Developing mobile app engagement among your community.

Mobile app communication tactics | 7 minutes read

A mobile app empowers your communication and engagement options allowing your organization to reach your members via the most popular communication tool – a mobile phone. However, one of the most common mistakes made by the organizations is believing that the app itself will keep users engaged. Engagement should not be considered as a response to user inactivity, but a proactive and ongoing communication strategy that begins right after the user has downloaded the app.

Generally, you can send notifications, various event promotions or announcements directly to your members in the app, and in this way, you can be sure that this information will reach the recipients. However, engagement is not just about the pushing information, it is about a consistent two – way conversation among your organization members. So, with your mobile application, you can implement some communication tactics which will help you to build and develop engagement.

First of all, your mobile app allows you to “listen” to your community.

Imagine that you are considering a new initiative or some changes that you want to implement and you have some concerns or challenges. You can simply ask your community to send feedback by completing an in-app survey or create a private conversation in the app. Your members like to be heard so they will share their opinion. In this way, you involve your members in the life of the organization and additionally receive essential information for your new project.

Besides surveys, you can provide your members with the engaging content in the app which allows you to build a positive emotional connection with your organization.

Most organizations use mobile app for sharing the important documents which aimed to educate the members with industry updates. To make this more engaging, add some interesting complementary tool as a quiz, for example.  You can create the 2-3 question quiz in the app about recent industry changes to test your members knowledge in a funny way. Moreover, you can use quizzes regularly to promote interesting facts about your association or about the industry. With this tactic, you will educate and entertain your community with your app at the same time.

To keep consistency in communications with your members you should consider a cross-platform promotion of the events in the app. Use the social media and website opportunities to share the information about the app updates, new documents available in the app, survey results, quizzes, new project announcements which available in the app. You can use special promotion posts to encourage your association members to download the app or rate it. It gives you a multi-channel engagement perspective to involve your members in the association’s life.

To support consistent app promotion, you can encourage members to share their experience of using the app. Define your power users among your organization members. These users are using the mobile app more frequently than the other members. You can check this statistic in your analytic systems by analyzing the daily average percentage of users that opened the app, the number of times the app is opened, the period of time between the user opening the app and closing it, the amount of time spent in the app, the percent of users are prompted to take a certain action and a percent respond or complete that action, and other metrics. Power users can share their personal experience of using the app to influencing other members. So, ask them to rate your app in the app store and write feedback. It will work in both ways: as the recommendations for members who do not use the app and as a kind of engagement for people who are the active app users.

Engagement is the most powerful tool and the main driver for any organization. It works like gasoline for the car which gives the power to go. So, it is highly important to support consistent communications and conversation within your community. A mobile application as a communication driver can play a key role in building and developing communications in your organization. Use it wisely, coherently and it will benefit you with a growing loyal community within your organization.