The App Store now has over 1 million active apps.
Over a billion copies of those apps have been downloaded to date.
The trick, however, with apps is getting people to use them.
People are using apps more in terms of hours spent, but they’re also spending most of that time in their favorite apps. We don’t really spend much time on fringe apps.
So it’s hard to break into the fray, but once you do you’re in really good shape.
That’s where a company like metaps can come in and help. Their solution seems to offer apps a few different services including Analytics, Revenue and Promotion.
You can check out their site for an overview of their services. Today we’re going to look at what they’re doing for a blogging strategy.
1. Extensive Research & Graphics
The most recent post on the metaps blog is a really good one.
The post gets into a lot of information about the mobile app industry. The stats are all things app developers would find interesting and the information is presented in a number of useful graphics.
The information goes into how companies are promoting their apps and how different types of apps see different experiences with users.
It’s all very valuable information that the target audience will find interesting and that they can act on.
Anytime you provide your own analysis and research it will likely be useful for your target audience and for your existing customers as well.
And if you can’t do your own research with clients you can still use industry stats and research to create posts like this.
2. Answering Questions, More Analysis & Charts
Metaps is really good with the analysis and charts.
They do it again with this post from the past year where they also answer a simple question: Do app rankings correlate with stock price?
It’s a solid blogging strategy to focus on the questions your target audience has. I can imagine that many app developers would be wondering the answer to this question.
Metaps went ahead and did the analysis and provided the answer. I can imagine they were curious about it as well.
It seems simple, but sometimes the best blogging strategies are about finding common questions your target audience is asking and answering them with blog posts. The posts could be short, long or anything in between as long as the best answer possible is provided.
3. Actionable Information
I mentioned this earlier in a previous point, but it really stands out in this next post and is worth mentioning as its own point.
Anytime you can provide actionable information for your target audience the blog post has a high chance of doing well. That’s because people reading blog posts feel like they really get value if they can take action and do something that positively affects them as a result of reading a post.
That’s why those “10 tips…” posts usually do so well. If you can share a unique tip, especially if it’s backed up by research, you’ll be providing a really great service.
This post from metaps goes into an analysis about the app markets that are most similar. So if you’re developing apps for the US market the next best market for success would be Canada because those two markets are so similar in terms of popular apps.
4. Stats Not Readily Available
There is a theme with the metaps blog and that is research and stats.
We’ll continue by looking at something metaps did with this post.
There is a lot of great information in that post, but one thing that stood out to me happened toward the end when metaps broke down information into a category of information that isn’t normally available.
Metaps mentioned that sub-game types are not usually available from the App Store. So developers don’t know specifically what type of games do well, only what games do well overall.
They found that role playing games and strategy games were the most popular.
This is another great way to provide valuable information. When it’s not out there, but your audience wants it you have an opportunity to provide some great value that no one else will have.
5. Analyzing Stats
And finally I want to mention a point that has been kind of alluded to earlier, but that I never mentioned straight out.
Metaps does a really good job of providing analysis of what stats mean for the reader. They go deeper into stats than just what’s on the surface and obvious.
Readers, in this case app developers, are busy and they don’t have time to search for all kinds of stats. They can certainly do that. They’re smart like anyone else, but people are busy.
And when you’re busy you want to know what the stats are and what it means to you and what you should do.
In this post, Metaps goes deeper into commonly found data than others will. It goes beyond the usual headlines. This is a very useful post that will pull readers in and provide value.
Conclusion
Perhaps more than any other blog we’ve analyzed, metaps goes into analysis and data. I love it. I think it’s a great strategy. Stats, data and science just about always work well for a blogging strategy. People like concrete evidence and not just proclamations.
Metaps does a great job with their blogging strategy. I’m sure their readers wish they would blog a bit more often than once every couple months.