1. Use Social Media to Reach More People

Social media is a powerful tool for app promotion. You can connect with your audience on platforms like X, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube and others. These platforms allow you to share information about your app and show how it can help users.

Create posts that are interesting and useful. For example, if your app helps with productivity, share tips and success stories. Share short videos or images that explain how your app works. People like content that teaches them something or makes them smile.

You can also join online communities where your audience spends time. Reddit, Facebook Groups, and LinkedIn Groups are good examples. Participate in conversations and share your knowledge. When the time is right, you can introduce your app to these communities.

For example, a developer of a fitness app could join a fitness subreddit. They could share workout tips and then explain how their app helps people stay fit. This approach feels natural and not too promotional.

Tips for Success:

• Post regularly to keep your audience engaged.
• Use popular hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts.
• Reply to comments and messages to build trust with your audience.

2. Improve Your App Store Listing

If people cannot find your app, they cannot download it. App Store Optimization (ASO) helps users discover your app in app stores. You can think of ASO as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for apps.

Start with your app’s title and description. Include keywords that users are likely to search for. For example, if your app tracks habits, use words like “habit tracker” or “daily planner” in the description.

Visuals are also very important. A good app icon and clear screenshots can make your app stand out. You can also create a short video that shows how your app works. Encourage users to leave reviews and ratings. Apps with higher ratings appear higher in search results.

Updating your app listing regularly also helps. Add new features and respond to user feedback to keep your app fresh. A flexible app development tool, like Xojo, can make this updating process easier by helping you quickly adapt to user needs and marketplace trends.

Tips for Success:

• Use Google Keyword Planner to find the best keywords for your app. This free tool helps you identify terms that people search for.
• Offer small rewards in your app to encourage users to leave reviews.
• Monitor your app’s performance and make improvements based on data.

3. Work with Influencers to Promote Your App

Influencers can help more people learn about your app. You do not need to work with influencers who have millions of followers. Micro-influencers with smaller audiences are often more affordable and effective.

Find influencers whose audience matches your app’s target users. For example, if you have a cooking app, look for food bloggers or Instagram chefs. Offer them free access to your app in exchange for a review or a social media post.

Personalized messages work best when reaching out to influencers. Explain how your app can benefit their audience. Show them that you care about their work and are not just looking for free promotion.

Tips for Success:

• Focus on influencers with engaged audiences, not just large follower numbers.
• Give influencers resources like videos or promo codes to make promotion easier.
• Build long-term relationships with influencers to keep your app in the spotlight.

Conclusion

Promoting your app does not have to be expensive. By using social media, improving your app store listing, and working with influencers, you can increase your app’s visibility for free. These strategies require time and effort, but they can deliver great results.

Which strategy will you try first? Start promoting your app today and track your progress. With creativity and persistence, you can attract more users and make your app successful!

Gabriel is a digital marketing enthusiast who loves coding with Xojo to create cool software tools for any platform. He is always eager to learn and share new ideas!

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Leisurely scroll through the alphabetically listed apps in the Showcase to see what can be made with Xojo. From AcaStat, an easy to use data analysis tool for Windows and Mac, to VersionTracker, a tool to help developers maintain and create version history logs, the Showcase includes apps of all kinds. Search by Category or Platform for something specific. Spend some time in Galactic Quizmaster, pack for your next trip with Packr, perfect your next project with Joint Angle or learn to surf with Sally’s Surf School, all Xojo-made Mobile apps you can find in the Showcase. It’s no surprise the largest group is Desktop apps- from ClaroRead, a simple, flexible and easy to use text-to-speech app for dyslexia, to Lifeboat, to help you deploy and manage Xojo Web apps on Linux servers, to UHMMM, which will auto-play elevator music when online meetings go silent, there are too many to list – good thing there’s a Showcase for them!

The purpose of the Showcase is twofold, to exhibit what can be done with Xojo and to promote what you have done with Xojo! We regularly share apps from the Showcase on Xojo’s Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn pages as well as in occasional Xojo Newsletters. There isn’t a quicker way to introduce your app to a new audience!

I look forward to seeing your newest Xojo-made app in the Xojo Showcase!

Even a marketing team of 1 needs a second set of eyes. There’s not much worse than the facepalm when a customer points out a typo in something I just posted to our social accounts! Dana and I are always on Slack editing each other’s language and sharing images to make sure the message is clear and the links are working. Even if it’s just you, send it to a friend to proofread – especially important longer documents like press releases and blog posts.

At Xojo we use Sprout for scheduling posts across all our social networks. Sprout lets me manage all our social networks and our team members in one place. We find it a great fit for our team but without a free plan, Sprout might be “overkill” for a team of 1 or 2. There are quite a few social aggregates that are free though. Just last week, I was helping a friend who is a custom furniture maker get started on social media and I did some research to see what the latest free options were for social aggregates. Though I found some tools that were new to me, I still ended up recommending Hootsuite. Hootsuite is actually what Xojo used when we got more serious about social media over 10 years ago and it has evolved into a solid tool that still offers a free plan for managing 3 networks, 2 RSS feeds and a help center. Whichever tool you choose needs to be able to schedule posts and notify you of any mentions of your profile, chosen hashtags and brand.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that social posts with images or videos garner far more clicks than simple text since you read this earlier post on visual marketing tools. To make images for social and our blog we use (and love) Canva. Even members of our team who used Photoshop in the past, find that Canva can be a simpler and quicker way to create and edit images. A paid plan gives you access to stock images, the ability to share designs with team members and the ability to resize images for different networks (this feature alone was enough to add Canva to our marketing budget). Plus they offer a blog and “Design School” to help you with designs.

The other side of the social “coin” is analyzing your performance in order to make improvements. Whether that is finding the best time of the day to post or learning what sort of posts your audience responds to. Twitter Analytics is very handy and Facebook Insights is at your disposal. And of course the tool you choose (like Sprout or Hootsuite) will include analytics and reporting too.

A few other special mentions: I love Linktr.ee, it lets you optimize your Instagram traffic by managing multiple links on your page. IFTTT, which you may already be familiar with, will let you automatically share your Instagram posts to Twitter and include the image by default!

Think about planning your social posts ahead of time. You can set aside an hour each week to write and schedule your posts. I do Xojo’s scheduling on Thursday mornings and then I review specific metrics every Friday. A little bit of effort, planning and some help from these tools and you can raise awareness of your apps and increase sales.

Don’t worry devs and friends with more questions, click the “Social Media Marketing” or “App Marketing” tags at the end of this post for more tips and tricks!

Perhaps you don’t use Photoshop or have time to come up with eye-catching images. Maybe you don’t have a lot of training in design elements. There is a tool that another marketer recommended to me several years ago and we now use it almost exclusively here at Xojo, that tool is Canva. Using Canva, which has a very usable free (web-based) version, you can design images for anything from social media to online ads, business cards, presentations, basically any marketing collateral.

They have over 20,000 templates for you to pick from, with also a large bank of stock images – some free, some paid – and you can upload your own. They even offer free videos (aka Design School) to give you an introduction to graphic design.

Did you know that tweets with images have an 18% higher click through rate, 89% more favorites and 150% more retweets? Those statistics really are amazing – I am not suggesting you include an image with every tweet, but adding it to your general rotation could really improve your social media performance. So if you are struggling with how to have better creative on social media or, more importantly, on your website – check out Canva!

For more tips and tricks aimed at marketing your app or small business, click the “App Marketing” or “Social Media Marketing” tags at the bottom of this post!

In marketing, we drive traffic, conversions and brand awareness with content. Blogs can be great for communicating about your product when it is in development, like if you have a huge project in the works that your customers are really excited about. They can also be venues for you to comment on happenings in your industry. Establish your product and yourself as a subject matter expert, your blog will then be a great vehicle to build trust with prospects through your content.

Don’t start a blog if you’re not committed. You are going to need to maintain it regularly, but it’s up to you to commit to the schedule that is reasonable for you to maintain. Start small, one to two posts a month. Set a schedule for yourself so you have plenty of time to take a break from coding and focus on writing a valuable piece of marketing content. Go a step further (and make it easy on yourself) by writing up several blog posts before you launch so you can draw from your bank when it’s time to post.

For your first post, start simple and write a launch post to boast about the features of your product/service, showcase screenshots, videos, and a link to download or purchase. This post will be a great piece of content that you can repurpose. Because when you have all of this great content – why only put it in one place? Use it in your other marketing channels, like on social media, email blasts, presentations (remember, I said before that I was going to talk about this in my presentation!), etc. Also, once you have created your content you can also post it on third-party sites, like Medium, LinkedIn, or you could even turn it into a slideshow if that makes sense. From those other places, you can link directly to your landing page, bringing it full circle. Your content about your app made it out to the world and brought some prospects in – sweet!

When blogging, take things into consideration that can help your SEO, like your target keywords, making sure the content you create is quality and try to put it into places where you can gain some quality backlinks.

One great thing to remember about blogging (and on your landing page or website in general) is that you always want to offer a call to action. For a blog post about your newest release with a video, end your post by saying, “Check out our new video now!” Or if you just announced your company conference, make sure to offer – “Learn more about the 2020 conference!” (shameless XOJO.CONNECT plug – you really should be there). You always want to offer more content to keep people on your site.

Did you know that B2C companies that blog generate 88% more leads per month than those who do not? Given that fact – why not try it out and see how it works for you? Prospects need to see your messages 7 times in order for them to resonate or take action, so don’t let your beautiful content go to waste – repurpose, share and enjoy a bump in your traffic and hopefully, downloads!

Here’s an overview of Twitter’s search capabilities and some tips to get the most out of using the platform to promote your apps.

First, Twitter’s Advanced Search page is a simple and quick way to narrow your search results.

Most of the time that’s all you need. But if you are looking for an audience, a thought influencer or want catch the eye of a new community, you’re going to need more control. Use filters, Boolean search operators and a few other tips to earn your Twitter search wizard badge.

Filters:

Use filters to narrow your search. One filter I use a lot is “filter:follows”. For example, searching “xojo filter:follows” to get tweets including the word “xojo” but only from accounts that follow @xojo. A great way to find out what people in your community are talking about. Click over to People to see everyone who has the word “xojo” in their profile who also follows @xojo.

Move along the top bar to  further limit the results by Photos, Videos, News…etc.

Other helpful filters include:

filter:verified – Results include only Twitter verified users

filter:media – Results include only tweets with images or video

filter:images – Results include only tweets with images

filter:links – Results include only tweets with links

filter:replies – Results include only reply tweets

filter:retweets – Results include only retweets

Searching:

Finding a tweet from a specific account – from:mbsplugins

Finding a tweet to a specific account – to:xojoes

Finding a tweet from one person to another – from:geoffperlman to:xojo

Note: Leave off the @ when using from and to.

Of course you can add keywords to filter results, for example “xojo from:tdietrich” will show you our tweets that include the keyword xojo.

Operators:

“Thankfully time travel doesn’t exist” will bring up that exact phrase. Try it!

“Xojo -XDC” finds tweets with Xojo, excluding XDC

min_retweets:10 or max_retweets:700

min_faves:4 or max_faves:12000

Since:date or Until:date

lang:de for tweets in German (es, fr, ect.)

Want to really drill down? Start using them together. Search “WWDC filter:links” to find actual links and filter out common chatter. Want to get someone to notice you? Find out what they tend to retweet with “filter:retweets from:xojo”. What are some of your most liked tweets? Try “#xojo min_faves:5”

Do you have common combinations you use? Or helpful filters or operators I didn’t list? Share them with us @xojo.

If you are interested in learning more about using using social media to promote your app or brand, check out these posts: 3 Things Developers Need To Release Their App Right, App How To: Packaging, Selling & Marketing, and Free Marketing! 4 Practical Tips For Developers New To Twitter . You can also click the “Social Media Marketing” or “App Marketing” tags at the bottom of this post for more.

Making sure everyone knows about your new app or latest update is really important. I have been in PR/Marketing for many years and have seen it all! The biggest mistake I see is developers forgetting to put a link back to their website or sitelet when talking about their app. In announcements and on social media it’s so important to make sure people can find you easily! Here are the 3 most essential steps you should take when announcing your app (or release) to the world.

Step 1: Generate Buzz

If your release has something interesting in it that customers or prospects might like or talk about, do what you can to generate buzz. The best thing to do is to create a preview trailer that can be shared on your website and social media. This can be done easily with inexpensive tools like iMovie’s trailer feature.

Don’t keep it a secret, people like to be informed – blog about the development process on your website if possible. Don’t start too early though, make sure you are at a point where you are fairly certain it will be shipped within the next few weeks.

Step 2: Spread the Word

Writing a good announcement is really important. It should communicate four primary things:

1. Your name (or your company’s name)
2. The app’s name
3. The URL to find your app
4. The main point of your app

All of these items should appear in in the first paragraph. If you have an announcement that goes into features, benefits and more, great. But keep in mind that the majority of your readers will not make it past the first paragraph. Get your main idea across early.

Know your audience: who is reading this announcement? Customize it to them and their goals. Are they your prospective users? Are they members of the media? Are they other developers? Speak their language. Keep it fun and have a sense of humor (if applicable), showcase your brand’s voice. People are generally more inclined to give you their attention if you keep it interesting.

Another thing to consider is where the announcement will be posted. It is good to have a list at the ready for when you are going to ship a release. It is important that you collected email addresses of people on your website and your customers so you can email them about the update, you can send it to bloggers, post it on complimentary forums, like the Xojo forum. See “How To Get Your Announcement Posted.” If you send it to me, it might make its way onto our social media feed or the Xojo newsletter.

Step 3: Write A Press Release

Press Releases should always be written in third person. A good model we like to follow is:

1. Summary of your announcement (main idea) in the first paragraph, callout main new features and number of fixes/improvements.
2. Next paragraph should be an overview of your app itself. What is the value proposition? How is your app useful and to whom? What does your app make easier?
3. Quote from a CEO/developer/employee or customer (or both) are great things to include here. They can showcase how the important new features are useful or innovative and give real life examples to support your main idea.
4. Include bulleted list of important features of the release
5. Contact information – how to find your app and yourself.

What to do with it? We recommend compiling your own media list of writers who have written about your subject before. You can submit news on tons of websites. Also, you can submit your press release on relevant newswires, like PR Newswire or prMac. Don’t forget to post it on your own website!

The marketing work is never done. It involves a lot of trial and error. But announcing your app is the first step – if people don’t know about it, then what is the point? Hopefully these tips will help you write better announcements and develop your own process for announcing releases.

When we changed our name from Real Studio to Xojo, we wanted to make sure we could find a name that we could own. Not only was Xojo a pretty wide open space in terms of search, but it also stands for something that describes what Xojo is – X is for Cross-platform and “OJO” is for Object-Oriented.

Be Your Own App Name Generator

It’s never too early to start the process. Your name might morph or change several times during the process, so the more time you have to think about it, the better. All you need is pencil & paper (or a notes app) and some time to start brainstorming. Start your list by answering the following questions.

1. What is the main purpose of your app?
2. Who is the target audience?
3. What’s the value proposition?

Write down every word that comes to mind. When you’re done, you have a great bank of words to brainstorm with.

First Impressions Really Do Matter

They say don’t judge a book by the cover, but … we do. We are more attracted to things that catch our eye. The name of your app and the icon are the first interaction a prospect user has with your app, it’s sort of like its book cover, it’s what makes people stop and think, “Oooh this is nice… Is this app right for me?”

While reviewing your list of words, start thinking about images and emotions that will resonate with your audience. Conduct some research to find descriptive words and imagery that correlate to your app, ask your friends, get input from potential users.

Pro tip: Make sure you research the meanings and different connotations of your words to make sure they make sense for your intended audience. Avoid words that evoke negative emotions.

Make It Recognizable

Try to find a name that might reveal the literal purpose of your app. In general, when a user can understand the point of your app just by the icon and name, they’re more successful. Names like Evernote and GrubHub are good examples of this. They are short and catchy, but also describe exactly what the app is or does. If your app can’t really be summarized, make sure the icon clearly and visually describes its purpose so they work together to catch the prospective user. Instagram is a good example of this – the name does not necessarily describe what it does, but coupled with it’s camera icon, it conveys the purpose of the app, that it has something to do with photos. App stores also give preference to names that are not totally arbitrary and appropriately describe the apps purpose.

Pro tip: If you are trying to put two words together that need to be pronounced separately (example – Instagram vs. GrubHub), it is recommended to use camel case, rather than all caps.

Though you do want to use words that describe your app, make sure you aren’t keyword stuffing. Picking applicable, even high traffic keywords, to go in your title is a good thing, but too many or too much repetition actually detracts from your preference and ranking. Google Keyword Planner is a great free tool to start your keyword search.

Its common for consumers to download an app just because it sounds interesting or fun, so try to find a name and design to make your app stand out.

Do Market Research

Don’t forget to check out your competition. See what others are doing, without duplicating their name or icon, of course. Identify what emotions their name and icon emote, are the words you use to describe them the same as what is on your list? Is there something you missed that you might want to add? Maybe you might see something that really works you want to try to incorporate into yours, maybe you’ll see some things that really don’t work, like a specific icon, word or color palette. But, make sure to differentiate your app from the rest. Your app could be outright rejected from an App Store if the name is too similar to other apps that are already there.

Pro tip: Make sure the name you choose is not trademarked by anyone else.

Other Considerations

In searching for your name, take a look to see if you can also get a reasonable domain and and social media account. If the name of your app is not available as a domain, don’t discount it, there are variations you can consider for your name (like GoXojo.com or XojoApp.com). 

There’s a lot of thought that goes into picking the best name for your app. These strategies only just scratch the surface. The ideal name sets the right tone, clarifies the purpose, and makes it easy to rank and market your app.

Good luck with your name-storming!

In this #longread blog post, we’ll walk you through preparing your app for distribution, offering your app on your website and in app marketplaces for sale, as well as first steps to marketing your app.

When designing a commercial app for sale, an important thing you need to consider is how you will get the app to people who buy it.

Packaging Your App for Distribution

Desktop and mobile apps will need to be distributed, whereas a web app usually requires the user set up a log in and sign up for a subscription and is not distributed separately.

Mobile Apps

To package your iOS app you’ll need an Apple Developer account to generate the certificates and provisioning profiles required by Apple. After that is set up, go to the iOS Build Settings and turn on the switch for Build For App Store and Build your app. This creates a special ipa file that can be submitted to the App Store using App Connect. You can read the steps in more detail here: Submitting to the App Store

You can also read this earlier post on how deploy iOS apps to your devices without an Apple Developer Membership.

Desktop Installers

You’ll definitely want to use an installer to distribute your Windows apps. We’ve previously blogged before about free and paid options for Windows installers in detail.

On macOS, many apps are distributed as simple ZIP files that you can create from the Finder. Or you can use Disk Utility (or another utility such as DMG Canvas) to create a DMG (disk image). If you need an installer on macOS, which is not often the case, try Packages or PackageMaker (included with Xcode).

On Linux, you can also distribute your apps as ZIP files or you can take the more complicated route of creating a specific distribution file (deb or rpm) for the versions of Linux you target.

Demo Mode or Limited Free Trial

People like to download and try out software before purchasing. We highly recommend that you offer some features of your app for free or for a limited free trial to entice people to give your app a shot.

For iOS apps, the App Store does not have great support for demo or trial apps. One option is to make two versions of your app: one that is a free demo and one that is a paid app. Another option is to make your app a free download and to use in-app purchase to unlock the full version.

Desktop and web apps offer more options regarding demos and trials so think about what will work best for your app. Do you want a free demo version? Will you limit the demo by time (14 and 30 days are common) or by number of uses (4 free uses)? Another common option is to limit the app to running with some feature limitations if no license key is entered. You can even combine the two so that a trial reverts to a demo after the trial expires.

Regardless of what you choose, you’ll need to make sure this is all designed into your app before you release it.

License Keys & Serial Numbers

Often, an essential part of commercial software is generating license keys or serial numbers. When a customer purchases your app, you can provide a license key to unlock the full features of your app or stop the timer on a time-limited trial. You can build your own license key generation and verification functions into your app. This is relatively simple to do by creating a web service with a Xojo web app. Two solutions that can help you get started are AquaticPrime and RegCode.

If you are need to save time, look into developed solutions offered in the Xojo Add-Ons Store such as the GuancheMOS Plugin, a cross-platform serial number creation and validation engine, for Windows check out Quick License Manager for licensing trials for perpetual or subscription licenses.

Selling Your App

Once you have your app packaged to distribute, you’ll need places to sell it and ways to get paid.

Selling on your Website

You should definitely have a Web site with a specific landing page that talks about the product and shows the price.  This makes is easier for your page to be found when searching the web. A landing page is a stand-alone page that includes highlights of what your app offers, your demo video and a call to action. (Learn more about landing pages.) Make the page’s focus your “call to action”, whether that is to watch the demo video, download or purchase the app, or to create an account.

Even if you only have an iOS app that is sold via the App Store, a landing page is useful, some say essential, making it easier for people to find your app and for you to share it on social media.

Selling at a Marketplace

In addition to selling on your website, you may want to investigate getting your app into an appropriate app store. App stores are often where people look first for apps, plus most app stores make it really simple for users to install and upgrade apps. And they make getting paid a lot simpler. However, App Stores can take a percentage of the sale (commonly 30%) and may have significant restrictions and a lengthy approval process before your app can be ready for sale.

If you are selling a macOS app, you might want to make it available in the Apple’s Mac Store. Here are some examples of Xojo apps in the Mac Store. For iOS apps the only option is the App Store and we’ve blogged about how to get your Xojo iOS apps in the App Store.

To sell something in either the App Store or Mac App Store you need to be a member of the $99 Apple Developer Program. You also have give Apple 30% of each sale, wait for them to approve your app for sale and wait for approvals for any app updates. The App Wrapper tool can help make it easier to package your Mac apps to sell in the Mac App Store.

Of course there is the Windows Store for your Windows apps. If you use Advanced Installer, the Desktop Bridge Setup Converter can be used to convert an installer to one that is compatible with the Windows Store. More information is available in this article: Build an AppX Installer for Microsoft Store with Xojo.

If you are selling a Xojo-related tool, library or plugin, another option is to sell it in the Xojo Store in the Add-On Product section. There is no charge for this and you get to keep 70% of the sale. Contact us if you are interested.

Getting Paid

With apps sold in the app stores you’ll get paid by the store guidelines, usually once a month for the previous month’s sales, though some store may set a minimum payment before they pay up.

For desktop apps or web apps that have subscriptions you’ll need a way to handle payments. Rather than setting up your own merchant account and dealing with that, it’s increasingly common to use an existing payment processing service like PayPal or FastSpring.

If you are not already familiar with how PayPal works, you can learn more here. FastSpring lets you create a “store” with your products, pricing, a shopping cart, currency conversion and will take payments from credit cards and other means. FastSpring takes 8.9% per transaction with a minimum order fee of $0.75 or 5.9% + $0.95 per transaction; PayPal is 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (rates from July 2018).

Regardless of the service you use, you will need to hook it up to an account to receive payment. Typically you hook it up to a checking account or PayPal. Other services you might want to check out include: Gumroad, Stripe, Paddle, and 2CheckOut.

Marketing Your App

Now your app is packaged and available for sale on your website and an app marketplace or two. How do you get the word out? Here are 3 musts when it comes to app marketing:

Press Release

You’ll need a Press Release that announces your app, explains what your app does and why people should buy it – here’s a template and example.

For a small fee, services like PR Newswire will send out your press release to a wide variety of websites for you. We also want to help promote your #XojoMade app! Email your press release to pr@xojo.com and we’ll post it on the Announcements channel in the forum and share it on Twitter.

Demo Video

Yes, you should definitely have a demo video! Either more of a traditional software demonstration, a commercial that lists your app’s top selling points or some combination of the two. Keep it short and sweet – feel free to follow up with a longer, more in-depth video, but to grab perspective users you’ll want something less than a minute. Video is much more digestible and easy to share than the written word and you can create a good one on your own.

Outside Listings & Reviews

Get your product listed on app download services, such as MacUpdate or Download.com. Once listed, you’ll want reviews because one of the most trusted forms of marketing is word of mouth. You believe the word of a colleague over that of a commercial, right? Ask your users to post honest reviews of your app in app marketplaces and on third party sites. If your app is new, or just needs the reviews, think about offering a discount or swag for a review.

Now What? More Marketing Tips from Dana and Alyssa

Here are some great posts to explore simple and often free options for marketing your apps:

I’ve shared some tips on using Twitter to market you apps, and Dana has talked about other ways to market your app for free. These efforts do not live in a vacuum. Let’s discuss ways to integrate all these forms of marketing to make the greatest impact…let’s talk about Networking.

Delicious business cards aside, networking is simply the building of business relationships. For some of us, extroverts I’m looking at you, this may come naturally and you may genuinely enjoy it; but for others, networking can be a true effort, a constant struggle to get out there and be authentic in every interaction.

Regardless of how you feel, networking is necessary. From independent developers, citizen developers, small business owners and CEOs, networking leads “to more job and business opportunities, broader and deeper knowledge, improved capacity to innovate, faster advancement, and greater status and authority” as discussed in HBR’s article Learn to Love Networking.

Love it or not, here are 5 ways to network, IRL and online.

1. Cross-posting sometimes gets a bad, spam-y reputation but used responsibly it can be a simple solution to promote your app to different audiences. The key, both to reaching more people and to avoid being considered spam, is to tailor each message for the individual network and only post to the networks you are active in. For example, I have a blog post, “A Modern Alternative to Visual Basic” and I want to post it across all our networks. On Twitter I might tweet a question hoping to start a conversation: Even with 280 characters, I tend limit the hashtags on Twitter more than I would on other networks. On Facebook and Google+ I would expand the post to include more details, multiple images and additional hashtags: On LinkedIn I will tailor the post more toward to specific audience, ie Visual Basic developers: And that’s how you cross-post the same content, even the same image, to different networks while still tailoring the message to each audience.
2. Use your signature block. Your signature block is simple, silent networking (so appealing to us introverts). Share a little about yourself and your app in your signature block. Make sure to link to your website and the social network you are most active on. Don’t write your life story, don’t include 7 inspirational quotes, do keep it short and do include a direct link.
3. Attend events and show your strengths. You’ve developed this app, your input is valuable and you are likely more knowledgable than you think. Know what your strengths are and work out how you will talk about them and how you can use them to help others. Shameless Plug: Each year I’m reminded by developers at the Xojo Developer Conference that networking is the greatest benefit in attending.
4. Share and listen- don’t make it all about you and your project. Offer your expertise but don’t forget to listen to what others have to say. Your next great idea or that missing piece to your project could be a conversation away! Keep in mind, you’re probably not the only one in the room who isn’t 100% comfortable networking.
5. Be nice, you aren’t the only “expert” in the room. Your goal is conversations and engagement. People will remember and share generous and kind interactions. Ask actual questions, not statements showing off your experience. It may seem like a silly or obvious list, but these 10 conversation starters for introverts can really help break the ice. Keep the list handy on your phone and check it right before you enter the room.

To learn even more about using social media and other app marketing topics, come to XDC or email me at social@xojo.com with questions or suggestions on app marketing topics you would find helpful!

Here’s a list of 8 additional ways your marketing team of 1 can promote your app at no cost:

1. Build a small website

Don’t compare your app or your website to the big fish in the market. You don’t need to have a big, fancy site to get started. Create a simple website (just 1-2 pages to showcase your app) or even use a pre-made template or website builder like Everweb, which is made with Xojo, to pre-announce your app. Launch your website about a month or two before you plan on releasing your app and collect email addresses of people who might be interested in hearing from you when your app launches. Keywords are important for search engines, so make sure that you play up keywords about your app when writing your text.

2. Have a blog

Blogs can be a great way to to attract readers and draw them into your website. Start a blog and update it often with content that relates to your audience. Do make a schedule for the month with the blog posts you think you can put together. Don’t fill your blog with filler content that has nothing to do with why your your readers visit your blog. Think about what they’d want to learn more about, or comment on industry news, talk about your app development progress or anything relevant.

3. Share your content

Use your social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn to promote your app, blog posts, product updates, etc. at least several times a week.

4. Create a product video

Become your own video editor! Make a short, creative video to showcase your app and what it can do. Shoot for a funny or thought-provoking theme for your video. Share your video on YouTube and link to it via other social media channels.

5. Contact bloggers

Find bloggers who write about topics that relate in some way to your app or who are interested in app development, technology, etc. For example, if your app has something to do with music recording, contact bloggers that cater to musicians.

6. Always be collecting emails

An email list of people who have opted in (given their express permission to hear from you) can be a powerful marketing tool. Gather potential customer emails through social media sites and your website. You can use tools like Mail Chimp or Constant Contact to email your audience.

7. Use your email signature

This is often a missed opportunity, but your email signature is something that everyone you talk to sees and a great way to make sure you share a message with everyone. Provide a catchy short description of your app with a download link below your signature block to help your contacts know what you’re up to and get them to visit your website. All of your contacts could be potential customers!

8. Run a contest or promotion

Encourage people to tweet and share content on their social networks promoting your app. A random person each week can win a coupon to download your app for free, for example. Alternatively, run a contest to win a discount coupon for people who opt into your mailing list and build up your email database. Another idea is to offer a code to people who like your Facebook page or follow your Twitter account to grow your online community.

You don’t need a huge budget to get the word out about your app. There are so many things you can do to market your app for free, with a little creativity and will to invest some of your time into promoting your app! Join us at the Xojo Developer Conference for more tips and information on how to market your Xojo app.

For some apps, you can just record the iPhone or iPad screen with another camera especially if you feel you need to show an actual finger doing the tapping. In most cases, however, that’s not necessary and a actual screenshot video would be more effective.

The easist way to record your iOS device for a demo is with the Quicktime Player on macOS. This feature was added in macOS Yosemite.

1. Plug your iOS device into your Mac.
2. Launch QuickTime Player.
3. Choose New Movie Recording from the File menu.
4. When the Movie Recording window opens, you will see the Record button (a red circle). Next to it is a popup menu icon shaped like a small v. Click that.
5. Choose your iOS. You’ll see your device’s screen appear in the Movie Recording window.
6. If you’re going to record your voice while doing the demo, make sure you choose Internal Microphone or use an external one if you have one. Otherwise, the QuickTime Player will default to using the iPhone itself which won’t sound as good.
7. You have two choices for the quality level. I suggest using the default choice (High) unless that turns out to be unsatisfactory. For most uses it will be fine and produces much smaller files.
8. Click Record to record your iOS screen.
9. Do all the steps for your demo.
10. When you’re finished, click the Stop button.
11. Save your recording and later you can use File -> Export to save in various formats and sizes based upon how you’re going to use the demo video you’ve made.

Note: The name of the iOS device can be found on the device in Settings -> General -> About -> Name.

The QuickTime Player has some decent functions for clipping and trimming your video as well. If you need titles and more sophisticated features for your demo video, iMovie or Final Cut are great solutions.

You’ve opened your Twitter account using a Twitter handle that defines and promotes your brand and your app, check. You’ve added a close-up headshot of yourself or a clear, simple logo, check. Now, how do you get the followers and engagement you need to successfully promote your app?

For those of you, like me, who didn’t grow up with social media, it can seem like an arbitrary and daunting undertaking. But dip your toe in and you’ll find Twitter can be fun, informative and rewarding.

Here are 4 tested and simplified tips to get you started marketing your app on Twitter.

1. Learn the Language
You’re a developer so you get it, you need to learn the ins and outs of the Twitter language.

#hashtags: Using hashtags makes your tweets more searchable, helping you connect to people with similar interests, i.e. potential customers. Research and identify the hashtags that apply to your app and use them, an average of 2 hashtags per tweet is a good start. For example, if you make a web app development tool you might want to use #programming and #webapps.

140: You only get 140 characters so make your words count. Think of each tweet as a headline, use your words to draw people in- asking a question is great way to do this!

2. Be Social
Remember this is *social* media. It’s OK, even preferable, to be less formal than you would be in a professional email or even a phone conversation. Light, friendly and even off-topic is a great way to start a conversation and gain followers. But keep in mind what you say is public and can be retweeted by anyone.

Engage #FF (Follow Friday) and #TBT (Throwback Thursday) to help you reach a broader audience. Also, keep an eye on trending hashtags; they are a great way to promote to people you may not otherwise reach.

3. Be Consistent
Tweet consistently throughout the day and the week. Tools like Hootsuite and TweetDeck are free and allow you to easily schedule future tweets.

Check out Twitter’s analytic tool to find out which of your tweets perform best and when. Tweet the same information multiple times but with different angles, hashtags and images. Remember after a few hours, that first tweet isn’t likely to be seen again.

On the flip side, you’ll want to respond to tweets quickly. Where it may be acceptable to take a day or two days to respond to an email, people on Twitter expect almost immediate responses. If you haven’t already, load up your Twitter client on your phone and respond to tweets whenever possible- it’s 140 characters and shouldn’t take you long!

4. Be Engaging
Start conversations with your followers and those accounts you follow. Find, tweet and comment on original content. And share more than just your app: images, blog posts and videos will receive more attention than a simple homepage link. Don’t feel limited to talking only about your app or even technology, remember you are being social! Your Tweet profile should be a colorful, visual mix of images, videos, your tweets and retweets.

Tip: Twitter offers the ability to create lists to help you keep your feed organized. Create categories that help you engage with your existing users, popular accounts and potential new customers. Tweeting with and retweeting tweets from popular people or companies is a great way to grow your audience and build your brand.

Don’t let Twitter overwhelm you, start tweeting and you’ll see it can be really fun and rewarding!