ASO vs. Influencer Marketing
Approximately 10 years ago, digimarketing started using the tool of influencer marketing. However, this new ”trend” was only limited to certain celebrities, since back then being an influencer had a whole different definition. But maybe that time is behind us and companies should start looking at other great tools - such as ASO. App Store Optimization seems to scare companies outside the game world, but the question is why, when it actually is the most valuable tool any company could have.
When digimarketing companies realized, that using all types and all levels of influencers was the key to success, it could be seen everywhere. Bloggers and YouTubers were making deals with different brands and suddenly all you could see was new Instagram posts, blog posts and YouTube videos about new products EVERYONE should try out. The same has been with apps; many YouTubers that I subscribe to, have made videos sponsored by different game-apps and are that way promoting the app.
In 2018 searching engines showed that ”influencer marketing” was out-ruling, for example, ”social media marketing” and ”search engine marketing”. Back when influencer marketing was ”original” and not that ”all over the place”, it was very effective, but now that every post from an influencer seems to be a commercial brand deal post, people start to ignore them. From reading many comments and talking with various people, many feel that influencers don’t actually even believe in the brand and are only doing those posts for the monetary benefit. This makes the product and the company behind it forfeit the benefits they could gain from other types of marketing. Another big factor is what kind of influencers they use for their products; what type of an audience does the influencer have? Choosing influencers based on their amount of followers has no valid grounds on actually making marketability more efficient. Thus you should firstly narrow down a certain area of influencers who are actually valuable on promoting your products or services. To conclude, many factors have made influencer marketing fall off the track and is just trying to overload the audience with commercial content everywhere, which is effecting their marketability the opposite for the desired way.
Currently it could be said that only game-apps have taken the real advantage of App Store Optimization, but it is wrong to think that it should stay that way. App-companies outside the game world seem to be scared to jump onto the wagon of ASO and maybe it is because it is new and not that known yet. Optimization is a long road and it is not a one click thing - it takes time and effort. Usually when an app is created and put out to stores, the way the company goes is to other types of marketing tools such as influencer marketing. But ASO also leads the marketing to relevant users, who won’t only download the app for the hype of it for a couple of weeks, because their favourite influencer promoted it, but actually stay as long-term users.
