Social Media Customer Acquisition Strategies

For Mobile Application Startups

Case Study Fetchnotes

Drew Beaurline

Introduction The scalability of the Internet dazzled businessmen and women of the 1990‘s and for a

short period of time, website valuations soared. However, the bubble eventually popped and

the financing for new Internet ventures became much more conservative. Older business

models hadn’t worked because consumers found it hard to trust transaction- focused sites.

Internet entrepreneurs had to reassess how to build a practical online business.

The new websites that emerged following the Internet bubble are loosely defined as

Web 2.0. These sites are successful because, unlike the static websites of the 1990‘s, they

allow users to change and interact with online content. Sites with the highest amount of online

interaction are now the most valuable. Yelp overtook Yellow Pages in a few short years simply

by allowing users to comment and rate local businesses. Reviews help inform consumer

purchasing decisions which made Yelp a much more valuable resource than Yellow Pages.

The relationship of total enterprise value to online interaction volume is often referred to

as network effects, and mobile computing is strengthening this correlation even further.

Consumers can now interact with online content at anytime of the day through a smartphone.

In fact, mobile online usage is expected to surpass desktop usage by 2014 (Digby.com). Likes

and reviews from social media are becoming the first thing that people witness when

conducting an online search. Social media and mobile computing created a market that is

currently in flux, causing a new wave of mobile startups to emerge.

Mobile Application Challenges It is hard to scale a mobile application into a billion dollar company when there are so

many platform and device specifications. Each mobile operating system has a unique

presentation, interaction style and software stack. Devices have different screen sizes, input

modes and hardware capabilities. The number of developers needed to handle this constantly

changing landscape can be expensive for a startup on a limited budget.

Yet, building product is only half the battle. A mobile application’s true value is

dependent upon its total number of users. This makes user acquisition equally as important as

engineering. Luckily, marketers can also take advantage of network effects. Marketing

content has the potential to spread quickly (go viral) on a highly trafficked social network at a

low cost. Marketing content includes anything from a blog post or video to an eBook or review.

Building a strong social presence helps acquire users and increases the likelihood a mobile

app will be successful. To gain a better understanding of effective social media marketing

strategies for mobile application startups, I worked with a TechStars company called

Fetchnotes that is pursuing a different approach to note taking.

Section 1: Popular Social Media Marketing Strategies for Mobile App Startups

Application Store Optimization

The nature of being a mobile application makes obtaining users through social media

more difficult. Marketers use to drive people from across the Internet to desktop landing

pages. Now, to have a viable Internet business, consumers need to download a company’s

mobile application from an app store. Even if a user engages with a company’s social content,

they still need to:

1.Pick up their phone or tablet

2.Search for the application in the app store

3.Select download

4.Input their password

5.Wait for the app to download

6.Then login to the app

This equation has a lot of steps and moving parts. Therefore, a social media strategy

for a mobile app should be designed to increase downloads by making the process of

downloading more efficient and a more positive experience for the consumer. However, the

majority of smartphone users discover apps by typing keywords into the app store search bar

(Exhibit 1). The mobile apps with the highest download rate, install base, social mentions and

review rating determine the overall rank of where an application will appear when specific

keywords and categories are searched (Exhibit 2). A mobile application’s app store ranking

means the difference between the company or their competitor obtaining more downloads.

The design of an effective social media strategy should therefore take into account increasing

all four of these factors.

Linking Social Content

Social content is always linked so a consumer can easily check out a product if it seems

interesting. The end desire for a mobile application company is to be downloaded. To

encourage this behavior, some companies will link their social content directly to the app store.

However, there are so many formatting rules to follow that every app description looks the

same. The other alternative is to link to the companies desktop or mobile website. Yet, users

on a mobile website have to constantly slide and zoom which creates a horrible user

experience.

LinkedIn neglected to play by the rules of the app store

and still encourage mobile app downloads by creating an

entirely separate mobile landing page. When a mobile user

clicks on the company’s social content or searches in Google,

it routes them to an ascetically pleasing page. The user is

prompted to either “Get the App” or use the mobile web

version by selecting “No Thanks.” This strategy makes for a

superior user experience, increases download velocity, the

overall install base and app store click through rate. These

things all add to LinkedIn’s rating and presence in the app

store.

App Store Ratings and Reviews

App store reviews are one of the most heavily weighted forms of social engagement for

consumers and app store ranking algorithms. A recent study by L.E.K. Consulting found that

“active mobile consumers value customer reviews above all other sources, including friends

and family, independent product reviews, store displays and sales associates.” Apple’s App

store redesign for iOS6 makes it clear that Facebook engagement is now a part of the Apple

ranking system. The Facebook friends that like an application show up at the top of the app

store description. However, Facebook likes and Twitter followers are better at creating brand

awareness and funneling people to the description. The app store reviews are what finalize the

decision to download.

The problem is that a great product does not guarantee a large amount of positive

reviews because the only convenient time to write a review is when the consumer sees the app

store description before they download. Why would someone write a review before they’ve

tried the product? If the user does end up loving the product and wants to write a review, he or

she needs to go back into the app store, search for the application again and then fill out the

review. This is another process with too many steps.

The pop-up review box is one solution. A dialog box appears that links to the app store

description page. While this does streamline the process, it interrupts the user in the middle of

what ever they are doing. “Some apps will even remind a user multiple times which may

inspire a negative review” (Mobile Orchard). Gathering an increased amount of favorable

reviews and at the same time keeping bad reviews out of the app store is a delicate balance.

The mobile application 360 Panorama discovered this balance. Under settings, there

are two buttons, “Send Feedback,” and “Send Love”. Send Feedback opens a screen that

looks and feels like a review, but sends an email directly to the developer. “Send love” takes

the user to the app store where they can write an awesome

review. When negative feedback comes to the company

instead of the app store, the company can control it’s destiny.

The firm can turn the angry user into a happy one by promptly

responding and supporting them, learn more about the

problem and fix it faster, optimize presence in the app store

through fewer negative reviews and create a better user

experience. 360 Panorama has a 4.5 star App Store rating.

Social Buttons

Strategically placed social buttons that are built into the application increase the

likelihood of engagement. Users will be more inclined to like or follow a company if the ability

to do so is readily available. Furthermore, allowing users to export the things they create

within an app to a social media site showcases the purpose and functionality of a mobile

application to the user’s friends at no cost to the company.

Instagram was one of the first mobile applications to implement this strategy. When a

picture is taken, the user can then decide if they want to upload the image to Facebook, Twitter

or Tumblr. Friends of the user see the value of adding filters to mobile images and are more

inclined to download the app. When social media touch points are integrated into the product, it

can create a viral loop. The company will not have to spend money or time creating marketing

content because the users do it simply by using the product.

While this strategy seems too good to be true, there are also some challenges. Some

applications do not produce share- worthy content. For example, GroupMe is a private group

messaging service. People assume when they type a message to their friends that it will not

end up on a social network. In addition, when a user can upload app content to a social

network, the company runs the risks of showcasing the product in the wrong way. What if

some of the initial users of Instagram were uploading inappropriate images? Regardless,

placing buttons into an application to like or follow a brand helps increase overall exposure.

Creating Share-worthy Social Content

Although there are several ways to encourage social sharing through product

modification, distributing share-worthy social content helps attract initial users and build a

brand.

Broad, visual social content increases engagement because it appeals to a wide

demographic and is quickly digestible on a mobile device. Research conducted by M Booth

revealed “photos and videos drive the most engagement on Facebook’s top ten brand pages.

Photos on Facebook are “liked” twice as often as text. Videos on Facebook are twelve times

more likely to be shared than links and text post

combined” (M Booth). Pictures can communicate

information quickly. The virtual recipe book, Epicurious,

posts high definition images of delicious looking meals

to Facebook and Twitter. Foodies love it. Epicurious

has over 250,000 Facebook likes and 350,000 followers.

They even coined a term around this campaign, “food

porn.”

High definition images work, but the new type of

visual content that is exciting everyone are info-

graphics. Info-graphics utilize the data that a mobile

application collects to deliver meaningful discoveries to users. Consumers today are hesitant

about sharing their personal data. Yet info-graphics help make a company’s “Big Data”

objectives more transparent. When transparency exists, people are more likely to provide their

personal information. The emphasis of visual content over text can also be seen in the new

layout of the Apple App Store. Comments and descriptions are in the background of large

screenshots.

Communication Speed

When a user communicates on a social network, a company’s response time is

important. Most mobile apps and consumers use Twitter for customer support. A quick

response can make a dejected user feel valued and mitigate bad press. Mobile app’s should

take advantage of the feedback and avoid making a costly mistake. Negative news forms on

social media before it ever reaches mainstream media so it is important to react early and not

wait.

Section 2: Fetchnotes Overview

Social networks have certainly helped connect the world. Yet there are now so many

devices, social networks and other communication mediums that it is difficult to stay focused

on what’s important. Individuals today have a lot to keep track of, and we’re not very good at

it. We miss deadlines, forget to follow- up, and the resulting stress is only getting worse as our

lives get busier. People are feeling fragmented and on information over load.

Fetchnotes is attempting to solve this problem by building a mobile application that combines

note-taking, task-management and communication. (Graphic)

Task Management

Our lives our filled with direct actions we need to take like remembering an email to a

coworker or pickup the dry cleaning. Fetchnotes makes remembering these things easier.

Users can quickly organize their tasks as they type through hash tags (Exhibit 3).

Note Taking

There are also the more latent things we want to jot down and save for a rainy day;

music to checkout, books to read, ideas to refer back to. Fetchnotes users can easily retrieve

any long-term idea from their tag drawer. For example, when I filter my tags based on the

word Brazil, I see all the ideas, to do’s, and things to research before I book my dream trip to

the 2014 World Cup. (Exhibit 4).

Communication

Lastly, there is communication, which sends these notes or actions to the other people

in our lives through SMS, email or any of the other messaging applications. I can assign a task

to my travel companion Chuck by placing an @ symbol before his name. The next time Chuck

logs into Fetchnotes, and looks at his #todo list, he will see that he needs to buy our tickets to

Brazil (Exhibit 5).

The Competitive Landscape

Note taking, task management and communication are crowded spaces with low

barriers to entry. Building a simple note-taking application requires little time and skill. But

what makes these spaces tough to penetrate is that Apple and Android develop their own note-

taking, task-management and communication apps that come preinstalled on their devices.

Evernote is a major player in the note-taking space because it provides a range of additional

features that go beyond simple text note taking. Astrid and Remember the Milk are task-

managers with large user bases. These apps provide many ways to manage reminders and

schedules. Web communication has been evolving since email was invented. There are

thousands of applications that allow a user to communicate with their friends or coworkers.

Fetchnotes Differentiation

There are several players in each one of these categories, but none effectively address

all three. Unlike all other note-taking applications, Fetchnotes doesn’t have a folder hierarchy.

The notes are a stream- of- thought, which are organized by filtering hashtags. Actions and

ideas can’t be buried in a folder somewhere and forgotten.

Fetchnotes is also pursuing a different business model than the larger incumbents. The

company will focus on idea conversion as opposed to idea capture. The most common tags in

the databases are latent with the intent to do something. Email, books, music, movies, read,

checkout, buy, groceries — it’s all intent (Exhibit 6). Fetchnotes will be a place for action and

monazite the app by matching users to the products and services they need to get things done.

The company wants to make the process of idea to action more efficient.

Section 3: SWOT Analysis Fetchnotes is part of the TechStars accelerator, which adds a tremendous

amount of value to the company. However, when entering a highly competitive space

like mobile application development, it is important to be aware of your company’s

strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Strengths

•TechStars: The TechStars accelerator has an exclusive 1% acceptance rate and provides

a wealth of opportunity and resources. TechStars companies like Fetchnotes are given

free access to video, UI and development experts to fill any temporary holes in the

company. The TechStars program also exposes their companies to the most influential

entrepreneurs in the Boston Area and showcases the teams to potential investors at a

Demo Day presentation. The exposure and network makes it easier for each company to

raise a seed round of investment.

•Product: The product has already received significant traction and the proliferation of

Twitter has made their note-taking syntax easy to understand. Since the product is also a

communication tool, it has the opportunity to spread through its use. Users can send tasks

and lists to their friends which then prompts the recipient to download Fetchnotes

(Exhibit 7).

•Data: Usage data is also strong. Daily active users divided by monthly active users is a

measure of an application’s overall “stickiness.” Exhibit 8 shows that their “stickiness” is

temporarily ahead of some of the most prominent apps on the market. Of the 35,000 users

they have acquired since April, 25% are international and the application doesn’t even allow

hashtags to be made with international characters.

Weaknesses

•Team: The team is a group of University of Michigan students that have little experience

building a company. Their best engineer and CTO decided to leave the company.

Fetchnotes does not have a UI designer or back-end engineer.

•Space: There are many players in the note-taking, task-management and communication

spaces which makes differentiating Fetchnotes a challenge. Note-taking isn’t a particularly

exciting product to sell and there are many larger incumbents that offer a wealth of

features.

•Free: Most note-taking applications are offered for free making monetization even more of

a challenge. Matching people to specific products and services is a feat that Google has

wrestled with for years and the tendency to write notes in shorthand will make uncovering a

user’s intent even harder.

Opportunities

•Intent: The fact that Fetchnotes captures intent is a powerful thing. That is why marketers

love buying ads with Google. Fetchnotes captures intent once it leaves the brain and

before it reaches Google which makes the company uniquely, positioned to broker it into

action. The company has already begun testing their idea conversion hypothesis with

#books and #read.

Threats

•Evernote/Catch: Evernote and Catch are two well-developed platforms that also attempt to

straddle the task-management, note-taking and communication spaces. Catch is a mobile

app with the ability to take down any type of note and Evernote has a “family” of

applications in its brand portfolio. Evernote could easily add an application like Fetchnotes

and leverage their network effects.

•Public Cloud: Business professionals enjoy incorporating Fetchnotes into their workflow.

Businessmen and women can attach work- related documents to their notes so that they

can reference the documents when they want to take action. However, many enterprises

do not like the idea of a third party having control of their data and have started blocking

public cloud sites like Dropbox. If working professionals can’t access Fetchnotes at work, it

loses an element of convenience since it can’t go everywhere.

Section 4: Customer Acquisition Strategies of the Fetchnotes Competitors

Evernote

Evernote is a note-taking application with a multitude of different services and

complimentary products. The company’s goal is to help people “Remember Everything.”

Users can create text, voice, image or video notes. Similar to other cloud service providers,

once a user reaches a specific data limit, they have to upgrade to a paid Evernote Pro account.

Thus, Evernote wants content that is “data rich.” The application is functional on all devices

and platforms and recently closed a $70 million financing round.

Evernote has effectively acquired customers by distributing marketing content with an

informational tone across multiple social platforms. The company believes that if “content

helps to educate, then people will want to tell their friends.” Following the trend mentioned

earlier, Evernote’s marketing collateral is typically visual. The firm has amassed a large “trunk”

of videos that showcases everything from customer testimonials to partnership

announcements. Evernote also encourages their entire team to be active on social media so

that company content receives a viral kick when it is first released.

Evernote also works hard to establish a connection with their most raving fans. Brand

advocates are far more likely to recommend the product to friends, provide insights for making

strategic decisions and engage with social content. Evernote “ambassadors” are eager to

share how the application has changed their lives, made them smarter, more productive, and

better gift givers. With the Evernote ambassador program, users can submit an application to

be profiled on the website. Currently, nine ambassadors are profiled on the company’s

website. They “teach, share and help other less active users get more out of Evernote. Each

was selected because of their passion for applying Evernote to a specific part of their daily

lives” (Evernote.com).

On Facebook, Evernote stresses the desire to go paperless and pushes product

updates and uses case videos. The company’s LinkedIn page focuses less on building

community and more on showcasing the team/open positions. Viral product features are

limited because the company only allows users to share notebooks if they have a pro account.

There are buttons within the application to make uploading any type of note to a variety of

social networks easy.

Catch

Catch also aims to capture content that is “data rich” so that users will upgrade to a Pro

account. However, Catch has a faster and leaner mobile application than Evernote. The

biggest concern for Fetchnotes is that a component of the Catch application allows users to

organize notes with hashtags. Fortunately, these notes still have to be created in a specific

folder, which means there is still a hierarchy element. Collaboration is free. Users spread the

product by inviting their friends to share a workspace. Catch recently received $9 million in

series A financing.

The company recently started investing in content marketing with an informational tone.

The Catch Facebook page is their mostly highly trafficked platform, which they use to distribute

animated graphics and customer support. The YouTube channel contains a couple low-

resolution movies demonstrating product features. The Catch Twitter following is about equal

in size to that of Fetchnotes.

Section 5: The Current Fetchnotes Customer Acquisition Strategy

To obtain 35,000 users in six months, Fetchnotes followed a four tiered customer

acquisition strategy.

Public Relations

Alex Schiff, the CEO of Fetchnotes, is a former writer for the popular financial blog

Benzinga. While working for the company, he established relationships with writers at other

niche startup and technology blogs. He then utilized those connections to obtain a small 1,000

person private beta group and generated hype for the product’s launch. Tech Zulu, All Things

Digital, The Next Web, Launch, Make Use Of and even TechCrunch have featured Fetchnotes

and helped the company gain some initial traction.

Distribution Partners

One of the biggest successes for Fetchnotes was their distribution partnership with

Box.net. Users that signed up for Fetchnotes received 25GB of free cloud storage. The debut

of the promotion was a chaotic day. The servers were so overloaded that even the team

couldn’t log into the application.

Social Content

•Blog:The Fetchnotes blog used to be hosted on the Fetchnotes website and featured text

based product updates, how-to’s, use cases and guest posts. Postings have been

infrequent since launch and have lacked a common tone and theme. Some blog content

was syndicated with other sites in the past, but the infrequency of posts has resulted in

lower traffic levels. A couple weeks into TechStars, Fetchnotes began to recognize the

correlation between visual content and total engagement. Fetchnotes moved their blog to

Tumblr because the platform is better designed for sharing visual posts across multiple

social networks.

•Video: TechStars provided Fetchnotes with free video production services. During this

time, six videos were created. Two were tutorials, three promoted the distribution

partnership with Box and one highlighted the redesign of the interface. Their videos had

the highest level of social engagement. However, it will be tough for the team to continue

distributing video content since none of the team members have prior experience. A lack of

time prevented Fetchnotes from distributing videos on a regular schedule.

•Facebook/Twitter: Fetchnotes has 2,000 Twitter followers, yet original tweets are rare.

The platform is mostly used for customer service, product updates, and video/blog

distribution. Since TechStars began, Fetchnotes has lost 25% of their followers and their

Facebook engagement is very low.

•Email: While Fetchnotes would post their text and video content to Twitter, Facebook and

Tumblr, promotion of their marketing content was mostly done through email. The user

base receives an email when the product is updated. Fetchnotes would link the most

recent video and blog posts in user emails. Sadly, the email list-serve is now encountering

a bug. Fetchnotes was unable to promote the new redesign of their application or distribute

a survey in late November.

Viral Loops

The primary focus of the Fetchnotes customer acquisition strategy is building viral loops into

the product. Fetchnotes will soon integrate with a user’s address book which will allow the

user to share a task via SMS or email. The recipient of the task will be prompted to download

the app via a link in the email or text message. Users will spread Fetchnotes simply by using

the product (Exhibit 7).

Section 6: Social Media Marketing Strategies for Mobile Productivity

Applications

Social Product Features

There is little doubt that building SMS, email and social sharing features will help grow a user

base, particularly for productivity/note-taking applications. Note-taking applications create

sharable content and users want to collaborate. If communication features are not suited for a

particular mobile app, developers should still look to inbed social buttons so that it becomes

easier for users to engage with the brand. Facebook engagement is an important element of

ASO. Note-taking applications certainly could use help differentiating their product in such a

crowded space. Viral loops are especially effective for mobile applications because they

prevent spending on content creation when resources are scarce.

Landing Page Optimization

Social media marketing content should link to mobile and desktop landing pages that

emphasize downloading the application. Many note-taking applications have a web

component, but the future of the Internet is mobile so encouraging application downloads is

crucial. Simplicity, speed and convenience are the primary objectives that users want from a

note-taking application. These criteria are not met when a user on a mobile device has to

continuously zoom in and out on a mobile web site. A landing page that emphasizes app

download increases the download velocity, install base and user experience which are critical

elements for ASO (Exhibit 2).

Positive Review Generation

App store reviews are also important for increasing an application’s presence and ranking in

the app store. As a result, encouraging users to rate an application without hindering the user

experience is important. A pop-up dialog box stops a note-taker from quickly jotting down a

thought. A better strategy for a note-taking application would be to place two buttons under

preferences; “Send Love” and “Send Feedback.” This encourages positive reviews to go to the

app store and negative reviews to travel to the company through email. This enhances the

total quantity of reviews and their average rating. Positive reviews mean a huge difference in a

space as crowded as mobile note taking.

Social Content

Visual content generates the most engagement on social networks because it is easily

digestible on a mobile device. However, note-taking applications should look to distribute

specific formats of image and video content.

•Info-graphics: Info-graphics encourage users to share more personal information with a

company. Info-graphics provide “Big Data” resources to consumers instead of other

businesses. Note-taking application users would value data that reveals helpful productivity

tips and strategies.

•Tutorials/Use Cases: Users of productivity applications typically strive to increase their

overall efficiency and possess strong type A personalities. Evernote leveraged these

behavioral characteristics through their ambassador program. They essentially showcase

the productivity kings and queens of a particular area by creating use case and tutorial

videos around them. Tutorials highlight important app features for new users and use

cases display new methods of applying the product in everyday life. If done correctly, these

videos will flatter heavy users and encourage less frequent users to utilize the application in

a different setting. This strategy increases word of mouth marketing on both sides. Yet,

creating strong visual content can be expensive for a mobile application that is just starting

out.

Communication Speed and Frequency

Productivity app users are also action oriented and time sensitive. These individuals

are not afraid to make the extra effort to write an unfavorable review or blog post. Therefore,

when an unhappy customer sends a tweet or email, it is best to respond quickly and mitigate

the bad press.

The Future of Customer Acquisition

It is hard for a new mobile application to rise through the ranks. App stores feel like

search ten years ago. However, the launch of the new iOS 6 App Store proves that both

Google and Apple are trying to make application discovery more accurate. Now that the

Facebook likes of friends are incorporated into application description pages, it is only a matter

of time before Apple and Google start weighting reviews on other social platforms. Blog,

YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter and LinkedIn engagement will influence rankings in the future.

Beginning to develop social engagement from an early stage is therefore essential for any new

mobile application.

Section 7: Recommendations for the Fetchnotes Customer Acquisition Strategy

Fetchnotes is facing branding, communication and targeting questions as the

application gains more users. The company plans to portray a fun and cute image and

potentially target busy mothers so that the app will proliferate to the rest of the family. When

questioned about this strategy, Megan Calhoun, cofounder of a popular blog called Social

Mom, explained that the Fetchnotes social tone and user interface felt “nerdy.” As TechStars

started to wrap up, the team issued a survey to help draft an effective customer acquisition

strategy for the company moving forward.

Survey

Due to problems with the email list serve, the survey was issued to 3,000 users and generated

40 responses. The final results can be viewed in Exhibit 9. The most important takeaways are

listed below:

•80% of survey participants said they discovered Fetchnotes through word of mouth or

public relations.

•70% had tried more than three task managers.

•95% proclaimed they juggle multiple roles in their lives.

•80% identified as a business professional or self employed

•80% identified as list makers both at home and at work.

•Users enjoyed using Fetchnotes because it was simple, quick and convenient.

•Age was evenly distributed between 18-65

•80% of respondents were male.

Targeting and Brand Positioning

It is advisable for Fetchnotes to reconsider targeting mothers. 80% of the survey

respondents were male and mothers would require an expensive PR push. The largest

demographics were male list makers who were identified as self-employed business

professionals. This can be explained by the initial PR push by Alex Schiff. Yet, the abundance

of males is concerning. If Fetchnotes is to effectively monetize the application through an

ecommerce/idea conversion business model, they need to get females onboard. Females

control 85% of household purchasing decisions, are more likely to talk about products with

their friends and share them on social media. Fetchnotes also should aim to target marketing

channels that span the wide age range and position the brand as a place for action instead of

just note taking.

Communication

When communicating a mobile application’s value, especially for a startup in a crowded

space, it is important to create an entirely new category away from competitors. Differentiating

Fetchnotes based on its features will ruin the company. Larger incumbents like Evernote offer

so many more. Features alone will not persuade users to migrate from Evernote to

Fetchnotes. It is better to communicate a higher level of value and consumer benefit. It was

advised Fetchnotes proclaim that the product causes less stress, more action and is fun to

use. The tone of their marketing content should be broad productivity content with a comedic

twist. Broad content increases engagement and comedy makes the content more likely to be

shared.

Product Recommendations

•Email: In addition to sharing tasks via SMS and email, Fetchnotes could benefit from a

weekly email marketing campaign. Email is an effective channel because it spans the wide

demographic. Weekly emails would display personalized productivity information. This

information could potentially be a user’s completed tasks, old #todos or a productivity

comparison to other users in their demographic. These emails would be cheap to

implement and would share- worthy. The Nike Running application is a good example.

Individuals enjoy posting the long runs they endure to Facebook. User of Nike Running can

display how hard they are exercising to friends and family. It would be the same for

Fetchnotes users when they completed a record number of tasks.

•Build a Preferences Tab: Similar to how 360 Panorama separates positive and negative

customer feedback, Fetchnotes should have “Send Love” and “Send Feedback” buttons

under preferences instead of annoying note-takers with a pop-up dialog box. This will send

happy users to fill out a review in the app store and negative reviews to the company.

Facebook likes currently play an important role in ASO. In addition to having “Send Love”

and “Send Feedback” under preferences, Fetchnotes should also add “Like us on

Facebook” and “Follow us on Twitter.” Streamlining the path to engagement increases the

likelihood a user will act.

•Export to Twitter: Fetchnotes utilizes the same syntax as Twitter. If a user is acting on a

fun task like “#Buy tickets to #Brazil,” they may want to upload it to Twitter to show their

friends. When a user hits the @ sign, they should be capable of sending a task through

email, SMS or Twitter. This would significantly help increase awareness for Fetchnotes.

Distribution Partnerships and Public Relations Recommendations

Alex Schiff’s prior experience at Benzinga allowed him to put the Fetchnotes logo on

some highly trafficked sites for free. Any press is good press for a startup in its early stages.

However, it may be helpful if the CEO try to direct his PR efforts toward application review

sites. These forums are important to consumers when searching for applications (Exhibit 1).

The prior distribution partnership was highly effective for Fetchnotes. Future partnerships and

discounts will help incentivize social engagement. Gartner Research found that discounts are

the primary reason a consumer will choose to engage a brand on social media.

Customer Support

Customer support helps expose bugs, mitigate bad press and uncover brand advocates.

Evernote did a terrific job leveraging brand advocates to spread the product through word of

mouth. Brand advocates are also more willing to help create marketing collateral for the

company. An example would be a use case. Fetchnotes should explore a similar strategy by

keeping track of the users that engage with them the most.

Social Content Recommendations

It is in Fetchnotes best interest to produce broad, visual, social media marketing content

because it is 15x more likely to be shared on a social network.

•Image: An image campaign could potentially consist of funny celebrity/athlete to do lists. I

advised Fetchnotes to consider focusing on celebrities at first since they tend to resonate

with a broader demographic.

•Video: Video content should help increase the utility users receive from Fetchnotes.

Tutorials and use cases help users gain the most from Fetchnotes, are great for

showcasing brand advocates and increase word of mouth marketing.

Social Platform Recommendations

The following platforms would also add value to Fetchnotes marketing and communication

strategy:

•Facebook: Facebook plays an important role in Apple App Store optimization.

•Pinterest: Pinterest is a hot social network that recently released business accounts.

Pinterest photos provide SEO back links.

•Twitter: Twitter provides the majority of Fetchnotes social engagement. Loosing this

following would significantly hurt the brand.

•LinkedIn: LinkedIn could help Fetchnotes uncover a talented back-end engineer or UI

designer. It may also be an effective platform for showcasing team strengths since they

are younger than most entrepreneurs.

Mobile and Desktop Landing Pages

Both the desktop and mobile landing pages should be modified to promote downloading

the application. Fetchnotes does have a web application, but the future is mobile. Linking to

the desktop and mobile landing pages in the Google Play and Apple App Store will help

Fetchnotes increase their overall presence in the respective stores. Social buttons should also

be available next to the web application login to promote engagement.

Conclusion

There are a lot of moving parts involved in creating an effective social media strategy.

Starting to address these issues early is essential. As Fetchnotes evolves, it is important that

the company differentiate itself by focusing on meaningful consumer benefits, more clearly

define their target and decide on a tone of voice for addressing users.

Social media on mobile devices is starting to play a more important role in capturing

consumer reviews. Social engagement with a brand helps legitimize the purchasing decisions

of other consumers. In the preliminary stages of product development, a mobile application

startup should look to engineer viral loops into the application. This could be anything from

communication features to social media buttons. If traction is achieved, distributing social

media content is important for retaining their status. Social engagement legitimizes the

decision for other users to migrate from larger incumbents and is also playing a more important

role in application store rankings. A company’s level of social engagement increases the

install base, download rate, social mentions and positive reviews. The complexity of forming

an effective social media strategy means that a mobile application startup should look to start

early and not wait.

Sources

Eckert, Peter. "Navigating the inherent challenges of creating a mobile app." Mobile Commerce Daily. N.p., 09 2012. Web. 9 Dec 2012. <http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/navigating-the-inherent-challenges-of-creating-a-mobile-app>. "Mobile Commerce and Engagement Stats." Digby.com. Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting Group, 2012) , 2012. Web. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. <http://www.digby.com/mobile-statistics/>. Pim Bilderbeek, . "The future of mobile." GigaOM Pro. 02 2011: 120. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. <http://www.xirrus.com/cdn/pdf/gigaom_futureofwifi_final>. "Improving Your App Store Rating." Mobile Orchard. N.p., 2011. Web. Web. 9 Dec. 2012. <http://mobileorchard.com/improving-your-app-store-rating/ >. Prete, Jared Del. "How To Navigate NEW Ranking Factors in Apple’s NEW App Store." The ROI Factor. Blue Fountain Media, 10 2012. Web. 9 Dec 2012. <http://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/ranking-factors-app-store/>. Hoffman, Paul. "The Limits of Public Clouds for Business Applications." . N.p.. Web. 9 Dec 2012.

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