[iChris]

I'm in the middle of having an app developed for the iPhone/iPod touch and was wondering where (if anywhere) people think the appropriate place to promote it once it's live would be? Specifically on this forum but suggestions for other venues are welcome too.

If this just isn't kosher that's cool but I'm about 4 weeks out from completion and thinking about promoting and thought I'd ask.

Thanks!

[::maroma::]

I too have been working on a couple iPhone/iPod touch apps, yet I haven't figured out how best to promote them. My sense is the best way is to send (properly formatted - whatever that means) emails to blogs and other sites that you think would be interested in posting about your app, and hope that they do.

I would also love to hear any ideas or experiences others have on this subject. Our next app is going to be such that it will be more effective to promote it than our first app.

[iChris]

Thanks for the input. I'll definitely be paying attention over the coming weeks. Am I understanding correctly that you already have apps available? And, if so, did you promote them here (as well as blogs and the like as suggested)?

[::maroma::]

I have one app on the App Store at the moment (see my sig).

I haven't promoted it at all, aside from my sig.

I am hesitant to open a thread promoting it here on MacNN Forums, only because I know that there are people who are sensitive to that and they regard it as spam. But I have also been a bit hesitant to go out promoting my app because I feel like it needs a tad bit more work before I do that. I am not the programmer, but I do the graphics/interface design, and we are working on another app, so the update we want to do to our current app will take a while to get to.

Our next app is going to be more market specific, so we will have a better idea of who and where to promote it. Our current app (a flight tracking application) is pretty universal as far as who would use it, so its a bit tougher to figure out the best places to try to promote it.

Plus, that was our very first app, and we'd never done anything like this before, so we feel like we have a lot left to learn. So marketing hasn't been a top priority for us thus far. But it will be with our next app.

[residentEvil]

i would think a good place to promote an iphone/ipod touch app would be at an iphone/ipod touch forum; or in lue of, a sub-forum of a mac forum.

[iChris]

Originally Posted by ::maroma:: 

I have one app on the App Store at the moment (see my sig).

I haven't promoted it at all, aside from my sig.

I am hesitant to open a thread promoting it here on MacNN Forums, only because I know that there are people who are sensitive to that and they regard it as spam. But I have also been a bit hesitant to go out promoting my app because I feel like it needs a tad bit more work before I do that. I am not the programmer, but I do the graphics/interface design, and we are working on another app, so the update we want to do to our current app will take a while to get to.

Our next app is going to be more market specific, so we will have a better idea of who and where to promote it. Our current app (a flight tracking application) is pretty universal as far as who would use it, so its a bit tougher to figure out the best places to try to promote it.

Plus, that was our very first app, and we'd never done anything like this before, so we feel like we have a lot left to learn. So marketing hasn't been a top priority for us thus far. But it will be with our next app.

Hey cool, congrats on getting it up and out there. How's it doing? Are you happy with your returns so far? I understand wanting to perfect things before promoting. For sure. I'm in the same situation you are. My partner and I are on the concept and design end and we have a developer putting it all together for us. I'll probably post something about it here once it's live but, like you, I wanted to feel out the situation lest I get called out as a spammer. I mean, it is self promotion and I'm sensitive to that and want to make sure I'm not pissing anyone off so I'm going to just keep asking and digging until I get a feel for how best to put it out there.

[iChris]

Originally Posted by residentEvil 

i would think a good place to promote an iphone/ipod touch app would be at an iphone/ipod touch forum; or in lue of, a sub-forum of a mac forum.

That's my logic too, just don't want anyone to feel spammed so I'm try to get a feel for how to approach it in a way that isn't going to bother anyone and figured I'd just come right out and ask people on this forum what they felt about such things.

I mean, if I initiated a thread to the effect of "I have an iPhone app, check it out" would people feel they were being shilled to or would they be receptive? I just want to be respectful about it.

[vmarks]

The best ways to promote are the following:

PR: send to news@, tips@, and other PR and news editor email addresses at the domains you want to cover it. Posting in forums is nice, but you have to balance that with seeming spammy.

Give out either iTunes credit so reviewers and writers can buy the thing without their personal cash going into it, or distrib ad hoc to them. If people can't play with it, writing about it is going to be hard.

Where are you finding your developers? I'm doing some interesting applications, but need more developers.

[iChris]

Originally Posted by vmarks 

The best ways to promote are the following:

PR: send to news@, tips@, and other PR and news editor email addresses at the domains you want to cover it. Posting in forums is nice, but you have to balance that with seeming spammy.

Give out either iTunes credit so reviewers and writers can buy the thing without their personal cash going into it, or distrib ad hoc to them. If people can't play with it, writing about it is going to be hard.

Where are you finding your developers? I'm doing some interesting applications, but need more developers.

All good ideas. Thanks. I hadn't thought about giving credits to potential reviewers. That's a really good idea. So simple and yet it completely escaped me.

As for finding developers... it's a crap shoot. I was actually fortunate enough to find a competent and good developer via craigslist but there's also this site:

http://www.macyenta.com/

I found it via http://www.mactips.org/ They also have a desktop widget you can install that's pretty useful and updated regularly.

[danangdoc]

The best thing to do is to let the users promote it. Once it's in the App store, only those who actually have purchased it can now enter a review. If it's a good app, bug-free, usefull or fun, then the users will promote it. If not, then back to the drawing board! I think most of us read the reviews before we download, even the 'free' ones. It's amazing all the ones that Apple has "reviewed" and released that are fraught with bugs or simply don't work as advertised.

[JKT]

If you do choose to promote it here, mark your thread title with the [Ann] tag to show that you are announcing something like an app launch. It is what Andrew Welch used to do for Ambrosia software apps. People can then choose to read the thread or not and you are actively telling the moderators the nature of your thread.

Fwiw, this is the relevant section from the forum rules:

Spam
We take a strict zero-tolerance stance on spam. Any commercial messages (other than product announcements from active forum participants, or with prior permission, and are prefixed with [Ann]), posts linking to free iPod/Mac/Xbox/etc sites, will be immediately closed, the links removed, and the poster banned with no warning.

[iChris]

Originally Posted by JKT 

If you do choose to promote it here, mark your thread title with the [Ann] tag to show that you are announcing something like an app launch. It is what Andrew Welch used to do for Ambrosia software apps. People can then choose to read the thread or not and you are actively telling the moderators the nature of your thread.

Fwiw, this is the relevant section from the forum rules:

Spam
We take a strict zero-tolerance stance on spam. Any commercial messages (other than product announcements from active forum participants, or with prior permission, and are prefixed with [Ann]), posts linking to free iPod/Mac/Xbox/etc sites, will be immediately closed, the links removed, and the poster banned with no warning.

Thanks, that's extremely helpful. The last thing I want to do is put people off so I wanted to be up front about my intentions from the get go. Everyone's responses here have been great and very helpful. Now that I'm familiar with the rules I feel much more confident I won't be breaking them.

[JKT]

Looking at that boilerplate - I would also contact the moderators to ask for their permission (and point them to this thread). As a Fresh-Faced Recruit, I'm not sure you fall within the 'active forum participants' category.