Five Key Ingredients To Make Your App Go Viral
Creating an app that goes viral is one of the highest achievements an app developer can attain. Getting an app to go viral isn’t a marketing strategy that can be executed once the app is launched; instead, virality needs to be built into the app from the beginning.
Here are five key ingredients into creating a viral app:
1. Effortless Design
The best apps appear so effortless that the design fades into the background, almost as if it’s not even there, making the task at hand smooth and easy. The flow of the app is necessary in order to engage users into staying on the app for extended periods of times without getting bored.
The best ROI of mobile apps come from effortless apps like Pinterest or Instagram, for the user loses a sense of time and self by becoming completely immersed. And, these apps have a hidden “gem,” meaning they force the user to share their findings with other users, thus aiding in the app’s virality.
2. Reward For Use
A basic psychological principle, the best tool to encouraging a certain behavior is to reward. When applying that to apps, the most popular apps motivate its customers to share the app with their friends by giving them a gift or reward for each friend they get to use the app.
Inviting friends should be a core process in the app, rather than an afterthought, thus somehow connect sharing with part of the app’s daily usage. In the case of Pinterest, the act of repinning constitutes as sharing. Additionally, Pinterest connects with other social media sites like Facebook, which advertises to other people the use of the app.
3. Hand Over Control
Virality and privacy are polar opposites. Thus, for an app to achieve virality without invading privacy, it must be transparent. Be open and up front about what the app is sharing, and give users complete control over whether to share.
Many users who do not yet trust the app will not want anything to be shared, and if they cannot control the privacy, they will stop using the app or delete it.
4. Bring Them Back
The more people that use the app, the longer the app will remain successful. By word of mouth and online sharing, the app will continue its growth in popularity, which will increase profits.
Send users useful notifications that motivate them to return instead of waiting for them to start using the app again. This will encourage users to continue using the app, otherwise users might forget to use it.
5. Be Useful To A Lone Person
The app should benefit users, even without the social aspect. While this is not a requirement, it increases the chance of virality, for users will want to share the app because it serves a purpose outside of social sharing.
While there is nothing that guarantees that an app will go viral, these five steps increase the chances toward an overwhelmingly successful app.
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