Spreading the Word Through Social Media
I mentioned social networking back in Chapter 4, and how you can start a Facebook site and Twitter subscription based on your application. Now, it is time to make them work for you.
Hopefully, you took my advice in Chapter 4 and have started the habit of tweeting. During work on your application, you can leave tweets that inform the public of your process. By now, you have probably found a lot of people to follow, and you should have some followers yourself. You should then go to Twitter and make certain that you tweet the release date. This will cause your followers to know what to expect, sort of like the hype of a movie preview.
Although it’s somewhat difficult to work with at first, you should be comfortable with Twitter on your computer and mobile device. If you want to, you can use a dedicated client app such as Twitterrific, Echofon, TweetDeck, or the official Twitter app for Android to keep track of it all. You can even head to oneforty’s comprehensive Twitter apps directory at http://oneforty.com to explore all manner of Twitter tracking.
You should use Twitter like you use the comments on your blog. Figure out what potential users have to say about your application and address them directly. You can then tweet about how the app is going—microblogging is an excellent medium for addressing issues without giving away too much detail.
As you reply to comments, you put a human face on your product and show the world that you are not just a soulless machine whose only purpose is to make money. In the same manner, don’t be constantly advertising and promoting your application, or you will come off as a 24/7 advertisement that people want to go away.
You will also have to balance that by remaining on topic. You don’t want to start a whole series of tweets about things that have nothing to do with your application. It is all right to go off on a tangent occasionally, but too much going off topic will lead to another type of audience—or worse, no audience.
Another useful tool with Twitter is the hashtag. A hashtag is the pound symbol (#); it’s used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet. Users put a # before relevant keywords in tweets in order to categorize those tweets for an easier search. Other Twitter users can click a hastagged word in any message and it will show them all other tweets in the category. Hashtagged words that become very popular can end up as trending topics.
Note A lot of journalists use Twitter as a source for finding new stories. Don’t be surprised if you receive a message from a news organization wanting to talk about your application. It’s quite possible that they heard about it on Twitter!
The important thing to understand about Twitter and other social networks is that quality is always better than quantity. It is not important how many followers you have, but rather who these followers are. It is the difference between 10,000 Facebook friends and 100 true friends.
In the same manner, you don’t want to just start following people so you can be followed. You want to follow someone that you can learn from. Any Android (or even iOS) developer is fair game, since you will have to deal with similar issues. You should definitely follow publishers and journalists, as they are people of influence. Don’t forget your friends and peers as well. Follow those who are following you.
You should also take the time to retweet other people’s posts, especially if they are something that your audience would enjoy. The more you do this, the more others will eventually retweet yours. Think of it as Twitter karma.
You should take some time to create a Twitter list as well. This way, you can organize people into groups, and follow them with a quick glance every day. For example, you can name one group Developers, and see what is going on in the Android development community these days.
You should then spread the word on Facebook, to all your friends, and those that have joined the Group that you have created.
By this time, you should have created a separate Facebook page for business. Once you get 25 people to like it, you can have a domain name of www.facebook.com/your-business-name.
Getting the word about your release date is pretty easy. Simply do the following:
- Click your Facebook page’s Edit Info link.
- Click the Marketing link.
- Click Send an Update.
You should use this method of spreading the word sparingly, as messages like this are broadcasted ad nauseum throughout the Internet. You don’t want to overuse this.
Before your launch date is also a good time to start using Facebook Insights, a free analytics service. When you log into your Facebook page as an admin, you can click the View Insights link to view the metrics about your Facebook page. By studying this information, you can find out who is looking at what you are doing, which is information that will be helpful in the future.