Founders & developers of social apps are constantly confronting with the churn rate problem of their users while they are aggressively acquiring users. Churn is becoming an even more serious problem with the existence of the very widely used instant messengers. While the social app users are finding new connections they will switch to instant messengers to continue the conversation, which is causing a lot of headaches for social app developers.
Admit it or not instant messaging is never the strength of social apps, the usability and functionality can never be compared with instant messengers like Line, Whatsapp or WeChat. So it is a natural process that while social app users make new connections via the platform they would like to go on the communication elsewhere in a more convenient and handy way.
Social apps developers should instead change their angle of view that such IMs are not enemies but it is something that they should leverage. I am not saying that social apps should encourage users to switch but rather it is a sign that social apps are helping the users to sparkle meaningful conversation because the users enhance their communications. So here comes the problem how do social apps increase user stickiness by knowing the next steps of the users are turning away from them.
We should all think about value propositioning. For a lot of social apps their mission is help users find useful or meaningful connections and increase their engagement within the app. The strength of the social apps lies in the process of discovering more connections and create the engagement among them that are distinctive and not replaceable by just word conversations. Fittime, an Instagram-like app popular among bodybuilders, it encourages bodybuilders to upload pictures of themselves, workout session, healthy meals and snacks.
Admit it or not instant messaging is never the strength of social apps, the usability and functionality can never be compared with instant messengers like Line, Whatsapp or WeChat. So it is a natural process that while social app users make new connections via the platform they would like to go on the communication elsewhere in a more convenient and handy way.
Social apps developers should instead change their angle of view that such IMs are not enemies but it is something that they should leverage. I am not saying that social apps should encourage users to switch but rather it is a sign that social apps are helping the users to sparkle meaningful conversation because the users enhance their communications. So here comes the problem how do social apps increase user stickiness by knowing the next steps of the users are turning away from them.
We should all think about value propositioning. For a lot of social apps their mission is help users find useful or meaningful connections and increase their engagement within the app. The strength of the social apps lies in the process of discovering more connections and create the engagement among them that are distinctive and not replaceable by just word conversations. Fittime, an Instagram-like app popular among bodybuilders, it encourages bodybuilders to upload pictures of themselves, workout session, healthy meals and snacks.
Another aspect that is often not given enough attention is content marketing, which is not just confined to articles, but also UGC (user generated content). Distinctive content is another way to encourage meaningful engagement among users, such as posting questions & answers, reading & commenting expert articles (that will actually help).
Rewarding user achievement is another way of keeping users engaged and increase stickiness. In another word social apps should devote to build a community that each individual is recognized by their contribution to the community and users are rewarded this way. This can be leveraged with all kinds of engagements they have with the app.
Once these special and useful engagement are created, and users are getting much more than just conversations with newly earned connections (undoubtedly the most prominent part), users turning to IMs doesn't seem to be such a big deal or even if they do, they are not dropping out; there are reasons to pull them back.
Rewarding user achievement is another way of keeping users engaged and increase stickiness. In another word social apps should devote to build a community that each individual is recognized by their contribution to the community and users are rewarded this way. This can be leveraged with all kinds of engagements they have with the app.
Once these special and useful engagement are created, and users are getting much more than just conversations with newly earned connections (undoubtedly the most prominent part), users turning to IMs doesn't seem to be such a big deal or even if they do, they are not dropping out; there are reasons to pull them back.