Apps, Marketing, Social Media
October 14th, 2011 by Matt Haff
The Five Stages of the Usage Lifecycle
- Unaware
- Interested
- First-time Use
- Regular Use
- Passionate Use
Passionate Followers
What makes companies like Apple, Chick-fil-a, and Starbucks stand out from the crowd? The answer is simple, passionate followers.
Apple spends 1% on advertising?! Because they are great at producing a passionate fan base. Apple fan boys/girls are the leading factors of Apple’s success. Why are there no windows fanboys? Because it’s not an innovative product that creates a passionate following.
Sharers are great for several reasons:
- Sharers advertise for you
- What sharers say is more powerful than what you say
- Sharers tell you why you’re great
There are two types of sharing, the first is implicit sharing. Implicit sharing happens when an item is shared as a byproduct of participation. On Del.icio.us, for example, your bookmarks are shared by default, so that others can see them even if your original intention was to simply save it for later. The other type is explicit sharing, which is how we usually share: on purpose.
Give them something to share!
If the goal is getting people to share stuff, then there are a few things you must consider. Allow people to share by providing them with a permanent URL, making it embeddable, making it a PDF, and making it printer-friendly. Your next step is to give them something they want to share. It really depends on the person, but in general people like to share:
- Ideas that reinforce what we already believe
- Ideas that surprise us
- Ideas that help explain something we already know
- Things we know another person will find valuable
- Useful tools – anything that makes a tough task easier
- Fun things like pictures & videos
- Things that make us look good.
Last but certainly not least!
I hope that you’ve enjoyed this series, keep in mind that this applies to much more than a social web app. You can’t have successful passionate use without the other four steps. Don’t focus on “viral” focus on passionate! Besides, where do you think viral comes from?
Apps, Social Media, User Experience
September 29th, 2011 by Matt Haff
The Five Stages of the Usage Lifecycle
- Unaware
- Interested
- First-time Use
- Regular Use
- Passionate Use
Designing for Ongoing Participation
Congratulations! You’ve gotten people into your app, now how do you keep them happy and participating over the long term? There are two parts of getting ongoing participation right:
- Identifying the right motivations for use. Understand why people are participating in the first place.
- Creating interfaces that support and encourage those motivations. Interfaces elicit participation by supporting those motivations appropriately.
Why Do People Participate?
It’s not about economic but social capital. These are some examples of motivations based on social capital.
- Identity – enable identity management, profile pages, show what they’re doing
- Uniqueness – emphasize it!
- Reciprocity – mutual benefit, give them a way to give back
- Reputation – number of friends, reviews, ratings, comments, fans, etc.
- Sense of efficacy – give them a way to feel like they are being productive
- Control – not total control, but give them things they can customize
- Ownership – use the words “you”, “my”, “me”.
- Attachment to a group – allow them to find other people similar to them
- Fun – do I really need to explain this to you?
Apps
July 20th, 2011 by Matt Haff
I’ve always liked using Gmail as my email because I can access it anywhere and still have the ability to sort my mail using labels. One thing that I have always dreaded about using Gmail though is that I needed to have a browser window devoted to it. I didn’t want to import it into Mac Mail or Outlook because any labeling I do wouldn’t carry over to Gmail. Enter a new app called Sparrow Mail, this genius yet light app is perfect for me. It doesn’t take up much space on the desktop, it has all the same features as any other email client, and better yet…it talks directly to Gmail!
As a web developer, I’m always using multiple programs and browsers, anytime I can have one less window or a smaller app open I am all for it. What if you don’t use Gmail? No worries, Sparrow Mail supports any IMAP email. Take Sparrow for a test drive, you can get the lite version for free and the full version for $9.99.
Enjoy!
