Social Media Marketing - A complete guide for mobile apps

Social Media
Marketing
A complete
guide for
mobile apps

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Contents
1 . I N T R O D U C T I O N
2 . S E T Y O U R G O A L S
3 . K N O W Y O U R
A U D I E N C E . D E F I N E
Y O U R B U Y E R P E R S O N A
4 . T H E T O N E O F V O I C E
5 . F R E Q U E N C Y A N D
T Y P E S O F P O S T S
6 . H O W T O M E A S U R E
Y O U R S U C C E S S
7 . C O N C L U S I O N

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INTRODUCTION
The mobile app industry just turned 10 in 2018. This market has seen an amazing increase in
the number of downloads and the number of apps available in Google Play and App Store. In
2018, there were 194 billion app downloads, compared to 178 billion in 2017. By the end of
2020, it is estimated that there will be 258 billion mobile app downloads.
Back in 2008, the start year of mobile apps, App Store only had 500 apps available. After 10
years, App Store has 2.3 million apps. In comparison, Google Play has more than 2.7 million
apps available.
In all of this hustle and bustle, it is hard for an app to distinguish from another. The sectors
that saw the biggest increase in downloads are:
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Creative/customize tools
(wallpapers, templates,
lock-screen)
Newspaper and Magazine
apps with a 135%
increase in downloads
Productivity apps
Lifestyle and Social Gaming apps.
In all of this hustle and bustle, it is hard for an app to distinguish from another. That’s why the
most important thing for an app is to find a unique voice that will help customers relate to
their product.
An essential component in the communication strategy of any mobile app is social media
marketing which refers to using social media to promote a product or a service.
INTRODUCTION

The social networks landscape is pretty crowded, that’s
why every app owner out there should choose only the
social networks that fit best their user persona. Still,
there are some channels where every mobile app needs
to boost its presence:
Facebook Instagram
Twitter LinkedIn
especially for Fintech
or business apps
In this guide we are going to focus on this channel and help you to:
- Set your objectives
- Create a buyer persona profile
- Establish the tone of voice of the app
- Learn how and when to post on every social media channel
- Monitor and analyze your results on social media
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SET YOUR GOALS
Everybody knows that social media is a must, especially when we talk about mobile apps. You
need to be present on all of the big social media channels. However, before you start
posting, you will need to go on the road with clear goals.
When it comes to social media marketing,
you will not want to set conversion
objectives (such as mobile apps downloads
or in-app engagement). The right objectives
for social media are:
Besides the general objectives above (applicable to all social media channels), every social
network has its own success metrics you should keep an eye on.
Traffic
generation Awareness
Engagement
(towards the app store,
towards the website, etc.)
Gathering
social proof
(through reviews
and testimonials)
Functioning as a
support channel
(through messenger
for example)
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Facebook
Facebook is one of the biggest social media platforms that has
over 2.2 billion users. Since 2014 it has almost doubled its
number of active users.
On this platform you will want to measure:
Page Likes
Page Likes
A reachable, yet challenging objective for Facebook will be to have between 1000 and 1500
Page Likes in the first three months. However, this number can vary a lot depending on the
type of app, the industry, or the buyer persona.
Reach Engagement
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This metric is important because a bigger number of page likes allows you to share your
content with more people. Also, it will help you increase other relevant metrics on Facebook.
Reach
Reach on Facebook means the number of people who saw your post. You will see that this
number tends to vary from day to day. It is not influenced solely by your type of posts, but also
by the increased number of content shared every day on Facebook.
There are two types of reach to look out for. First one is the organic reach. Which means the
number of people who have seen your post through unpaid distribution. On the other hand,
there is the paid reach (the number of people who have seen your post due to paid
advertising). We recommend aiming for organic reach as much as possible. It is easier to
manage, and it won’t affect your budget. In the first three months, it is recommended to have a
reach between 3000 and 5000 people.
Engagement
The engagement rate shows you the number of people who interacted with your post. It
includes the people who shared, liked, and commented. Also, it shows the number of people
who clicked on the link you shared. This is how you gain more potential clients (or leads) for
your app.
Engagement can also be paid and organic. Organic engagement on Facebook is when you post
and users comment or like the post. Paid engagement means boosting a post or creating an ad
to encourage users to react.
In the first three months, you should have an engagement rate of 300 - 500. This number
includes only organic engagement. If you boost your posts, we recommend setting the
objective at 800.
Tips to increase these metrics:
- Invite friends to like the app’s page;
- Post regularly;
- Include emojis, videos, and images to increase engagement;
- Share the content on your personal account;
- Respond to comments (even the negative ones);
- Educate your audience.
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Instagram
The picture-perfect life is everything you see on Instagram.
Here, the main goal is to catch the eye of the user with
amazing visuals.
With more than 1 billion users, Instagram is the next most
important social media channel where you can make your app
seen. Since 2014, the number of active users tripled, and it is
still raising.
Just like on Facebook, you will need to keep an eye
on some key metrics:
Followers Likes
Visits on Page
(per week)
Interactions
on Instagram
Story
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Followers
Likes
The number of likes you get (on average) on posts is another metric to monitor. First, it shows
you that users relate and enjoy your content. Also, it shows that your message reaches these
people. At first, you should aim to have at least 50 likes per post. After three to six months, you
should reach up to 200 likes.
The number of followers is quite important on Instagram. The more followers you have, the
more benefits. After reaching a certain number of followers (10,000), you can include links
directly in Instagram Stories which is known as the swipe up feature.
An achievable goal for your app’s account is to have between 1000 and 2000 followers after
the first three months of activity. Just like on Facebook, this number can vary depending on the
type of app and buyer persona.
Visits on page
When you have a business page, Instagram shows you (top of the page) how many people
visited your profile in the last seven days. When people visit your profile, they also tend to click
on the link in bio if your description appeals to them. So, the more people visit your profile, the
more clicks on the link in bio (tip: don’t forget to use UTM links to be able to track the traffic in
your analytics tool).
For this metric, it’s impossible to set a clear objective since it changes from week to week.
However, you can take an interval such as between 50 and 70 visits per week.
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You can also keep an eye on Interactions on Stories. When you post a story (which is only
available for 24 hours), you can click on it and see the number of people who saw it and also
the number of interactions. This includes clicks on page or answers to questions.
Since Stories are very popular at the moment, people are more likely to watch your story than
to see your post. On average you should have an interaction rate of 30-40%. This means out of
100 people who saw your story, 30 to 40 people should interact with it.
Interactions on Stories
Tips to increase these metrics:
- Post daily;
- Post a story 3-4 times per day;
- Create catchy visuals;
- Short and helpful descriptions;
- Use filters, emojis, hashtag bars, and other Instagram Stories
functionalities;
- Create an attractive feed;
- Share fewer promotions and more interesting content.
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Twitter
Twitter is a place where you can grow your business and make
your app known. However, you will need to spend a bit more
time on this platform compared to Facebook or Instagram. As
you will see, there is a massive amount of content posted on
Twitter every day.
Before you start posting on Twitter, here are the
metrics that will measure your success:
Followers Retweets Replies
Engagement
rate
Followers
The first metric we are going to talk about is followers. When it comes to Twitter, the number
of followers is important. The more followers you have, the more people will be able to see
your posts. However, it is not as hard to get followers compared to Facebook (Page Likes) or
Instagram (followers).
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You will need to establish a goal for every month or for a period of three to six months. In the
first week, we suggest reaching 100 followers. After that, in the first three months, you can
reach 1000 followers. Every month, try to bring at least 100 new followers.
Retweets
The second metric to take into consideration is Retweets. If your tweet is retweeted by an
account that has thousands of followers, it will reach more people. Some of those people might
even follow your page or download your app. Try to have at least 40-50 retweets in the first
three months.
You can also retweet the tweets that seem interesting to you. Since it is recommended to post
between three to seven tweets every day, it might be hard to reach this number with your own
content. That’s why retweets are great. They show you appreciate another person’s work, they
create connections and bring followers.
Replies
Replies on a tweet show that people are interested in what you posted. Also, replies and
retweets can help you increase the next metric, engagement rate. Don’t expect too many
replies in the first few months. However, try to aim for at least 10 replies per week, depending
on how much you post per day
Engagement Rate
Just like on Facebook, engagement means any like, retweet, impressions, comment. Simply put,
engagement is any interaction with your tweets. We’ll say it now: it is hard to have an
engagement rate of 1% or more per month (at least in the first month).
We recommend setting an achievable goal for the first month - between 0.3 and 0.5%
engagement rate. Every month, try to increase the rate with 0.1%.
Tips to increase the metrics:
- Post very often (as much as seven tweets per day);
- Retweet anything that seems interesting;
- Reply to the tweets you find interesting or intriguing;
- Use hashtags;
- Create Lists;
- Pin the tweets that are important;
- Use videos and photos to increase engagement
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LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social media platform with a focus on businesses.
It is more likely to see job offers and Bitcoin talks than photos
and short posts on LinkedIn. Compared to Facebook,
Instagram, and Twitter, this is a social media platform for
some types of apps, not for all.
If you have a gaming, tech, or lifestyle app, perhaps you
shouldn’t struggle with LinkedIn. However, a fintech app or
one that is addressed to business people, tech professionals, or
to recruiters will see big success on this platform.
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Once you decided that this platform suits your app,
here are the metrics you need to watch out for:
Post views
Page views
(updates)
Followers
Posts views
(articles published
on LinkedIn)
Followers
When it comes to Followers, it is just like on any other social media platform. You will need to
start small (50-100 followers in the first month) and then grow with 30/40 followers each
week. If you only have 10 followers, the chances of more than 10 people seeing your posts are
really low. The more followers you have, the more people your content reaches.
Once you set a goal, you will need to stick to it. Watch out: on LinkedIn, it is harder to gain
more followers compared to other social media platforms. However, it is not impossible,
especially if you know and understand your audience.
Post views
This metric shows you how many times your post was seen by other people. However, it
doesn’t show unique views which means that a person could have seen the post three times in
one day. The number of views is important because it brings traffic to your page.
This is a very volatile number, but you still need to set a goal. In the first month, try to gain at
least 100 views and increase that number to 500 in the next three months. Of course, this
number depends on how many followers you have and how frequently you post on LinkedIn.
Page views
This one is the most crucial metric for LinkedIn. Just like on Instagram, the more people visit
your page, the more chances of people visiting your website or the page of the app on Google
Play or App Store. Every page visitor could be a lead.
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Try to set a real and achievable goal such as 200 views per month. In the first month, it might
be a bit hard to get this many people (especially if you have few followers). With time, the
number of followers will increase and so will the number of page views.
Before speaking about the type of posts you should publish on each social media channel to
achieve your objectives, there’s another thing you’ll need to figure out: who are you talking
to?
Creating a buyer persona for every segment of your audience is THE STEP to take
before kicking off any marketing activity. In the next chapter, we will show you how to
build from scratch a buyer persona profile.
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KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.
DEFINE YOUR BUYER PERSONA
The root of the problem
for apps or products that
fail at getting clients: they
don’t address a person,
they talk for everybody,
and nobody is listening. If
you want to get your app
downloaded, you will
need to figure out your
buyer persona.
A buyer persona (marketing persona) is a profile made for your target audience or for each
segment of your target audience (sometimes you can obtain up to 5-7 buyer personas, and
that’s good). Apart from knowing the social, demographic, and economic status of an audience,
you need to dig deeper and discover their behavior, interests, hobbies, and particularities.
First off, you will need to segment your audience. Find out how many different segments are
in your target audience by running customer discovery interviews or through research. Then,
create a buyer persona profile for each segment of your audience. You need to do this because
you’ll need to adapt your social media messages based on these insights. You’ll also choose
your channels considering the information above.
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Who is my customer?
Background
- Family
- Job
- Career path
Demographics
Identifiers
- Gender
- Age
- Location
- Income
- Behavior
- Interests
- Communication
preferences
- Hobbies
What does he want?
Goals
Solutions
Challenges
Ask yourself what the main goals your
customers want to achieve are
- Primary goals
- Secondary goals
Ask yourself what the main problems
that might impede the buyer from
downloading the app are
- Primary goals
- Secondary goals
Ask yourself
What can you (and your app) do to solve
your buyer’s challenges?
How can you help him/her achieve his/her
goals?
Why does he want
what he wants?
Ask for real opinions:
here you’ll want to speak with some early
adopters of your app and find out why it’s
important to solve all the challenges above, and
what’s important for them.
Identify common Objections:
find out what are some must-haves for your
buyer personas, and identify if and why they
wouldn’t buy your product.
How are you gonna
communicate your solution
to them?
The marketing message:
define the marketing messages that you will
use for each segment of your audience to
describe your solution and how you solve the
challenges and the goals above.
The channels:
identify the main channels where your
users are active (try to ask them instead of
supposing).
Elevator pitch:
define a short, snappy proposition to describe
your solution for each segment of your
audience.
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Now, all the information above might seem a little bit overwhelming. Let’s take the example of
a mobile app from real life and build a buyer persona together.
Nota bene! We didn’t run a market research for this app. All the information below
are purely hypothetical and meant to showcase the process of creating a buyer
persona.
Let’s suppose we have developed Glovo, a mobile app that allows users to purchase products
from various vendors (including flowers, groceries, kitchen supplies, etc.) and receive them at
their front door at any time, in a matter of hours. The market research shows that women
dominate grocery shopping, so it is clear that an important segment of Glovo’s audience are
women. So we’ll take Alice as an example, a potential user of the app.
Alice's
background
- Master’s Degree in
Communication
- Senior PR at a law firm
- Married
- One child (5 years old).
Alice’s
demographic data
Alice’s
identifiers
- Alice is 34 years old
- Woman
- Monthly income of 1500 euro
(high income)
- Lives in an urban area
(Bucharest, Romania)
- Travels often for business
meetings and summits.
- Upper-class behavior
- Hardworking (spends on average
nine hours per day at work)
- Interested in social media
- Passionate about e-commerce
- Shops from local stores
- Uses more than five mobile apps
per day.
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Alice’s goals
- Primary goal: to be able to shop groceries from
various vendors fast, easy and secure
- Secondary goal 1: same-day delivery
- Secondary goal 2: multiple payment methods
Challenges (what are the
challenges that you, the
promoter of the app, will
have to overcome to
convince Alice to use your
product)
- Lack of information: she never heard about this type
of app, so you’ll need to enforce your messages and
gain social proof
- Lack of trust: she’s not sure somebody else can
choose quality products as she would do, so you’ll
have to communicate how you sort the products
- Exigent when it comes to UX, the range of products,
the range of shops: the app should be user-friendly
and start with a wide range of shops & products.
Solution (define your
solution considering the
info above)
- A one-stop-shop mobile app that allows people to
purchase any product, from various vendors, and
have them delivered in the front of their doors
- Key benefits of the app: user-friendly, wide range of
vendors & products, history tracking, multiple
payments methods
Common objections
- Too few stores
- Delivery in more than 24 hours
- Shipping tax too big
- App crashes
- Features not working
Marketing messages
and elevator pitch
- Key marketing message: Glovo picks up and
delivers anything in your city within minutes:
food, pharmacy, flowers, alcohol, groceries,
games, socks, your favorite burger. A one-stop-
shop delivery app.
- Elevator pitch: Glovo delivers the best
products of your city in less than one hour-
If you follow every step, you will be able to create a buyer persona for a segment of your
audience. Once you are done, create another one and another one until you finish all of the
segments of your audience. In the end, you can have anywhere between three to ten buyer
personas (although we suggest keeping your buyer personas up to 4-5; otherwise it will be
difficult to create so many targeted communications).
Setting up your goals and creating the buyer personas was just the beginning of the
process. Now, let’s get to the real business: how to promote your app on social media.
First step: establish the tone of voice.
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TONE OF VOICE
If your app was a person, how would it be like? Once you
answer this question, you will find out your app’s tone of voice.
However, the tone of voice of a brand needs to be adapted for
every social media channel.
Let’s go through every channel and see what tones of voice
are recommended.
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Facebook
Facebook is about finding your voice! Here your brand can increase its visibility and
choose almost any tone of voice. However, you will need to maintain that tone of voice in
every post.
Tone of voice on Facebook:
Friendly
Debonair
Cheerful
CaringHelpful
Write every post as if you write
it for your friends. You don’t
need to be formal or uptight. On
Facebook, you can use any tone
you like, as long as it suits your
buyer persona.
(relaxed, happy)
Don’t seem tense or agitated
when you receive a comment.
Help the user out with a relaxed
attitude.
Put a smile of the faces of your
users with a joke or with a
motivational quote from time to
time.
Tip: Modify a motivational
quote and include the name of
your app to make it more
amusing.
Try to give as much info as
possible about the app. Answer
any time a client can’t figure out
how to use your app.
Don'tsDo's
Don’t be too promotional! Your posts shouldn’t
look like you are trying to sell your product every
day (even though that is what you want).
Don’t judge! Users hate apps that judge their
customers in comments and give unwanted advice.
Don’t be rude! Never clap back to your own
customers.
Don’t be indifferent! Answer every time you get a
request or give advice when people ask you.
Be friendly! Establish a relationship between your
app and the audience.
Be funny! Use funny quotes, photos, cartoons.
Be helpful! Educate your audience about the niche
of your app.
Be respectful! Try to respond politely even to
negative comments.
Be honest! Accept when you made a mistake and
apologize. 90% of users expect brands to be honest
and admit their mistakes or problems.
Show that you care about your
users and give discounts to loyal
customers.
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Instagram
Instagram is the place for amazing visuals, so where do words fit in? This platform is
best for brands that want to focus on photos, videos, and infographics. However, even on
Instagram, you need to write a description for your post. With the photo you attract; with
the description you convert!
Tone of voice on Instagram:
Casual Funny
Motivational/
Inspirational Enthusiastic
Resonate with users. This type
of tone of voice takes a more
personal approach.
Just like on Facebook, you can
approach subjects more
humorously.
Motivating users is important,
especially for fitness/lifestyle
apps. Inspirational quotes and
motivational before and after
pictures increase engagement.
Make your users feel better
after seeing your posts. Be
optimistic every time you write
on Instagram.
Do's Don'ts
Don’t spam your users with the same messages
over and over again.
Don’t be dull! Apps that have a strong personality
are more appreciated.
Don’t hide information from your users! Be as
upfront as possible with all of your
offers/discounts/promotions.
Don’t act like the know-it-all expert. Instagram
users prefer enthusiastic posts, not matter-of-fact
posts.
Post before and after motivational photos.
Be friendly! Users appreciate brands that are
cheerful.
Act like the funny friend in the group. Post jokes
and funny cartoons.
Inspire your users with posts that are relevant to
the app. For instance, if you have a fitness app, you
can post three healthy breakfast ideas.
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Twitter
Twitter is the short and fast version of Facebook. There’s no room for long stories. Also,
if you snooze on Twitter, you lose. A trend on Twitter has a short life span compared to
one on Instagram or Facebook. Since things happen fast here, you will need to keep up
the pace.
Tone of voice on Twitter:
Friendly
Resonate with users. This type
of tone of voice takes a more
personal approach.
Honest Informal
Always be upfront about what
your app can offer and
acknowledge your mistakes.
Speak in a more personal tone,
include slangs, catchphrases,
and jokes.
Calm
On Twitter is better to keep
calm and carry on, especially if
you are dealing with trolls.
Respectful
Take the high road and do not
offend the users. Admit that the
app has a bug or that it is hard to
use a certain functionality. Don’t
blame the user for his or her
lack of knowledge, try to explain
to clients how to use the app.
Do's Don'ts
Never post less than one tweet per day!
Don’t be unresponsive. Every time you get a reply,
make sure to answer and help (when you can).
Show that you care about the users. Give advice
and add some demo videos to help them
understand your app.
Post very often! Update users about the state of the
app.
Twitter is not the place to be promotional. Only
10% of your tweets can include promotions.
Be caring! Show that you take care of your users
and that you create new features to fit every need.
Strong personality is also a bonus on Twitter.
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LinkedIn
This platform is not as permissive as the other ones. This means you will need to adapt
your tone of voice to fit the guidelines and to connect with the main audience. As we
mentioned earlier, this is not a network for gaming, fitness, travel, and music apps. Since
it is a business-focused network, you can create a page for productivity, sales, fintech, job
recruitment, and business apps.
Tone of voice on LinkedIn:
Formal
Use a more “official” tone. Do
not use any slangs, jokes, or
figures of speech.
Serious
Approach every message
seriously and professionally
present your app.
Be honest and admit the bugs or
errors on the app. Accept and
integrate the feedback from
users.
Honest
Business-oriented
Talk business on LinkedIn.
Every post should be about the
app, not about silly jokes or
memes.
Professional
Show the key features of the
app and talk for an audience
that has knowledge in your field
of work.
Do's
Be formal! This is not a platform for jokes and
snarky comments.
Talk business! Present your app’s functionalities.
Be short and very clear. This platform is dedicated
to jobs and business talks, not too long storytelling.
Use a more techy approach.
Don'ts
Don’t try to be friendly and funny.
Don’t be inconsistent. If you decided to post twice
a week, continue to do so.
Don’t forget to respond to private messages or
comments.
Never use slangs on LinkedIn.
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FREQUENCY AND TYPES OF
POSTS
Facebook
With over 2.27 billion monthly active users for Q3 2018, Facebook is, by far, the most
widespread social media platform, which makes it the perfect choice for any type of business.
However, because of the periodic algorithm tweaks, organic reach is continuously declining.
So, to make sure your posts reach as many users as possible, you must take a look at your data
and see when your fans are most active.
How to find the best times to post on Facebook
To find out when your fans are most active:
1Go to your Facebook page
2 Click on the Insights tab next to Publishing Tools
3 Click on Posts below Actions on Page.
Here you will see the days and the peak times when most of your fans are online.
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Below you will also see All Posts Published. Take a look at the published timings of your most
recent posts to see how they performed. Using this information, you can take a data-driven
decision on what the best times to post are for your business.
How frequently you should post on Facebook
In general, you’ll want to post around 5-7 times a week to make sure your fans hear from you
regularly. However, the exact number posts varies from business to business - you’ll want to
make sure you post enough so that at least a part of your posts end up in your fans’ News Feed,
but not so much you’ll end up flagged for spam. For pages with less than 10k followers,
experts say that the best results come from posting around three times a week. But of course,
that’s something you should test.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that your content brings value to your fans - what
you post matters. Which brings us to post types.
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Facebook post types
Text
Everyone tries to make their Facebook posts as attractive as possible, but don’t underestimate
the power of simple text posts. Updates, insights, facts, or thoughts can all be expressed in
writing.
That being said, there are a few things that you can add to your post to make it stand out and
reach more users:
- Add a background color: make your statuses stand out by using a colorful background
- Tag people: tag friends or key people related to your business (and post) and benefit from
their network of friends
- Tag an event: are you attending an industry event? Maybe even your own? Make sure your
fans know about this!
- Check-in: similar to the option above, you can check-in at your HQ, or at an industry event
- Add feeling/activity: for those moments when you are uber-excited to launch a new
product/feature/campaign etc.
- GIFs: the Internet loves GIFs, so if you have the opportunity to integrate them in your
message to attract users’ attention, why not do it?
Photo
Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. So take
advantage of that! And if you’re feeling adventurous, make sure you try Facebook’s recent post
types: 3D Photo and 360 Photo.
Video
Facebook native videos have up to 86% higher reach than Youtube videos. That’s insane
considering video represents YouTube’s core! For the past few years, video has been (and still
is!) such a big trend on social media, that Facebook even released a LIVE video option that has
proved to be even more successful - LIVE videos get six times more interactions than regular
Facebook videos!
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List
List is a relatively new feature for posting status updates. You can create a list of just about
anything, then decorate it with gradient backgrounds and assign an emoji that appears next to
the list title.
Poll
Polls are a great way to attract your followers’ attention, find out their opinions, and build a
relationship with your fans. If you don’t see much engagement on your Facebook page, using a
poll will help you create more interactions with your brand.
Q&A
Another way you can connect with your audience is through a Q&A. Facebook Q&As can
attract more followers, improve overall engagement, and allow direct reach to your readers.
Offer
Facebook Offers is a feature that allows businesses to post an offer, such as a restaurant or
store discount, on their Facebook page. Offers can be redeemed either in-store, online or both
ways.
Job
With this feature, Facebook is clearly taking on LinkedIn. Maybe Facebook is not as
professional as LinkedIn is, but considering how many users are on Facebook compared to
LinkedIn, do you really want to pass this chance?
Tag Product
This works similarly to tagging people, except when the user clicks on the tagged product, it
will open a separate page just for that product. You can customize this page with information
about the product along with an image, pricing information, and more.
Get Messages
With this post option, pages can create a post that has a “Send Message” call-to-action button.
Just like Polls and Q&As, Get Messages is a great posting feature you can use to ask fans for
feedback and start a one-on-one conversation with your customers.
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Note
Notes are a great way to summarize your latest blog post, publish your giveaway’s rules,
address onboarding issues, or respond to FAQs. Facebook Notes lets users add a cover image,
format text and resize photos, then share their notes with anyone.
Milestone
Milestones can be used to showcase your company’s history and achievements. But make sure
you don’t overuse this feature: updates should be meaningful for you and your fans. Don’t use
milestones to brag!
Watch Party
In case you still weren’t convinced video is a BIG trend on Facebook, here’s another feature
that proves just that. Facebook Watch Party, it provides a fun co-viewing experience online,
similar to that when you are watching movies with your friends. Except your friends don’t
have to be in the same room, or even in the same city.
Ad
Last but not least, there are Facebook Ads, posts that you pay to reach your audience. Ads are a
great way to expand your reach and generate engagement, but if you don’t use them right, you
can also end up losing a lot of money.
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Instagram
Instagram is the second largest social media platform after Facebook, with more than 1 billion
users and 500 million daily active users. But the platform proves us that size does not matter
when it comes to engagement: experts say that Instagram is the king of social engagement
due to the high percentage of people using it!
It seems like yesterday when the platform’s posts were shown chronologically, but ever since
that changed (posts with the highest engagement are shown first), it has become impetuous for
marketers to understand their followers and find the best times and frequency to post.
How to find the best times to post on Instagram
First things first, you should set up an Instagram Business account. If you don’t have one
already, here’s how to get started.
To find out when most of your followers are online:
1Go to your Instagram Business Profile
2Tap on the menu icon (the three bars icon in the top-right corner)
3Tap on Insights
4Tap on the Audience tab
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Here you will see the days and the peak times when most of your fans are online, as well as
some demographic data like country, age, and gender. Using this information, you can identify
the best times to post. We recommend narrowing down three to four time slots and
experimenting to find which times work best for you.
How frequently you should post on Instagram
Now that you know when to post, it’s time to decide how often you should post. Just like on
Facebook, the algorithm tweaks make it hard for users to obtain the same level of engagement
as before. However, Instagram does reward users that post quality content with a higher
reach.
Posting consistently is the key on Instagram. If you are a B2B business, we recommend posting
at least 3-5 times every week, and if you are a B2C business, we recommend posting at least
once per day.
Tip: don’t forget to add hashtags to your posts! Although Instagram limits users to 30
hashtags per post, it has been proven that using up to 11 hashtags brings the best
results.
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Instagram post types
Photo
This one is pretty straight-forward, and it represents the core of Instagram. You can either post
one picture or create a carousel with up to ten images. Instagram also launched a standalone
app called Layout that you can use to combine multiple pictures into one.
Video
Just like on Facebook, video is a pretty big trend on Instagram too. Again, you can post a single
video or multiple ones, but keep in mind that they have to be shorter than one minute.
Story
Instagram Stories are fun, they help grow engagement, build brand awareness, and drive
traffic to your website! There are several Story types that you can use, like text, photos, and
short videos (Boomerangs, Superzoom, Focus, etc.). Experiment with different filters and don’t
forget to add stickers and hashtags to your stories to boost engagement. For more ideas on how
to use Instagram Stories for your business, check out this complete guide.
Live
Of course, LIVE videos couldn't miss from this Facebook-owned platform. Besides the fact that
they help grow engagement, there are two other benefits to using them: first, Instagram Live
bumps your content to the first position in Stories at the top of user’s feeds, and second,
followers who haven’t turned off Instagram Live notifications will get a push notification on
their phone telling them when you go live.
IGTV
IGTV offers a new way to watch and interact with longer videos in a vertical format. Until
recently, Instagram videos could not be longer than ten minutes. The possibility to share a one-
hour video was restricted to the biggest accounts on the platform. Soon, there will be no more
limits!
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Twitter
5,787 tweets are posted every second. That’s quite impressive!
Twitter is one of the fastest ways for businesses to connect with their customers. But since
everything is fast-paced, happening almost in real-time, it’s even more important to make sure
that your tweets reach your customers at the right time.
How to find the best times to post on Twitter
Here’s how to find out when most of your followers are online:
1Go to your Twitter profile and click on your profile image on the top-right corner
2Click on Analytics
3Click on the Tweets tab
4Click on Top tweets
Analyzing your top tweets will help you understand what type of content resonates with your
audience, as well as when it’s the best time to post. To take an objective decision, we
recommend observing at least three months of data. Also, when deciding on the best times to
tweet, also take into consideration the different time zones - you’ll want to pick the time zone
where most of your followers are and work with that.
3 2

How frequently you should post on Twitter
To boost engagement, you should tweet at least 4-5 times/day. If you are a B2C business, that
number can be adjusted depending on the industry you’re in. But not all tweets must be
original; you can use a mix of original content, retweets, and curated content.
Twitter post types
Tweet
Regular tweets can contain text (up to 280 characters, including spaces), mentions (like
@Twitter), hashtags, photos, videos, GIFs, check-ins, or polls.
Reply
Replies are similar to tweets, except they are tied to a thread. Unlike on Facebook, where you
can see the post and the comments under it, on Twitter you see each reply as a tweet (post).
Retweets
Retweets are similar to shares on Facebook. There are two ways you can use retweets: either
by themselves (and they will appear as a regular tweet, but they will be marked as a retweet),
or you can add your own text (which makes them similar to a traditional reply).
LIVE via Periscope
Live videos couldn’t miss from Twitter, right? Although the option is available, Live streams
can only be done through Twitter’s dedicated app, Periscope.
Promoted tweets
Promoted tweets are sponsored content, tweets for which users pay to reach a wider group of
users or to boost engagement from their existing followers. Promoted tweets are marked as so,
but otherwise, they act just regular tweets.
3 3

LinkedIn
LinkedIn began as a platform for connecting employers with employees. It’s essentially an
online resume service, so most rules that apply to social media networks don’t apply to
LinkedIn. That being said, the platform is still a great choice to grow your business online.
How to find the best times to post on LinkedIn
Because business networking is different from social networking, there aren’t any clear
guidelines when it comes to the best times to post on LinkedIn. However, there are some
things you should consider:
- Mondays are not great for posting because people are usually very busy then; they are
organizing their schedule for the week or recover from business-oriented activities from the
previous weekend;
- Similarly, Fridays are not that great either because people get into “weekend-mode”;
- And, obviously, weekends are not great for posting on a business-oriented platform
either; so the best times to post on LinkedIn are Tuesdays through Thursdays during business
hours.
How frequently you should post on LinkedIn
Anywhere from two to fives times a week is considered a good amount, but you have to be
very careful with what you post. Of course, high-quality content is always desirable, but that’s
even more important on LinkedIn. People are focused on work here so funny pictures and
videos just won’t do (unless they’re about your business/industry, but even then within some
limits).
LinkedIn post types
As a platform dedicated to professionals, LinkedIn keeps things pretty simple. You can either
post text messages, add pictures or videos, or you can upload documents.
Sponsored content is also available on LinkedIn thanks to LinkedIn Ads and InMails.
3 4

HOW TO MEASURE YOUR
SUCCESS
To measure success on social media, first you have to define what success means to you, set
some goals (remember the first chapter about setting up your objectives?). Do you want to
build brand awareness? Do you want to drive traffic to your website? Do you want to position
yourself as an industry expert? What is your goal on social media?
Once you fixed your goals and the metrics you want to measure, you should know that there
are two types of social media analysis you can do: ongoing monitoring and campaign
monitoring (this one has a clear beginning and end).
Ongoing monitoring will give you insights on how your brand is growing over time. This is
essential if you want to learn more about your customers, market, competitors, etc. Ongoing
monitoring should be done every week. You should measure metrics for each channel (see
chapter I) and see how much you grew compared to last week.
Campaign monitoring will give you insights on the impact of a targeted marketing initiative
which can have a specific goal, other than your overall social media goal (like generating brand
awareness, or Facebook reviews). For this type of campaigns, we recommend daily monitoring
so that you can track, test and change the tactics if you see you don’t achieve your KPIs.
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So where do you go to see your performance on social media? The first stop is platform
analytics. On Facebook, go to your page and select the Insights tab from the top menu. Here
you will see a dashboard with the most important metrics (like page views, page likes, reach or
engagement). For a more in-depth analysis, check each metric on the left menu.
For mobile apps, Facebook has a dedicated analytics section where you can get in-depth
information about how your users engage with the product.
To access this, go to Business Manager, analytics, and select your app (if you don’t see the
application, it means you don’t have access to the Facebook Developers account so you’ll need
to request permission to see the data).
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On the left side of the analytics dashboard, you’ll have access to various data about people who
interact with your app. This could be useful for a more segmented and targeted
communication.
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On Instagram, go to your profile, tap on the menu in the top right corner, then tap on Insights
(btw, Instagram analytics are available only for Business profiles). Important note: Instagram
will only show you the data for the last seven days, so you should make sure you check Insights
on the same day every week to make sure you don’t miss anything.
3 8

For Twitter analytics, click on your profile photo, then click on Analytics. On your dashboard,
you will be able to see metrics number of followers, retweets, and replies. For a more in-depth
analysis, switch between tabs.
Last but not least, we have LinkedIn Analytics. To access them, click on your profile picture,
select your page, then, from the menu on top, click on the Analytics tab.
But no matter how good platform analytics are, you are just scratching the surface when it
comes to your data. Next, you should head out to your Firebase Dashboard (and Google
Analytics for Firebase). If you set them up correctly, here you should learn more about who
your users are and how they interact with your app. To make sure all data is tracked and
collected, always use UTM tagging (here’s a resource from Google on how to build Campaign
URLs). Your dashboard should look something like this.
3 9

It’s always important to know where your users come from, but if you are running any
targeted campaigns, it’s even more important to know if they are effective or not (meaning if
you redirect traffic from your ads to your app, and if this traffic generates conversions).
Last but not least, there is store analytics (Play Store and App Store). If your app features any
in-app purchases and you are running ads promoting them, in your store dashboard you will
find info regarding the sales.
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Now that you know what metrics you should track, it’s time to decide on the best app
analytics tools for your business. Right off the bat, you should consider the analytics you get in
Play Store and App Store.
Besides those must-have analytics tools, you can also use others, depending on your needs.
When choosing an analytics tool, here are the things you should consider:
Pricing plan
Lots of platforms have different tiers, each tier coming with different features. If your app is in
an early stage and it doesn’t need a very complex analytics tool, there’s no need to go for the
most expensive one (which will probably put a big hole in your budget too).
Some features are universally provided by most platforms while others are specific to one
platform. Make sure you get the bang for your buck.
Depending on what kind of app you have, performance analytics may be more important to
you than user experience. You should choose the best tool for your needs.
Probably not the first thing that comes to your mind when choosing an analytics app, but a
very important thing to consider.
An analytics tool should make your life easier, not impossible. If the implementation process is
too complex, or if the tool crashes your app, it might not be the best option for you.
A few app analytics tools that we recommend are (in no particular order):
- App Annie
- Localytics
- Countly
- Flurry Analytics
- MixPanel.
Key features
Type of analytics tool
Level of support
Size of SDK/implementation difficulty
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CONCLUSION
Promoting your app on social media shouldn’t have to be a struggle. Try to set your goals and
follow the metrics on every social media channel to see what works for the app and what
doesn’t. It is important to know your buyer persona and to understand his or her needs before
you start creating the “personality of the app”.Once you’ve gone through all the steps in this
guide, you should have a social media strategy for the next year.
Apart from knowing all this, we recommend checking competitors on social media to see what
types of posts they share. Also, remember that social media is about the user, not your app. It is
crucial to show your users that you care about them and they will care about your product.
The app market is growing every day with hundreds of apps being downloaded as we speak. If
you want your app to be known (and used) you should show users why your app is the best
and what it can offer besides what the competitors already offer.
Now, get to work! Make the plan, post on social media, and engage with users. Don’t forget to
monitor your success using any of the tools provided in this guide. If you need help in
implementing your social media strategy, Digital Tailors is just a click away.
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Social Media Marketing - A complete guide for mobile apps

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