What makes an app viral? Viral marketing is all about your customers selling to other customers. Really it comes down to getting friends to invite friends. Viral marketing is not new, it just happens more easily and much faster. Now viral growth is getting built into APIs and the actual platform. That is what Facebook has done well.
With recent changes to Facebook most app developers are focusing on tuning their apps and optimizing the user interface. Just like content is king on the web, functionality and user experience is king in apps. If you have a great app it will grow. As the platforms change their policies and systems, the good thing is that everyone has to play by the same rules.
Let people know that you have interacted with them. When this happens people will participate more because they know that something happens at the end. Like Scrabulous, you know that you have to take a turn because your partner is waiting for a turn. These useful personal interactions are key to viral growth. Watch your uninstalls because vitality doesn’t do any good if you have a bunch of uninstalls. The average uninstall rate used to be 20% and now it is up to as high as 50%. Redo the user interface and get new graphics to re-engage users and you can also email them and let users know about new features and enhancements.
Games continue to have the largest viral growth and have not been hampered by recent changes by Facebook. The game experience is much different than other web experiences. Games offer an experience that progresses. Things change based on what the user does over time. That has helped them grow viral.
User feedback is vital to viral growth. If you listen to your users you will know what you need to do to improve the user experience. This will help virality. Think how you can reward your users for their actions like leaderboards and scoring.
As I said in a previous post, most experts agree that you need to launch a new app with a very conservative stance on growth. So if facebook allows you to send 5 invites per person per day then only send 3 so you can make sure you can optimize the experience and the messaging. Once you actually start seeing viral growth you get more aggressive and turn up the invites. This way when your app is viral you have the ability to grow your app.
no comment untill now