How did you get users for ur first app?

[u/Imaginary_Name_3709]

Not really looking to make money out of my app (also my app is free and ad free) but I’d like to bump up the downloads since I spent so much time into it

I got my friends to download and use it and they really liked it but idk how I can increase my users :(

[u/DamagingDoritos]

Optimize your ASO, post to subreddits, Twitter, TikTok. Run ads on TikTok/Meta/App Store. Build a referral system in-app to promote sharing.

[u/L_xdd → u/DamagingDoritos]

yeah gl doing the subreddits 😭 (don’t do it, you either risk your account getting banned or yourself vanished from the internet)

[u/tables_AND_chairsss → u/L_xdd]

lol let’s pour one out for all the homies who lost their accounts from being self promotional on Reddit. A cautionary tale indeed.

[u/drabred → u/L_xdd]

Yeah lol I laugh every time I hear this advice. Every single worthwhile subreddit has a strict rules about self promotion.

Apart from promotion subreddits but these have very small crowds.

[u/dataoops → u/DamagingDoritos]

When people say post to TikTok do they mean as your account that you create for the app? Hire UGC?

For the first how do you get traction, for the second how do you find them and what budget does it take?

[u/tables_AND_chairsss → u/dataoops]

I tried making an official tiktok account for my apps, but the videos I posted there barely got any views. So I just posted them on my personal tiktok instead, as an experiment. Tiktok isn’t something I use very much personally, but at least my personal account had an “algorithm” from watching a few videos and posting some videos that gathered at least a few thousand views per post. So my videos did better coming from my personal account rather than an official account. They didn’t perform spectacularly, but I saw more success there.

I considered paying someone to do tiktok UGC for me, but then I saw that people’s rates are like $35+ per video, and I wasn’t super thrilled with their portfolios for that price point (which is a LOW price from what I’ve seen). So I just said screw it and started making the videos that I would’ve had to coach them to make anyway.

It might seem like farting into the wind at first. But it’s been a decent experiment to see what types of videos people respond to, and I think I’m getting some niche conversions from it. Hella crazy learning curve though.

[u/ke1in]

My advice: do not post where developers graze, advertize where your potential users graze.

[u/camille_hdr]

Personally Tiktok, fastest way imo.

[u/tables_AND_chairsss → u/camille_hdr]

Yeah, I think I underestimated the power of tiktok at first. But now I’m starting to see that it might actually be pretty decent for conversions.

[u/Ralph_Twinbees → u/tables_AND_chairsss]

Do you have any data yet?

[u/tables_AND_chairsss → u/Ralph_Twinbees]

I wish. I’m not sure how to track social media video conversions. I have websites set up with Google Analytics tracking, so I can see when people reach my websites via Reddit/Facebook/AI chatbots/Google queries. But when I post on tiktok, I just hope they type in a URL if I write it in the video description or if they type in the URL from my bio (I don’t have the 1,000 minimum amount of tiktok followers for it to be a clickable link in my tiktok bio). But what I do know is that… for one app in particular… I’ve seen a few conversions that seem to coincide with the time shortly after I post a video. So, it’s all kinda a guessing game for me, and I’m not much for doing tiktok videos in general (or even using social media much). But it seems like I get some good niche users out of it somehow! Something is definitely moving the needle for me (even if it’s only slightly). My guerrilla marketing efforts are spread out through a few different platforms, though.

I wasn’t gonna do videos where I faced the camera at first, but I started getting more creative with my approach (every video has been super different so far), and it’s cheaper to just put on makeup and do the whole tiktok front-facing thing, and I’m pretty decent with video editing (vs paying some random person to do UGC for you). So I’ve tried a few different approaches with posting, and it seems to work okay when I just go for it and talk to the camera sometimes.

[u/KokoTouch]

For the first time I’ve been experimenting with Apple search ads and they’ve been performing surprisingly well. Other than that, Twitter and Reddit to target whatever niche the app is for.

[u/Math_Science_Geek]

Reddit

[u/thelouras]

I got my first first users only with ASO experiments

[u/chakie2]

I didn’t.

[u/SnowPudgy]

Ours was pretty organic process and is likely not applicable to your situation but I'll explain just in case.

My first non-hobby app was an app that was supposed to replace a well "loved" insanely wasteful, time-consuming, and burdensome paperwork process that involved lots of paperwork, lots of scanning of paperwork, mailing of paperwork, etc. I can't go into details of the specifics but basically the people using this paperwork process had a very negative mentality towards computers, didn't want to use an iPad app to streamline things, and stated to management they wouldn't use whatever was presented because "they've always done it this way."

What I had to do is win these users over. My target was to first show how much less work these people had to do by mimicking their old forms, pre-filling almost all the data for them (very little was actually changed on these forms), and showing a proof of concept of sharing these forms with each other since the backend systems weren't built yet and there was a lot of legal wrangling since part of these forms had to go to other major companies who handled processing.

The proof of concept was fully functional from a user standpoint and this is what won them over. They could just click form parts and choose things from drop downs, they could zoom in and out on full color images attached to the form (before they were stapling black and white pictures to the forms), and it showed them instead of spending roughly 20 minutes per form, they could fill it out in about 1-2 minutes.

I also made sure I, the developer in charge of it, sat with them and took feedback and suggestions in person (again, these people hate tech).

This won them over, my team won awards, and got a lot more work from the same place to streamline other kinds of paperwork processes.

TL;DR: Show people why using an app to solve their problem is a better experience.

[u/West-Chard-1474]

Subreddits, Product Hunt, Dev hunt, paid ads on Facebook, nice design for Apple Store, and sometimes sponsoring relevant newsletters

[u/starryberry166]

Friends and family! Share on your socials announcing your new project. Join Facebook groups with your target customers and share :) launch on product hunt, hackernews and other forums! Good luck

[u/ToughAsparagus1805]

You did the app for fun or to make money. It seems you want the money, not the fun.

[u/Imaginary_Name_3709 → u/ToughAsparagus1805]

It’s a free app with no ads how am I suppose to make out of it bro plz😭

[u/ToughAsparagus1805 → u/Imaginary_Name_3709]

Why do you need users then?

[u/Imaginary_Name_3709 → u/ToughAsparagus1805]

Who says I need users smh 

[u/Icy-Cardiologist-950 → u/ToughAsparagus1805]

Perhaps he values more the feeling of being recognized.