Socially Trending Apps Lead to Strategic Questions

A friend asked the other day why app trends are important to follow. My response was that following trends can be helpful in terms of recognizing what is interesting or useful to specific groups of people and, thereby, interesting to organizations or businesses looking to attract or provide services to said groups. Trending app information can depict how apps are being advertised or going viral…or at least lead us to ask such questions.

Although there are many apps being used across many social spaces, consider carefully what networking, communicative or gaming behavior you would like to key in on as a marketing or organizational researcher. Then, review sites that tend to collect such information for up-to-date trending information. Two sites I found very quickly this evening include topapps.com pictured above, and mobclix.com pictured here.

I like the addition of mobclix.com primarily because the site provides additional analysis on trends including typologies and functionality assessment. Additionally, while the first is focused on facebook apps, the second is interested in mobile apps. Across both groups of apps, it is clear that gaming retains its stranglehold on behavior. However, the rise of cafeworld and “in-app purchasing” means that commerce-driven social apps are on the rise…leading business to wonder how these kinds of apps can be replicated or acquired to help with the bottom line. For marketers, this knowledge helps to craft time line and direction for the deployment of apps or app-based campaigns.

And what about strategy? Well app-use behavior can provide a snapshot of users in terms of what behaviors are most popular in the social spaces where messages or dialogue may be deployed. Popular behavior in social spaces can, it seems, provide guideposts for campaign message creation as well as a clear indication of what might not be useful messaging content.

Remember, when it comes to social media strategy one should always posit spaces, behaviors and technology. When considering trending apps you will already be focused on the technology, now get to work on understanding the other two!

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