Top 20 Social Media Platforms for Mobile App Marketing

Pratik Rupareliya
Intuz
Published in
8 min readJan 11, 2017

Having a mobile app doesn’t make sense, if it’s not helping in increasing your online presence, engaging more customers, and generating excellent ROI (at least more than your investment). There can be several reasons for not getting expected installs of the mobile app. Your app might have issues with design, development, functionality or marketing.

Here, I am trying to address your app marketing concerns up to some extent. I have identified the robust social media platforms for small to mid-scale businesses. Unveil 20 social media platforms that help in enhancing your market size by reaching out to a large target audience and eventually earning immense downloads. Few of them you might be using, and rest are new for you. So, start with new one that you didn’t use until now.

Why your business must have a presence on social media

Without a doubt, social media has grown by leaps and bounds when it comes to its impact and reach. According to a GlobalWebIndex study, 54% of internet users research products and services on social media.

Plus, 71% of customers who have had a positive experience with a business on social media are more inclined towards recommending it to their inner circle. So, if you want to scale up your business, there is no running away from social media.

Adding to that thought, here are six reasons why having an active and thriving presence on social media is a necessity for your business:

1. Attract attention from potential customers

Here is a myth which needs debunking. Just because you sell something, it does not mean your customers would come flocking to you. You have to market your offerings, and social media is an excellent platform to boost visibility among potential customers.

It is free to create a profile on relevant social media platforms and allows you to engage with your target audience, up close and personal. Social media content will fetch your attention faster than any other marketing channel — provided you are consistent.

2. Show support and offer value

Social media has brought businesses closer to their target audience and turned into a massive grievance and redressal tool. Instead of calling the customer service line, most consumers turn to Twitter or Facebook for their queries or information.

Social media gives you the chance to develop your reputation as a responsive brand by offering support. You must:

  • Create a system for tracking customer queries and complaints through tools such as Sprinklr.
  • Listen to their feedback, act on it, and make your customers feel heard.
  • Know when to convert public conversations into private ones.

Social media was never a sales tool and in 2021, this is going to be more true than ever.

3. Dive into paid advertising

While posting and engaging on social media is free, scheduling sponsored information on timelines, videos with CTAs and shoppable posts, and cross-channel retargeting are the mainstay of social media.

It is true that not every business can afford to run massive campaigns. But you can get a lot of value for your money with simple social media ads. Your company, irrespective of size or budget, can grow its audience and reach its social media objectives.

When building a social media ad campaign, know who you are trying to reach, what you want to promote, and what goal you want to achieve with your budget. Opt for content that educates and offers value.

4. Build brand awareness

Create your social media strategy in a way that enables you to promote your offerings via images, videos, and gifs and also helps establish you as a thought leader in the community. Only posting random images or product links, or blog articles would not take you anywhere.

Think of what your brand voice would sound like or how you would best represent yourself. While brands need to be empathetic and polite, you must find your brand voice. Practice getting your tone right so that your target audience sees the real you, not a “business.”

5. Communicate industry authority

Having an active presence on social media will help you cement your industry authority and ensure you make an excellent first impression through your social media content.

Your customers want to engage with a brand that is knowledgeable, trustworthy, and approachable. If you can demonstrate your expertise via writing pieces related to your knowledge or showing what your business offers in visual content, that will be great.

Your customers would get a chance to not only know your brand but also the kind of value you can provide them without any “hard-selling” tactics.

Social Networks

1) Twitter

It is one of the simplest social media platforms. Twitter allows users to share an image, post a link, or trade thoughts with their favorite influencers and celebrity by tweeting them. Tweet is a short message having 140 characters or less. However, the character limit is enough to express what’s there in your mind to more than 320 million active monthly users.

2) Facebook

Facebook is the social networking platform in real means. It allows users to stay connected with their friends, family relatives, and colleagues. Founded in 2014, the platform has managed to accumulate more than 1.59 billion monthly users. It permits users to share quick thoughts, experiences, photos, and links that represent their personal nature.

3) Google+

It’s an important part of Alphabet, popular as Google too. It’s an interest-based platform that enables users to stay connected with people by sharing useful links, images, messages, videos, and much more. Google+ also holds the immense SEO value that makes it a must-use tool for any start-up to optimize their website ranking on Google search engine.

4) StumbleUpon

Being an intelligent social networking platform, StumbleUpon allows users to explore content and recommend quality stuff to other users to read and review. You can post your web pages, video, images, articles, etc. Readers can rate them as per their interest and taste.

Related post: 5 Unbeatable App Marketing Strategies Every Business Must Know

Blogging Networks

5) Tumblr

A quite difficult but equally exciting social media platform that permits to publish various post formats including chat videos, chat posts, quotes, photos, and so on. Tumblr allows to share all types of content. It is also considered as a microblogging site to find and follow the things of your interest. It is an ideal platform to publish GIF’s, memes and another form of viral content.

6) Medium

Medium is a fantastic platform to drive immense social engagement by publishing unique articles and manuals written by experts. Users can share various tips, advice, and blogs that boost readers’ knowledge base as well as help them in business enhancement. It offers a wide variety of content starts from analyzes of world affairs to deeply personal essay.

7) GrowthHacker

GwothHacker is a robust collaboration platform that allows users to share their unique ideas, learning, and stories with the world. Users can post their articles as well as share useful articles written by others on another platform (along with the link to original publications).

Image Networks

8) Instagram

Instagram is a unique platform that holds a quick connection with your smartphone’s camera and other social media platforms. Apart from this, it also allows to apply a variety of filters to your photos and videos; and invite friends to comment on your ideas and pictures. Users widely use this platform to share information about food, fashion, art, travel, and other similar subjects.

9) Pinterest

It’s a very popular social media app or site for photo sharing and bookmarking. It allows site/app visitor to find new ideas and save them. The platform also consists of digital bulletin board that enables businesses to pin their content. As per a rough survey, Pinterest has around 100 billion users, and 81% of them are female. So, it’s a potential platform for small businesses who are targeting women.

10) Snapchat

A social media platform that allows users to chat with their friends using pictures. Snapchat facilities users to check out live happenings and latest news of the world. This is an image messaging application available on both iOS and Android. A unique feature of the app is it automatically deletes all the recordings and images within 10 seconds once the message receivers have reviewed them.

11) Flicker

Flicker is an online video and image hosting platform. It’s a very popular platform amongst photographers or people who love photography, as they can upload their high-resolution images on this platform. It also offers the facility of efficient online photo management and sharing services. Users can also upload video and recording having the maximum length of 3 minutes along with information and buzzwords.

Related post: 15 Best Marketing Automation Software in 2017

Video Networks

12) YouTube

Once again Alphabet product, a division of Google. The most popular video sharing service provider across the globe. Users can upload, share, view, like and comment on the videos. People can create YouTube channel where they can upload their personally recorded videos for the fans and friends. Expand the outreach of your business by utilizing the incredible offerings of YouTube.

13) Vimeo

It is a highly recommended platform for those who want to promote technically advanced videos that put emphasis on the look. Vimeo mainly appeals to professionals. Most of them are high-quality film production companies, artists, and creative by nature. Similar to YouTube, Vimeo allows everyone to watch the videos, but only community members can comment and evaluate the videos.

14) Vine

Vine is a rapidly growing video sharing platform that permits users to share 6 seconds video clips with their followers. It looks like a very short time span for a video, though businesses are achieving tremendous success using the outstanding offerings of this platform. Moreover, the entertainment-based social media site provides integration with other social networking platforms too.

15) Periscope

It’s an incredible live video streaming mobile app that permits users to explore the world. Watch out breaking news, meet people, visit new places and share an interest in real-time. People can broadcast a live video and interact with others as well as share the comments. It allows to discover the popular live video streaming by topic or location. Share your live videos instantly on other social media platforms.

Professional Network

16) LinkedIn

The most popular social platform amongst professionals. It connects professionals from various streams where they can interact with each other for knowledge and business enrichment. LinkedIn Pulse is one the rich blogging platform where users can share their thoughts and ideas in the form of blogs that helps companies and individual to improve their business and skills.

17) Slideshare

Slideshare allows professionals to upload their presentations. It permits to publish job or company related content that all site visitor can see. Apart from presentation, users can also share documents, webinars, infographics, videos and much more. Professionals can post information about their organization, products, and services. They also receive feedback from the users in the form of comments that can be shared on other social media platforms.

Social Forums

18) Reddit

A social media platform that enables users to post their content. It holds voting system that defines whether your content is liked by other users or not. Voting system is based on the areas of user’s interest. It’s also known as subreddits.

19) Quora

A question answer forum for professionals as well as individuals. It’s a wide platform that allows users to ask their queries on any subject. Other members can provide answers of the question with relevant information. It also contains voting system. Much reliable answer receives more upvotes, and less relevant answer gets downvotes.

20) Inbound.org

Discover the best marketing articles and learn about the proven tactics for business marketing, promotion, and advertising. User can create a personal feed with the best discussions, people, and ideas on this platform. Additionally, users can manage their all content at one place.

Intuz has a team of app marketing experts who are well worse with all these platforms. We can strategize your mobile app marketing efforts and boost your overall installs. Do you have app marketing requirements ready with you? We would love to serve you.

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Pratik Rupareliya
Intuz
Editor for

Techno-commercial leader heading Intuz as head of Strategy.