Places to Play | The world is your playground.
So you’ve created an awesome mobile app. Now what? The following are tips and best practices on marketing your new mobile app.
THE BASICS
Make sure your app is ready to be launched. You only get one chance to make a first impression, so make sure your app can do the one thing it’s supposed to do without crashing often.
Make sure your app looks good on the shelves. Even digital products need to be packaged properly to sell well. It’s important that you have a good description, a well-designed app icon image, and good screenshots in the app store.
Have a website. If your app is for an existing business, make sure you post information about the app on your website and link to the app store. If you’re app is your business, having a website will significantly increase your credibility. Make sure you link to the website from the app store as well.
If your app is a paid app, release a free version. People are significantly more likely to download your free app to try it first before purchasing your paid app compared to buying your paid app from the get-go. Of course, there are exceptions.
ENHANCE YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE
Create a beautiful splash page for your app. If your website homepage displays more information than for just one app, you should set up a separate page dedicated to your app. Make sure to promote the one great feature about your app that makes it stand out.
Create a video and post it on Youtube. There are a number of ways to create a video for your app, but the simplest way may be to use a screen capture tool and record your voice over it. You can additionally enhance the video by using video editing software like iMovie to add titles and music, edit/redo your voice over, and speed up/slow down the video captures.
Create a Facebook page and a Twitter Account. Ask yourself if your target market uses Facebook and/or Twitter, and how much they use it. Creating a Facebook page and Twitter account are really easy. There are few downsides to having these accounts, regardless of whether or not you use them; at the very least, you secure your usernames in case you change your mind later. Make sure to have links to your social media accounts on your website.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Put together a press package. The first step to doing public relations is putting together a simple press package. Remember to include a short description of your app in the email (no longer than a cover letter), screenshots, videos, links to your website and social media accounts, and if necessary a longer description of your app as an attachment.
Leverage existing contacts. Any blog or writer whose covered you, your business, or your app should be considered a contact. If you have friends who blog or write for relevant publications are contacts. Ask them kindly if they’d be interested in covering your story, and make sure to include your press package. If they’re a big-timer, include one of your promotional codes that allows them to download the app for free.
Submit your app for review. There are a number of app review websites that will review your app for free. Some will charge you, some will charge you for only an expedited review. Whether you pay or not is up to you. Assuming your app doesn’t get horrible reviews, make sure you link to these from your website. For extra credit, add the best bits and pieces from these reviews as testimonials to your website and app description in the app store.
Find and reach out to writers and online publications who’ve written about similar apps to yours. Make a list of all of your competitor apps and apps that serve a relevant purpose. For example, if your app is a cooking timer app, recipe apps would be considered relevant. If a blog or online publication has written about any of these apps, they may be likely to write about yours. Once you’ve identified the apps, search for those apps on blogs and news sites. My favorite resources for doing this are Technorati and Google Blog Search. Remember, including a promotion code (free download) will increase the likelihood of a paid app getting covered.
Find and reach out to writers and online publications who write about relevant topics to yours. The idea is simple, if your app helps people stay on track with their diet, any website or blogs that covers diets will be likely to write about your app. Search for topics on Google Blog Search, and the top blogs will show up at the top. On Technorati, make sure you select “blogs” instead of “posts” in the search bar when searching for blogs about a certain topic. Another great way to find blogs are doing a Google search to find curated lists, for example, try “best diet blogs”.
Find people with questions and problems that your app will answer. There are a variety of Q&A sites from Quora to Focus to Yahoo! Answers where people ask and answer questions every day. If your app answers a question, look for the question online and provide your app as the answer. I suggest providing alternatives to your app, allowing the readers to decide which to use. Aligning with apps worse than yours may highlight you as the best, but if you’re the small guy, aligning yourself with successful apps can bring you credibility.
MONITOR CONVERSATIONS
Set up Google Alerts for your app. Google Alerts allows you to receive email updates when anybody writes about your blog. When somebody does mention your blog, make sure to link back to the post from your website so people can find it. Make sure to share these blog posts on social media, and mention the writer or publication in the Tweet and/or Facebook post.
Monitor Twitter Conversations. If you’re not active on social media, TweetBeep or Twilert is Google Alerts for Twitter, allowing you to receive email updates when someone mentions your business on Twitter. If you’re active on social media, I would suggest setting up a search query on a more comprehensive tool, such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck (both of which are free to use). Respond to any mentions naturally as you would if you overhead this conversation at a party. If they say something nice, say thank you. If they ask a question, answer it. If they wrote an article about you, thank them lots and publicly. If they say something bad, respond as a professional customer service representative.
ALTERNATIVE RESOURCES
How to Promote and Advertise Your App (Mashable)
To Free Ways to Market Your App (tuts+)
50 Ways to Promote Your New iPhone App (Tim Cascio)
The 10 Step Approach to Marketing Your App (Net Magazine)
15 Suggestions for Marketing Your iPhone Application (Karelia)
11 Places to Publicize Your iPhone App (Mashable)
How to Market Your App (About.com)
5 Musts for Mobile App Marketing (Mashable)
7 Reasons Why Most Developers Won’t See Their App Reach The Top 100 (My Appinion)
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I’ve mentioned before the benefits of Cognitive Exercise. It’s important to regularly (1) appreciate where you’ve been, (2) enjoy where you are, and (3) look forward to where you’re going. While many traditional meditation techniques require you to put aside fifteen or more minutes of your life to maximize the benefits, I find it just as important to live a lifestyle that nudges you to do these things during your everyday activities.
A service I started using a few months ago, called Timehop, has been a great tool for nudging me to appreciating my past more often. Every day, it sends you a short email with what you were doing exactly a year ago. Information is collected from your social media profiles such as Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and LinkedIn.
During the process of deleting my emails daily, I find myself quickly scanning my Timehop emails. Even a split second of remembering what I was doing brings me a sense of calm and an appreciation for all that I’ve accomplished since then.
Today, I was sent three photos from a New Years party exactly a year ago. This was the first time I partied with my friend Alden, who I’m working with now on EntertainLA. It’s been a great year, let’s make the next one better.
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Inspired by others who have been kind enough to share their New Years Resolutions with me, I thought I’d share the list taped up on my wall:
1) Do what you say you’ll do.
2) Respond to emails promptly.
3) Work more.
4) Work on a schedule.
5) Keep home + car clean.
6) Exercise more.
7) Cook more vegetables.
8) Smoke much less. Why not quit?
9) Make more money.
10) Polish yourself. Look polished, act polished, be polished.
Extra Credit) Be Happy.
Extra credit is supposed to be easy, right?
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Within a week, most people will start thinking about their new years resolutions. What will you write down? New years resolutions don’t have to be a big change, rather, I suggest having a few easy resolutions that will make a big difference in your life. I’ve listed 44 examples below for you below.
1) Never leave clothes where they’re not supposed to be.
2) Throw out old things you don’t need immediately.
3) Keep your fridge/freezer clean.
4) What you take out today, put away today. Like scissors, brooms, and dishes.
5) When you’re busy, write down everything you need to do.
6) Think of puns in your every day life. Put a smile on your face.
7) Carry around a notepad. Or start using your phone to take notes.
8 ) Stop watching tv while doing other things. Your brain doesn’t work that way.
9) Stop comparing yourself to others.
10) Write down your emotions, like in a diary. It’s healthy.
11) Take your time when you’re in a rush.
12) Keep track of what you eat.
13) Add new vocabulary to the way you talk.
14) When in doubt, choose the riskier option. Be brave.
15) Hang out by yourself in public more often. This will make you more comfortable with yourself.
16) Get appropriate rest.
17) Add some plants to your home.
18) Wake up when the sun rises.
19) Walk more.
20) Give up less easily.
21) Draw more.
22) Sing & dance when you’re sad.
23) Count lucky occurrences.
24) Laugh for 5 minutes in front of the mirror.
25) Keep better posture.
26) Drink more water.
27) Stop eating fast food.
28) Stretch more often.
29) Congratulate yourself more often.
30) Look at your naked self in the mirror more often. Learn to appreciate your body.
31) Chew your food more before you swallow.
32) Compliment strangers more often.
33) Listen better.
34) Be more memorable when meeting people for the first time.
35) Don’t hesitate to say no when you don’t feel like doing something.
36) Make up white lies more often.
37) Keep your house clean enough to invite guests at all times.
38) Be courteous to strangers. Say “please” and “thank you” to store clerks and customer service.
39) Stop pretending like you know more about a subject than you do. You miss out on hearing what others have to say.
40) Keep emails short.
41) Share positive emotions with others more often.
42) Practice putting your emotions into words.
43) Prioritize expressing gratitude. Send thank you letters and emails promptly.
44) Arrive early to meetings.
Many of these tips were borrowed from a Japanese book titled “キッパリ!“
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Remember when somebody created a website that asked us to do nothing for two minutes? The purpose of the website was merely to bring to attention that too many of us seem to spend every minute of our waking life doing something. Does doing nothing for two minutes sound easy? Try it.
Today, I came across The Nicest Place On The Internet. It’s a website that loops videos of people coming up to hug the camera. It’s surprisingly uplifting. I haven’t added a video of myself yet, but considering I was cheered up by these people, I owe it to them to participate.
Need a hug? Go to The Nicest Place On The Internet.
I love seeing technology used in weird, but happy ways.
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There was a long time in world history where religious groups believed they couldn’t live in harmony. We’ve come a long way since then. However, the result is that some people are left out of religious communities, in part due to what’s commonly referred to as the paradox of choice.
The idea is that when we’re presented with too many choices, we don’t choose one at all.
The people who find themselves caught between religions miss out on the benefits of activities and beliefs that come with being a part of a religious community. Even the people who subscribe to a religion will often hesitate from becoming too involved in it’s activities, understandably questioning the practices of a community seemingly so illogical.
The good news is, the benefits of being a part of a religious community is very similar to being part of a successful social community. The regular conversations you have with the people you relate with provides you with direction on what is considered right or wrong, people to watch out for and vice versa, and a sense of belonging. The difficulty with relying on social communities to provide you with direction is that they lack a core set of rules that everybody agrees upon.
This leads me to the idea that it would be beneficial to have a religion about religion, a set of rules and ideas, that every religious and nonreligious person (in the Orthodox sense) can agree upon. For this religion about religions to be most effective, everything has to be presented logically in a way that still “feels right” to people of various backgrounds and religions. The most appropriate name for this religion is Metareligion.
The prefix meta-, translates to about in English, and is often used to describe something that describes itself. For example, meta-data means “data about data“ and meta-jokes are “jokes about jokes”. Following this logic, Metareligion is a religion about religions.
As I did a quick search on the term Metareligion, among other interesting ideas, I came across The Baha’i Faith, which one person describes as a Metareligion. The underlying idea for the Baha’i Faith is unity amongst the world. The teachings and rituals are vague enough to adapt appropriately to the existing religions and societal norms of each culture.
The Baha’i Faith model is new and exciting, while I question whether it’s enough to unify the world. In order to unify the world, you must include atheists an agnostics. It’s clearly difficult however, to come up with a set of rules that appeals to all religions and sciences.
Based on my minimal knowledge of existing religions and spiritual beliefs, I whipped together a quick example of some rules I imagine a Metareligion would have.
1) I will appreciate where I’ve been.
2) I will enjoy where I am.
3) I will look forward to where I’m going.
4) I will participate in a community or communities of people I love.
5) I will work hard doing what I love.
That’s basically the philosophy I follow. Would love to hear your thoughts.
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If you search for the “history of events” on Google or any alteration of that you’ll be pointed toward many historical events, but not the actually of how events started.
The word event comes from the Latin word eventus which means “occurrence, accident, event fortune, fate, lot, or issue.” The beginning of the world, for example, is an event – this explains why you can’t find the “history of events.”
What do you call it when people gather? The most appropriate word I can find is festival, at least according to it’s original meaning. The record of festivals dates back to Ancient Egypt; where the public was served thousands of loaves of bread and hundreds of jars of beer. Festivals were a time for celebration and provide people with a sense of belonging.
The purpose of a festival is celebration, and the function is a sense of belonging. This applies to the majority of activities we call “events” today.
- Birthday parties, weddings, and graduations celebrate private accomplishments or fortune.
- Conferences and trade shows celebrate an entire industry.
- Music festivals, concerts, and art shows celebrate art.
- Christmas parties, Halloween parties, and July 4th parties celebrate national and religious holidays.
- Happy hours and house parties celebrate the end of a workweek.
- Family dinners celebrate the end of a workday.
My question to you is this. First, do you go to events? If so, are they functioning properly? In other words, do these events provide you with a sense of belonging to a religious, social, or geographic community?
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I’m not the only one to suggest that you shouldn’t start a company simply because you want to start a company, but because you have an idea that solves a problem that you’re passionate about. Below is my story, that showcases how I’ve been experimenting and analyzing opportunities while being true to my passion.
Since my childhood, I’ve been both coordinating events and toying with technology. I remember in middle school, I was calling my friends’ parents to coordinate weekly movies for a group of ten or so friends. It was about the same time that I started programming simple, yet original games on my TI-89. At Claremont McKenna College, where I studied entrepreneurship and finance, I coordinated over a hundred events ranging from small weekly gatherings to large concerts and tournaments. During this time, I also taught himself photoshop, HTML, and CSS to design and develop a website (without using WordPress!) for my tee shirt company at Yeiyo.com.
Immediately after graduating from college, I taught himself PHP and MySQL to design and develop a website and CMS for an event listing website where users could search through hundreds of events and venues in Los Angeles by category, type and location. I hand-picked and wrote an original description for every event and venue listed on the website.
I wanted to provide my visitors with the ability to add their own events as well, but noticed that other websites that did this simply had too many events. Understanding that events are a venue for friends to get together, I designed a social planning tool, a user-submitted event listing and venue review website where information sharing was only shared amongst friends. I worked with a developer who used Google Apps to create the website. For six months, I tested the website with a user base of three hundred people. While the website worked well for those who used it, it lacked a simplicity, addictiveness, and a solid business model. Wanting to learn more, I closed down the website and spent a year gaining experience.
During this year, I did social media consulting for some of the largest bars and events in Los Angeles, you may have heard of Happy Ending Bar or the Beverly Hills Wine Festival. In the fall of 2011, I was a speaker at Social Media Week LA. For three months, I interned with Bullfrog & Baum, a PR agency for high-end chefs and restaurants. I became very involved in the start up scene, including winning MVP at Startup Weekend LA in October 2010. In the Spring of 2011, I participated in the LA Founder Institute with an idea that involved events and mobile commerce, but unhappy with the complexity of my business model, decided it wasn’t the time to continue and voluntarily left the program three months in.
A serendipitous meeting at a cafe in early 2011 lead to a start up consulting gig, where I provided weekly consulting for the CEO of Bungalux.com. I’ve since then consulted for start ups in new media technology, transportation, and snack foods. In the summer of 2011, I joined the Hub LA team as their events director for a few months as they geared up to launch their shared workspace for social entrepreneurs. During this time I worked closely with event companies and community organizers throughout Los Angeles and tested a vast number of technologies available for events.
It was only recently that I randomly had a breakthrough with my idea, and now I find myself with the burning desire to tackle this with all my might. I’m significantly more prepared than when I was two years ago. It makes sense to me that I would create a solution for events that leverages technology and marketing.
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