How to make your mobile app go viral

Photo credit: David Rothwell

Let’s admit it — we are addicted to our phones. An average mobile user checks their phone 150 times a day. It comes as no surprise that we will be ever more addicted to technology in the next 40 years.

Is it merely luck that apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Candy Crush have become deeply ingrained into our daily lives? Not at all.

Through careful research, analysis and experimentation, these companies have cracked the holy grail of hooking users on their app by creating a habit out of its use. This is a technique that most companies have not heard of, much less experimented with.

This is what separates apps that are used every day from the majority that are used exactly once.

How do these apps create a habit anyway?

Nir Eyal, through his research and experience in applying techniques to manipulate and motivate users toward desired behavior, proposes a 4-step cycle for which habit-forming products are created, called the “Hook Model”.

1. Trigger (cue):  A trigger is what makes your brain go into automatic mode and perform an action. This could be external triggers (push notifications, emails, paid advertisements) or internal triggers (loneliness, boredom, fear, discomfort) creating the urge to perform an action.

For example, an external trigger through a Facebook push notification when a friend posts on your wall causes you to perform an action.

2. Action (behavior or routine): A behavior or action is performed in response to the trigger.

For example, opening your Facebook app to read your friend’s post after receiving the trigger in the form of the push notification.

To initiate a given action or Behavior (B), a Trigger (T) is required to activate the behavior, along with the user having sufficient Motivation (M) and Ability (A) to complete the action. This is the Fogg Behavior Model, and is represented in the formula B = MAT.

3. Reward: The reward or benefit of performing the routine tells your brain if this particular loop is worth repeating in future. This can be in form of receiving attention, feeling accepted, feeling important, having a sense of competency, etc. For example, a sense of feeling important upon reading the Facebook post.

B. F. Skinner has found that making rewards unpredictable and random amps up effect of the reward. This is commonly found at casino slot-machines.

4. Investment: Allowing user to put in a small amount of effort, an “investment” while using the product.

How do you create habit-forming product?

Going Beyond