What makes people download top mobile apps?

“Oh! there’s an app for that” is a phrase that we might commonly hear a lot! But that begs the question, if there is an app for that, isn’t there A LOT of apps in the market right now? According to business of apps, in 2019 there are 2.6 million apps in the google play store and 2.2 million apps in IOS. Wow. Those are A LOT of apps. 90% of them are also FREE apps which mean that Digital marketers are extremely crucial in helping these apps stand out!

So what can companies do to help apps stand out?

Let’s first take a look at successful free apps and then apply digital marketing theory to them to find out what are the different trends that people are looking for in apps these days!

According to Apple and CNET, the top most downloaded apps for 2019 are as follows:

1. YouTube: Watch, Listen, Stream
2. Instagram
3. Snapchat
4. TikTok – Make Your Day
5. Messenger
6. Gmail – Email by Google
7. Netflix
8. Facebook
9. Google Maps – Transit & Food
10. Amazon – Shopping made easy

Looking at these successful apps, what are the different trends we can see?

1. From the top 10, most of them are slow timers.

From Kaplan, Andreas M. (2012), model of classification of mobile social media applications, we can see that 5 out of 10 fall into the category of slow timers (Youtube, instagram, Gmail, Netflix and Facebook).

What does this mean for future applications that might be popular? It might indicate that what people are looking for apps to fill up their time when they are relaxing. Where time is not an issue and location is not an issue.

However, there is still a market for quick timers as Snapchat and TikTok are still in the top 5. In fact, in the top 5 apps, all of them are non location sensitive. So what it means for app developers is that the most popular apps are not made to be location sensitive. So developing less location sensitive apps would be effective and popular.

2. All the 10 apps follow the 4 I’s of digital marketing

According to Kaplan, Andreas M. (2012), The 4 I’s mobile social media are Individualisation, Integration, Involving and Initiation. All 4 of these I’s are created to do one thing which is to improve user experiences on the app. When you engage with users and add value to their mobile experience, it will in turn be better for your brand.

TO INTEGRATE:

You integrate your activities into your users lives by solving a problem that they may have in their lives. Most of these apps in the top 10 solve problems that people may have in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.

The age now redefines what it means to have an app fulfill your safety needs or your need for belonging and love. With apps slowly replacing these needs, it is a good way for mobile app developers to integrate users lives into their app instead of giving something they may not need.

TO INDIVIDUALIZE:

Most company use cookies to get information about the users so that they can better predict what the customers want and need. All of the above apps in the top 10 do that so that they can better know the needs of the consumer to help them accurately find what they are searching for. Companies that can capitalize on consumer-company has very high brand value, in fact, a report by Business Insider, confirms that people do want apps that use AI to instinctively know what they are searching for.

TO INVOLVE:

The most effective mobile social media campaigns therefore often involve the user in some form of interactive story or game to create a shared experience between the company, the user, and possibly even the user’s own social network (Kaplan 2012). Therefore, app developers should seek to involve users together with their own company. An example of this is when facebook always reminding you to wish someone a happy birthday or when spotify shows you what is your most listened song in the decade.

TO INITIATE:

User generated content helps to fulfill self actualization needs and apps can capitalize on this. Apps like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat encourages user content creation. Apps that encourages content creations like these are what people are looking for and help people to relate more with your brand. App developers that create apps that can encourage user generated content will generally be more popular.

3. Videos videos videos.

Out of all of the top 10. What can you see being in common with most of them? Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8 all have a platform that facilitates videos being posted. This is not a coincidence as top app developers have figured out that 82% of consumer internet traffic will be about videos by 2022. If you are an app developer, why not try to develop an app that will facilitate videos?

Here are some good reasons for facilitating videos in your apps:

1. Visual content is 40 times more likely to be shared than all-text content.

Video is a brilliant tool for getting the viewers locked on. It is incredibly easy to consume in comparison to a long-winded essay. We’re all guilty of passively scrolling through our feeds on social media but only the most compelling content tend to get our attention. Video allows you to be concise and capture the interest of viewers in the first few seconds.

2. Marketers can make virtual handshakes with their audience

Videos are a virtual handshake with your audiences. Audiences have shown interest if they’ve watched a video all the way through. Marketers can then guide them to take the desired action, even with something as simple as “to find out more click here”. This makes it easier for your app or platform to be shared as it is good for businesses.

3. Track Brand Engagement

As an app, most apps can only make money by the information they have off customers. You do that by tracking brand engagement. By developing analytics into your video players in apps, you can find out what customers like and dislike and what time they prefer to have on their videos. Making it easier to individualize.

There we go! We have studied and figured out what are the different trends that make people like mobile apps! What do you think! COMMENT BELOW NOW to tell me what you have found the most interesting part of what is being share in my post! What else did I miss out? Tell me below!

Citation References: Kaplan, Andreas M. (2012). “If you love something, let it go mobile: Mobile marketing and mobile
social media 4×4. Business Horizons, Vol. 55(2), 129-139