Lesson: Scaling User Growth with Maud Pasturaud

Step #10 What's Next: New platforms = big growth

I think, I would still say that app store optimization is under developed. I'm hoping for both reasons. First, it's under developed because the platforms where you can do it are not really well built. So I'm assuming that they are going to get better over time. Which means that I hope that the app store will be redesigned in a way that will please users, so when they search for something they're actually going to get it.

You get more and more apps that are built. The human language is a bit limited. So if you want to have a brand, there is high likelihood that another app developer has the same brand without clear distinctions, or blurry distinctions, and not yet relevant distinctions between those apps. I'm hoping there will be more opportunities behind it by the sole factors of those companies like Google Play and the app store to make those environments better and more relevant.

And then second, I think there will be opportunities for developers to continue learning about those and optimizing and draw traffic there in a way that was yesterday's SEO, so making a dramatic impact on how much organic traffic you're able to drive. It's not happening yet, but I'm hoping that's going to be an opportunity. It's working with influencers.

The one thing that's been incredible is looking at where people spend their time today. They spend it on social platforms, but they don't necessarily spend their time on Facebook as much anymore, especially the younger generation. They spend their time on entertainment platforms like Snapchat, Vine, YouTube, Instagram, and on Pinterest as well. So this is where people are spending their time, yet none of those platforms have figured out advertising solutions that make sense. So your best bet is to work with influencers within those platforms. It might be paid relationships or not paid.

An example, one of the biggest influencer on Snapchat today is called Shonduras or one of them from Instagram's fashion vertical is Man Repeller. You have the ability today to reach out to those guys directly and do partnerships. Either they love your product so much and want to talk about it for free, or you sign an agreement and they talk about your product. It may be a bit of money, but this is the best place to talk about your product.

Influencers are a very new area that is growing. Recently, Niche was one of the major agencies for those Influencer was acquired by Twitter because they realized that a lot of what has to do with social is the dynamic between those influencers and the importance they have in the success of those platforms. As a brand, you are going to come to those influencers and do partnerships and it's just as important to Twitter to have those relationships as important as it is for Instagram to have relationships with those big influencers. That circle is going to close at some point and be way more efficient.

There is one company called Tubular Labs that allows brands to look at the impact of their YouTube campaigns. If a brand is partnering up with an influencer, they will tell them how many views they got, how many clicks they got, and what is increase their site. It's a bunch of analytics and I hope that this type of approach to influencer marketing is going to come to all of the social platforms, to Instagram, Pinterest, etc. I think that is a very interesting area. Again, it is hard to do, but there are lots of opportunities there.

And the last one is mobile paid advertising. It is still something where you can get a competitive advantage if you are smarter than everyone else. Mobile advertising is changing a lot and very quickly. Six months ago, Twitter was not the platform where a majority of the mobile advertisers were. As it turns out, they've developed really compelling ad formats. We saw some mobile developers test it out really quickly. When there is not a lot of people on the platform, it means you get a share of voice that's bigger and you get lower prices. So if you move quickly on those new paid formats and platforms, you might get opportunities. I think they will still appear. Pinterest just developed an app. I don't think are ads. But those new formats are coming out all the time, so if you move quickly and you're the first ones to try them, then I think it is a big opportunity.