By Ana Fernandez, Copywriting Intern and Aida Reyna, Brand Planning Intern
There is fierce competition in the app world. According to latest reports, there are more than 1 million apps in Apple’s app store as of October 2013. With so much competition out there, what makes an app rise up above the rest?
Below we studied the strategy behind the top 5 rated social apps based on ratings and downloads.[1]
With1 in 3 people in the U.S. visiting Facebook everyday[2], it’s no surprise that the world’s leading social network had to develop equivalent success in an on-the-go platform. Due to its established and loyal users (who would have followed to the mobile app by default) success came fast, but Facebook was also the first social network to translate their site into a mobile platform.
With the help of influential bloggers and marketing efforts, Instagram gained 25,000 users in the first 24 hours of its release and later grew to 300,000 by the third week. How did they do it? Strategic timing. The app launched right after the iPhone 4 came out with a higher quality camera and, with the help of Instagram’s filters, everyone became a “professional” photographer. People were eager to montage their life in images across platforms and Instagram provided easy sharing and ultra-fast uploads.
Twitter was created with the mobile user in mind – the 140 character limit is based on the SMS style writing – and it hit the ground running as an app. Its success was secured in part because it provided a fast and right-this-instant way to communicate to the masses, giving way to over 500 million users, and an average of 58 million tweets per day[3]. Later on, it allowed users to share common ideas with a simple hashtag, creating instant and searchable common interests with others. The app remains the primary driver of its business with 75% of the 218.3 million active users per month accessing Twitter from a mobile platform.[4]
Pinterest excelled by understanding its audience. They found a niche market; a third of the users have annual salaries of $100,000+ and almost 70% are female.[5] While many social brands strive to appeal to a broad audience, Pinterest found that the best way to increase interaction is by creating the sense of community through common interests. Thanks to this, among other reasons, Pinterest’s success has also instigated a need for on-the-go accessibility of an app.
The ‘fremium’ model works for LinkedIn. Job hunters searching for a career can use the free model, and recruiters can easily pay the monthly or yearly fees if they wish to do so.[6] While LinkedIn has some competition, it edges out other professional networking apps by providing the same exceptional features as the site itself, such as the Inmail responses, easy job searches and more.
With the exception of Instagram and Twitter, the other top 3 social apps were an immediate success due to their already widely popular social websites. The user friendliness of the apps makes it easy to navigate through the platforms without compromising design, speed, and video/image quality. These apps are designed to easily share and re-share whatever interests you among friends and followers.
[1] Nielsen TopTen App, Social Apps, [2] Reuters, [3] ektron, [4] TechCrunch, [5] Huffington Post, [6] TI
snowghoul
pixelskylines
dailybridgerton
tangentwithtanner
