make your notifications
highly targeted
Connect. Engage. Increase
Remove unnecessary road blocks
Increase your users trust
30. Questions for Prizes
1
What hours of the day does most sharing
happen on mobile?
2
How much more social are moms than other
users?
30
IsaacPay attention cause they’ll be some prizes at the end.
A little about sharethis,2.4MM publishers online and mobileOver 120 social channels
You guys are in the best position to use your own users to increase discoverability and engagement into your app, because mobile is so new, there are new an innovative ways to reach to your consumers which haven’t been done before. Additionally because so much content is generated on the phone there is much to be social about.You have to be creative about what is “content” inside of your app, we’ll dive into that.
CARMENThere are 3 steps in the process of optimizing your app for social engagement: connect, engage and increase.The first step is CONNECT. By connecting you initiate the communication between you and your audience. One of the most basic principles of communication is to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Understanding the interests and attitudes of your audience will guideyour social strategy. Let’s get to more details.The way that mom’s share is not the same as a gamer. Who plays video games here?PS4 put a “share” button on their controller because it’s soo importantThat’s the way they connect with their consumersKnowing what they want to share.
A recurring theme through this conversation will be “trust”. When a user first downloads your app, typically you’re considered a “untrustworthy” developer. You build trust by not messing anything up.ASK A QUESTION HERE ABOUT “GIVING BEFORE RECEIVING”For instance don’t’ ask for permissions you don’t need at that moment, I’m looking at you Android devs!Don’t ask for GPS unless you need it or more specifically when you need it. Don’t ask for the address book access unless you ultimately need it.Don’t make go through long registration loops. It makes it harder down the road when you’ll be asking the user to share their FB/Twitter credentials or e-mail address with you. These are intimate devices with a lot of information
Your audience is the bread and butter of your business. When you started your website, you had an audience profile in mind. In most cases as your content strategy evolved your audience profile evolved as well. This is why it is important to keep revisiting your audience profile on a regular basis. Demographic and geographic data is the easiest to come by. However, things get more interesting when looking at psychographic information. The questions you should ask yourself are:Do I know the interests of my audience? Does my social audience have different interests?Do I know the opinions and attitudes in regards to these interests?Are there ways of breaking down those interests into segementsOne way to shed light into these questions is to go back to your content. Unique, high quality content attracts engaged audiences.What are the articles that get most pageviews on your website? Can you group those articles in content categories? If so, look at established content categories like the IAB or comScore categories. That will help you form an abstract image of your audience interests. In addition, advertisers are looking at your inventory based on the same categories.Let’s see how you can use this info.
Content categories are not created equal. Some of them are more social than others. We looked at the most shared content across our 2.4MM publishers and sorted it by the most social content categories.It turns out that the most social categories are: family and parenting, arts & entertainment, technology, health and food& drinks. We took that a step further and we looked at the audience demographics and content type. It turns out that moms are 3 X more social then other audiences and that 81% of video views are social.Another interesting fact is that some social networks work better for specific content categories. We discovered that pinterest, tumblr, stumbleupon, linkedin, google+ should not be overlooked.Having said this, when deciding on which social networks you will promote your content, keep in mind what works best for your content type. Your audience will share your content to these preferred networks and more people will click through back to your site. ALL social events (shares + clicks)– fb, twitter, pinterst, blogger, tumblr, stumbleupon, email redditt,
CARMENMoving on to the second step of optimization process, ENGAGE. Knowing your audience is the first step in communication. The next step is understanding the best time for them to hear your message.Knowing when to engagement is important, this stat is actually the opposite for desktop, around this time we see sharing drop around this time.Let’s get to more details.
SEANApp-real estate – where is this button going to best perform while not eating up too much of the view. Keep the share button visible but overly taking the screenWe’ve found that asking your users to share after they complete a high-value action is the best to ask and have the biggest ROIPerformance, have quick response times and monitoring where you might have drop-offConnectivity is never guaranteed in mobile so make sure you have proper error handling and messaging during these times.
The way that mom’s share is not the same as a gamer. Who plays video games here?PS4 put a “share” button on their controller because it’s soo importantThat’s the way they connect with their consumersKnowing what they want to share.They consider playing the game content, this is different than the game itself, they’re sharing experiences from the game. This is a new type of content they’ve created and are now sharing outwardly to generate buzz and attention.
CARMENEngaging your users at the right time means publishing your content when they are most likely to share it.We have all heard that a tweet’s life if a few minutes at most. The lifetime of an article can be measured in days and for some types of content like recipes you can even go to months or years.We looked at the ShareThis publisher network to see when most of the shares take place. Interestingly enough, on a weekly basis Tuesday and Wednesday are peak days while weekends show less activity.In terms of the time of the day, in general sharing activity peaks around 3PM. However, for some content categories like auto, the peak time is at 1 PM.Having said this, the time relevancy is a critical component in getting your content spread on social networks.
CARMENThe other component of engagement is how you can transform your new social visitors into recurring visitors. Social media provides a plethora of tools to do that. Among them are recommending users to follow your facebook or twitter pages. This will ensure that your articles will reach these audiences even when they do not visit your site.Another great tool is using hashtags and adding your twitter handle to all outbound social actions. For example, ShareThis enables you to configure the sharing buttons to add “via @your handle” at the end of each share.In addition you can use services like Buffer to schedule when to socialize your content so that you can reach your audience at the right time.
SEANIn addition to the clever implementation DJ Lobo’s app leverages our SmartDownload page in a unique way. Since many apps have much of their content locked into the app Socialize creates a page generated specifically to publish activity and content form within the app onto the web. This allows app content to be shared to popular networks like Twitter and Facebook, as well as give users that have not yet downloaded the app the ability to see the activity going on in the app from their desktop and provide users of either platform to download the app made for their specific device. DJ Lobo took it one step further and used our SmartDownload page for the app as the DJ Lobo app home page. - See more at: http://blog.getsocialize.com/2013/dj-lobo-cant-beat-the-socialize-based-beats#sthash.Iq8Ue1qe.dpuf
CARMENAnd ultimately, last step is INCREASE. You want to build upon all the learnings from the previous steps and increase the social traffic to your site.
SEAN/CARMENYou have great content, you know your audience, you know when to reach them, the only thing left is to provide them the tools to spread your content.You do that by adding sharing tools to your site. The right set of social tools can generate 31 click backs per share. This means that one share can bring back 31 social readers. Why we say the “right set of social tools”? Because limiting your sharing tools to facebook and twitter, means giving up on a lot of potentially highly engaged traffic. Across the sharethis network, for every share on Facebook, there are nearly 2 times more shares happening across the web.CARMENYou have great content, you know your audience, you know when to reach them, the only thing left is to provide them the tools to spread your content.You do that by adding sharing tools to your site. The right set of social tools can generate 31 click backs per share. This means that one share can bring back 31 social readers. Why we say the “right set of social tools”? Because limiting your sharing tools to facebook and twitter, means giving up on a lot of potentially highly engaged traffic. Across the sharethis network, for every share on Facebook, there are nearly 2 times more shares happening across the web.
CARMENAs the title of the webinar suggests, things don’t end with INCREASE. You actually have to go back and repeat until you make the most of the social traffic on your website. As a sneak peak into one of the next webinars, a great tool that helps us build on what you have already achieved is ShareThis Analytics.
DescriptionDJ Lobo (from La Mega 97.9)Good DJs are hard to come by, but in NYC the citizens are blessed to have one man who delivers insanely infectious music on a daily basis, the one and only DJ Lobo. Thousands stay tuned to La Mega 97.9 Monday through Friday at 7 p.m. to forget the headaches of their daily grind and have the #1 Tropical Music DJ ease their worries with the best in salsa, tipico, bachata, merengue, raggaeton, hip-hop and house. But since we're not all perfect and can't stay tuned in every night, DJ Lobo created his very own app, so you can have his mixes with you on the go!DJ Lobo is one busy man, that's why you can only hear his mixes live during certain times of the week. But with his all-new iPhone app you can now listen in on some of his exclusive mixes at any time of the day! Best part yet? It's absolutely free of charge and it comes pre-loaded with hundreds of MIXES! DJ Lobo makes sure to update you on every move he makes, whether it's keeping you tuned into his next event, or making sure you get hottest mix he's put together. DJ Lobo's app will give you the freshest mixes week in and week out at your fingertips!
SEANAllowed users to share their musicPlace button’s that are easily accessible, native sharingand gave the users controlLet the users feel like they control what is being shared. Don’t be deceptive and misuse the uers’ trust.Make sure you give something before you ask for someone to share, whether it be a good experience or something else
SEANIn addition to the clever implementation DJ Lobo’s app leverages our SmartDownload page in a unique way. Since many apps have much of their content locked into the app Socialize creates a page generated specifically to publish activity and content form within the app onto the web. This allows app content to be shared to popular networks like Twitter and Facebook, as well as give users that have not yet downloaded the app the ability to see the activity going on in the app from their desktop and provide users of either platform to download the app made for their specific device. DJ Lobo took it one step further and used our SmartDownload page for the app as the DJ Lobo app home page. - See more at: http://blog.getsocialize.com/2013/dj-lobo-cant-beat-the-socialize-based-beats#sthash.Iq8Ue1qe.dpufhis created a great feedback loop between him and his fans to see which playlists are getting the most chatter and likes. Once he skims through that data on the GetSocialize.com dashboard he can send notification to his groups of users that have commented, liked, or shared certain types of music and let them know about new songs or promotions that relate most to them. - See more at: http://blog.getsocialize.com/2013/dj-lobo-cant-beat-the-socialize-based-beats#sthash.Iq8Ue1qe.dpuf
What can you send out notifications for? What do your users want to be interested in? this goes back to knowing your users and knowing their interestsBe very specific about your notifications, customize an experience for your usersWhat can you send out notifications for? What do your users want to be interested in? this goes back to knowing your users and knowing their interestsBe very specific about your notifications, customize an experience for your users
SEANESPN doesn’t blast me with any old notification, its not just about them. They took the time to build a system that notifies me with the EXACT notification when I want it.For instance you can see here that of all the games that are available they wont just notify me of the top ones, I can choose which game I want to be notified.But they didn’t stop there, they allow me to choose exactly which parts of the game I want to be notified about, [list out the ways]As a user I can respect that and they gain my trust this way. I’m more willing to allow ESPN tosend notifications.This isn’t simple to do on the backend, there is some significant tehcnical challenges to get this system to work smoothly and especially at scale. The difficulty here is because you have to deal with many asynchronous systems including your own and have to know exactly when to send your notifications. Many apps backens just aren’t setup for it, so you might want to consider outosurcing this behavior to someone like urbanairship or socialize.In the end this type of engagements, but this type of feature pays-off at the end and is the best way to engage your audience.