
Instagram Growth Hack: Using the Web to Drive Mobile Downloads - rishi
http://www.gettingmoreawesome.com/2012/06/05/instagram-growth-hack/
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danielrhodes
A common mistake made in consumer apps is that user acquistion is seen as the
key to success. It is true that you need to acquire users, but what you really
need is a good hook and then to keep those users. Instagram's hook was that
they made filters and sharing easy amd free. People wanted filters and the
sharing part was a bonus. However, once they were there, they naturally had to
take part in the social aspects which made it far more engaging and therefore
they stuck around. After that, it is only a matter of time before others
joined in.

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dhyasama
User acquisition is a necessary but not sufficient part of success. So no,
user acquisition isn't the key to success. And yes, you do need to engage your
users and make your site/app sticky. But you can have the stickiest app known
to man and it's completely useless if you don't have users. You need to do
both and the only thing they have in common is being difficult.

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andycroll
They used to, for at least the first 12 months, have quite a large 'download
the app now' button.

This I believe was in the 'pre-comments on the website' era.

Couldn't find an image of this so might entirely be in my head.

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bemmu
Maybe nobody likes to be sold, but people won't download it if they don't
happen to notice the download button either.

I imagine the likelihood for a person to notice the ad gets better as the
button gets bigger and uglier, but on the other hand the percentage of people
who don't download out of spite because the button is too big and ugly also
gets larger.

There's probably a sweet spot there somewhere.

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james4k
The thing I've never liked about this page is that the photo owner's username
looks like a link.

