What is a virus? Viral transmission refers to interacting with users and inducing them to participate in activities. Viral communication is not a strategy that can be implemented when an app is online. It needs careful consideration and needs to be established in the application from the beginning.
In order to achieve the success of viral transmission, your App must pass the following four tests: the app must contain valuable content worth sharing. App must be convenient for users to share and for users and friends to join. App must reward users for sharing and provide benefits to encourage users to come back. The more people use this app, the more valuable content they create. First, your app needs something valuable, which can be a photo, a turn-based game, an article, a playlist or a five-mile run. It is something that users are proud of or happy about and can enjoy. When users share this, they will feel warm and confident, thus entering the application again and again. The more users enter, the more praise and happiness they get. And with the growth of users, the value contained in the app will gradually increase.
In order to find out whether your app has something worth sharing, you need to ask yourself the following questions: Does my app provide some valuable content to encourage them to share? Is this content worth sharing? How to reward users after sharing? Why should users share? Why do they want their friends to share it? How does my app motivate users to share for a long time? Old-fashioned virus transmission mode: A typical virus transmission begins with users creating some content and sharing it. After the user's main friends are found, download the app to participate. Through this method, the most obvious way is to add buttons to the application, thus providing users with a way of social interaction, so that users can share their own content or behavior through Twitter, Facebook, email and SMS. For example, the Faces application allows users to design stupid images for their friends and share them through Facebook, Twitter and email. Faces app's social interaction has a typical virus flow, because only users are allowed to share pictures. Unfortunately, this method misses many opportunities, because only a few users will share the content, and only a small number of friends will see what they share, not to mention clicking on links and downloading applications. In order to really spread the virus, you need to encourage your users. Every time they use your app based on previous experience, they will get a lot of valuable things from it. With the growth of users, the value provided by app to users needs to continue to grow. Such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. When people use these applications for the first time, they may not get real value from them, but the more time they spend in them, the more they will find value. Five rules of virus transmission strategy Before you meet a virus consultant, you don't need to dig deep into the law of virus transmission. In Lean Startup, Eric Ries defines viral spread as "how many new customers will use this product as the consensus of every new customer who signs up." He claimed that the virus coefficient is greater than 1, which will lead to exponential growth, and the virus coefficient is less than 1, which hardly increases. We won't analyze this in detail. But we can understand this formula: virus coefficient = (the average number of users invited by each active user who invites someone). The missing element in the formula × (the promotion amount of invited users who actually join or become active )× (the promotion amount of active users who invite others) is time-the time from the user trying this application to sharing it with friends. The key is to let your users invite their friends in the shortest time. What should you do? A quick but bad way is to enter the user's address book and send spam or junk information to his friends. But you are abusing users instead of taking care of them, and the final effect can only be counterproductive. Instead, try five rules listed below.
(Most of the following examples are iOS app, but these rules apply to all platforms. )
Improve the usability of the application. The best applications are effortless to use, so the design will gradually retreat behind the scenes, making the task at hand very easy to handle. It allows users to fully concentrate on what they like, and will not be distracted by the heavy footsteps. Users will lose their sense of time and be completely immersed in it. That's why it's hard for you to stop My World, and why your friends will stay on Pinterest for three hours. In order to create a "stream" in an application, you should remove all obstacles and problems so that users can use your application and share it with friends. Then we use examples to illustrate what your app should do. Provide one-click login to Faceboo or Twitter instead of using a proprietary username and password. Doing so not only allows users to log in quickly, but also allows you to mine user data to expand your contacts. 500px, Rockmelt and Snapguide support one-click login via Facebook or Twitter, and display personal pictures of friends during authentication, so as to increase the audience of you and your friends. Foursquare and Vine will display personal photos of users' friends during authentication. In the application above the fold, they will clearly show users how to expand their social networks and start a sharing journey. Foursquare, Hipvite and Toast provide a clear path above fold, which is convenient for users to use social sharing function to optimize the content on the organization screen, and directly display what needs to be done in the view, so as to let users know what they can do. For example, SoundCloud and Wrappit below. Allow users to share content to multiple social platforms with one click. Make sharing a part of the creative process and let users send content to multiple websites at once. The Android framework is better than iOS in that it allows applications to share content with almost any other application. (As long as other applications can receive the message of "sharing") Krop Circle allows users to send content to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at one time. Glmps allows users to share content to multiple websites with one click.
Rule 2: Reward from time to time. If you want to motivate a behavior, reward users. This is the most basic psychological strategy. This strategy has tasted the sweetness from the first time we learned to walk, and will also inspire your users to share it with friends. Every time a user uses an app to bring you friends, you should reward the user. When someone gives a gift, the recipient will naturally have the impulse to return it. Inviting friends and contacting others should be a part of users' daily use. Daniel Tenner, co-founder of Swombat, believes that the number of users invited by each active user will determine your success. Therefore, inviting friends should be the core process of the app, not after the event. Try different ways in the application to motivate users to invite their friends. POP prototype app will reward users' login and sharing among friends, and also reward users' friends. We reward users who recommend invitations, but sometimes users feel guilty because they get benefits from inviting friends. The best way to solve this problem is to reward users' friends, so that users will feel that they have done their friends a favor. In this way, everyone has been rewarded. Rewards can include: attachment storage, free theme, free upgrade, discount, samples and so on. Create a sense of urgency in the process of users inviting friends and provide limited-time promotions. There is almost no cost, maybe just pushing your user to convince his friends to download the application. Secretly reward users and surprise them. When you "follow" the developer of Clear on Twitter, or when you finish a task at 2:00 am, your installed Clear will unlock some hidden themes. Every time this new discovery point will trigger a frenzy on Twitter, make all kinds of wonderful free advertisements for the application and complete the viral spread of the application. Real money gives back to users. For example, applications such as Shopkick, GymPact and Viggle will reward users with cash or gifts. Shopkick is a location-based shopping application. Users can get rewards or points by logging into the application or entering participating stores. Users can get more points if they browse the goods in the store or make a purchase. As a reward, users can use points to unlock gift cards or goods. GymPact can "lure" some users who don't exercise regularly to the gym to complete their tasks and get rewards. At first, users need to reach an agreement with friends and promise to exercise in the gym within a certain period of time. They can bet on each other's promises, and if someone doesn't keep his promise to go to the gym, he will be fined. GymPact is essentially to reward people who exercise actively by collecting fines from those who don't keep their promises. Viggle is an American TV social iOS application. Users can get gifts such as gift cards and movie tickets as long as they watch their favorite TV programs through Viggle's free iOS app. Users can get more points by answering detailed questions. The more points, the richer the prize.
Rule 3: Give users more control. Viral transmission and user privacy are opposite poles. Although applications can provide shared content, users should have full control over what they share. If users don't trust your app, or suddenly see something they don't want to share on social networks, then they will stop using your app, or worse, they will give bad reviews on iTunes. Make the content shared by the app transparent. For example, before the user logs in to the application, app Teemo will tell the user what content will be shared. Sonar (iTunes link) will tell the user that the app will not disclose the user's account information unless the user explicitly "informs" the app. Always allow users to control what can be shared. This can be simply achieved in the settings menu, which provides users with switches to control the enjoyment options, such as Pinterest.
Rule 4: Keep users coming back to the application. Users downloading applications is only a starting point. You must get more by keeping users coming back. Users downloading applications should not be the finish line. Send useful notifications to users to encourage them to return to the application. Don't wait for users to open and use your app. Keep sending useful information and tips to users and encourage them to use your application. These notifications should be related to the core functions of the application. Similarly, you can send some friendly reminders and rewards to users and invite more friends to join, but don't send useless or annoying notices, which are spam. Let users control the notifications they receive and how they choose to receive them. Just like we like photos. Create contests that users can participate in. For example, the diamond dash, a game that introduces weekly activities, is very popular with users. If the user breaks the previous record created by a friend, the new result will be posted to the winner's Facebook timeline. When the user's game level reaches a new level, gets a medal or unlocks a new function, Flying Diamond will post this information on the user's Facebook. This practice creates a dynamic and friendly game, which allows users to keep coming back to the game. Allow users to form groups and invite others to participate, such as apps related to weight loss or exercise. Use special content and activities to promote users. Aim at advanced users with strong connections, who are generally experts in a certain field and can create the best quality content. For these advanced users, you can give them some free gifts, or let them be administrators and let them form professional groups. Take advanced users as an example, and suggest that other users "pay attention" to them. Let users promote sales with each other, which can help you find some hipsters. These people may not have many followers, but they are using your application in a new and exciting way.
Rule 5: app should also be useful to a single user. Your application should benefit users, even if there is no social factor. This is not a necessary condition, but it can improve the probability of virus spread in the application. It gives users the first chance to touch the application. Most people will not invite friends to join the app unless they think it is a good app. In order to find out whether the application is an excellent application, they have to do several tests first. If you don't invite friends, the application must be meaningful to the user's "do it right away". As your user base continues to grow, the value of the main functions of the app will also increase.
Summarizing the viral spread of app is not wise after the event, but should be designed around the core functions and characteristics of App. You can improve the chances of viral spread of applications by providing meaningful sharing of what transparent applications share and who they share. Contacting friends and inviting new users should be the core of the app. Reward users and friends invited by users. Encourage users to return to the application through useful notifications, contests and rewards. Even for the only user, this is the beginning of a virus cycle. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy, and some apps cannot benefit from viral spread. This article source: Netease mobile phone