Inside your app

Exclusive app-only content / competitions

Like a radio show that offers an exclusive competition for listeners only on it’s Facebook page to drive subscribers to it, if you have a regular audience you can do the same thing to drive people to your app. Put a cool piece of content, great competition or something else that will attract interest and make sure the only place people can get it is on your app. Then heavily cross-promote across your other media channels and see the difference.

‘Email a friend’ feature

Simple, been around forever, but still a very good idea to include in many apps (particularly news or other types of informational apps for sharing articles, events etc). In many ways this function is more useful in apps than its equivalent on websites (where people are only ever a couple of mouse clicks from emailing their friends in the usual way anyway). On an iPhone or iPad however, jumping into the Mail application is not always so intuitive (when its users are operating in a world where they can only view one program on screen at one time).

Post to Facebook

As well as letting users email a friend, you can also let them post links from your app (or promote the whole app!) via Facebook.

If you haven’t already considered this then it is a simple addition for your developer to add a ‘Share on Facebook’ button to your app using the Facebook Connect service. The only thing you’ll need to generate for them is a few details, which you can do as follows:

1. Login to your Facebook account (or use your company one if you prefer) and go to facebook.com/developers/
2. (You might have to do a couple of extra registration steps if it’s your first time using the Facebook
   developer service);
3. Click the ‘+ Set-up New Application’ button, type the name of your app, agree to the terms of service and click ‘Create Application’;
4. If it doesn’t forward you there automatically, you should then go to facebook.com/developers/apps.php
5. You will see all the applications you have created listed on the left. Click the name of the one you need and then copy the following:
   • Application ID
   • API Key
   • Application Secret
6. and email them to your developers who will be able to use Facebook’s platform for this (known as an ‘API’ developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/mobile/) to do the rest.

It doesn’t just have to stop at just a standard ‘Share with Facebook’ button though. You could, for example, set-up your app to automatically post to a user’s Facebook status when they complete a new level in a game app or announce they are going to a certain event on an entertainment listings one. Speak to your developer about what is possible if you have some more ideas.

Post to Twitter

Similar to setting-up a ‘Share with Facebook’ feature, you can easily get you developer to set-up a ‘Post to Twitter’ function if you don’t already have one.

1. Go to twitter.com and login to your company or your app’s Twitter account.
2. (If you don’t have one you can create one just for this purpose, you don’t have to use it for anything else).
3. Go to dev.twitter.com and click ‘Register an App’ and complete as follows:
   • Application Name – use your app’s name
   • Description – include a short description if you wish
   • Application website – put the website for your app (or your company’s website if you don’t have one for your app yet)
   • Organization – your company name
   • Application Type – select ‘Browser’
   • Callback URL – leave this blank for now
   • Default Access Type – select ‘Read & Write’
   • Application Icon – if you already have one you can upload this here or leave it for later
4. You should then be taken to a page giving you the details for your app. Copy the following and send them to your developer:
   • API key
   • Consumer key
   • Consumer secret
5. (If you need to get this information again later, just visit dev.twitter.com/apps (while logged in to the appropriate account) and click your application’s name from the list)
6. The developer can then use Twitter’s API (dev.twitter.com/doc) to integrate this function with your app.

As with Facebook, you could also use Twitter in some more creative ways. Brainstorm other ‘occurrences’ in your app that users may want to create a Twitter post to announce.

Add new features and shout about updates

Adding new features and making other improvements to your app is a great way to generate fresh interest in it. This can be done by submitting a new version for Apple to approval and is something you might plan to do a regular – perhaps, monthly – basis to generate interest (this is discussed in more detail in Part Five of this guide).

Not only is this a great way to address your users demands for new features (plus a few surprise ones you might have thought of yourself) but also gives you the chance to generate another round of publicity as well. Wash. Rinse. Repeat!