During the Mobile World Congress, we attended a number of very useful workshops. One of them was Ross Sheila’s workshop where we learned how to drive user growth and app engagement with Twitter. If you didn’t have time to attend this workshop than you don’t know what you missed. Luckily for you, I cannot wait to share what I learned.
There are about 288 million Twitter users, 80% of whom use Twitter on mobile. Over 1 billion tweets are shared every 2 days, and 58% of Twitter users have installed an app in the past month. Besides Twitter and your app there are 3 million other apps, so the question is:
“How Can Twitter Drive User Growth and App Engagement?”
Twitter is a unique platform that can help you increase the number of users in three ways: organic growth, paid acquisition and paid app engagement.
Spread the Word About Your App for Free
Twitter is the open community that is specialized in follower engagement. To motivate your users and followers to spread the word about your app, take full advantage of Twitter cards. There are different kinds of Twitter cards, and the one you need is the App card. The App card showcases your app directly within a tweet that provides users with an image of your app, its rating and a call to action while also enabling them to download or open your app with a single click.
The easiest way to create the card is to connect it to app’s landing page. All you have to do is to embed the code below just before closing the head tag </head>.
<meta name="twitter:card" content="app">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@WheelioApp">
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Wheelio is a photo editor that allows you to easily apply text, filters and effects to your photos. Use different fonts and filters to create stunning pictures you will love sharing with your friends." content="US">
<meta name="twitter:app:name:iphone" content="Wheelio">
<meta name="twitter:app:id:iphone" content="886113848">
<meta name="twitter:app:name:ipad" content="Wheelio">
<meta name="twitter:app:id:ipad" content="886113848">
<meta name="twitter:app:name:googleplay" content="Wheelio">
<meta name="twitter:app:id:googleplay" content="com.twelverockets.wheelio">
Each app guide is unique meaning you will have to adjust the code for yourself. Here you can find out how to adjust your app card properly.
- twitter:card – must have “app” as a value;
- twitter:site – use your @username in order to enable card analytics;
- twitter:description – describe your app in 200 characters or less;
- twitter:app:id:iphone and twitter:app:id:ipad – your app’s App Store ID;
- twitter:app:id:googleplay – your Google Play ID;
- twitter:app:country – if your app is not available in the US store, add another two-letter country code.
- You can also have lines where you can add a custom URL scheme.
Once you add the code within your website you need to validate your card. Go to the card validation page and enter your card URL. If everything is right, your card will be approved in a few minutes. After approval, post the link on your Twitter wall to see how it looks. It should look something like the picture on the right. As you can see, there is a call to action button that leads directly to App Store or Google Play.
Capitalize on the benefits of the App card and allow your users to share it from your app. Once they share it, their followers will see the tweet in their timelines and will be able to open or install the app. Measurements are important, so go to Twitter’s card analytics to see your card’s performance. Measure user sharing and app installs. According to Ross, the Twitter advantage is that the average Twitter user has 25% more apps on their devices than the average smartphone owner. This is the first step in how you can raise awareness and acquire new app users using Twitter.
Start Your First Campaign And Boost User Awareness
Create a new campaign for app installs or engagement. If you want, you may choose the conversion tracking option that will allow you to track the number of installs and other events that are important to you. If not, proceed with creating your app campaign. Twitter has a great range of targeting options and one of them is keywords. Choose popular words that describe your app best and then define category interests. When you create this type of ad, it is important to be creative. Use an image App card featuring a fun, colorful image. Try to ask crazy and provocative questions.
Stimulate app engagement and in-app conversions
Here we have two type of goals. The first is to drive in-app conversions and the second is to engage existing users.
The first goal is to create an ad or tweet that will drive users to purchase. $69 million were spent on apps and on in-app purchases in the last 30 days. These tweets should be designed for existing users. Use the Tailored Audience option to identify an existing audience on Twitter and make use of them in your campaigns. To create a Tailored Audience, go to the Twitter ads page and from the tools tab choose the audience manager. There are three types of tailored audiences: tailored audiences from lists, tailored audiences from web and tailored audiences from mobile apps. Audiences from mobile app events are groups of people who have taken a specific action in your app, such as installing it or signing up. To learn how to do this, see the conversion tracking for mobile apps page. By default, when you set up a mobile app conversion tracking event, Twitter will create a tailored audience that you can use for remarketing or exclusion in your campaigns.
Check out CSRClassics’ Twitter profile for examples of the kinds of tweets that drive in-app conversions.
The next big thing is in mobile app retargeting. As you may know, Twitter recently acquired the New York-based TapCommerce, a specialist in mobile re-targeting and re-engagement advertising. This service processes 40 billion impressions per day on over 50.000 apps. They offer great features such as real-time bidding, deep-linking, app usage analytics data and a segmented audience option. Ross also suggests extending the reach of your app promotion campaigns by using the Twitter publisher network which reaches 1 billion devices.
Twitter users do more and spend more: 58% have downloaded an app in the past month and are 27% more likely to make an in-app purchase. The conclusion of the Twitter workshop was that sharing from apps drives organic user growth and that these app conversions are happening on Twitter.
