Arnaud Labossiére is the founder and CEO of Khuube PDF. He is passionate about edtech and one of our dedicated Elearnhero users. Thanks Arnaud for his contribution, you can find him and his startup on @khuube

Case study: How to get 500 users in only one weekend using facebook

Product launch

The product we are talking about is a tool that allow students to make a summary of a PDF files. Everything you highlight in the PDF will automatically go into a bullet point summary.

Rule #1 Shipping an imperfect product is fine

You need to make sure your primary function of the product works and that your users understand how to make it work fast. Asking 20 or 30 people to test your product before you launch is a good idea.

Rule #2 Prepare launch (one to two weeks)

Join as many Facebook groups that belong to your target market, the more you know about the specific group the better. For this launch, we focused on law and medicine students.

Join groups at least a week before launching and not 24 hours before posting. Otherwise admins might not like it and will reject your post (and sometimes even reject you from the group). They might feel you are not interested in the group.

Problem: With FB it’s hard to discover specific groups, you need to try many different keywords.

You can also ask friends if they can post on groups you don’t belong to. Also, ask your friends to like what you share, it will help grab potential users’ attention. It’s a good idea to ask them 2-3 days before and remind them the same day so they don’t forget.

Rule #3: Launch with a great message at a time your users will most likely see it.

In this case, the product is a program you need to install on your computer. Your target market needs to be on their desktop. So here students will only be on their desktop around 7 pm or so because during the day they have class and can only reach FB via their smartphones.

Day 1: Test different titles, see what works best (monitor the number of likes). Do that for ¼ of the groups you have joined.

Day 2: Once you know which messages works best from your test groups, send the message to the remaining ¾. Don’t hesitate to post it in more than 50 different groups.

Note: Don’t look like a start-up or a company. In this case, we insisted on the human factor by saying it was a student project done by a group of friends (which is how we view ourselves). In your message, try to relate to people by being friendly and nice.

  • Our posts started with “Hey fellas” and/or contextualized with the group. for example, if they are philosophers you could say “Hi philosophers”.
  • In three lines, you should address what you do, why and which problem you are responding to.
  • Give a link
  • Say it’s a beta version but it would be nice if people give feedback.
  • Always add an image so it looks more attractive within  your potential users’ feeds.

Facebook for business

Rule #4 Ease conversions

If your product requires a login and you are advertising on FB, ask for a facebook login only.

Your homepage should be simplified to the maximum: value proposition + single call to action. Don’t link to your blog or anything else.

Rule #5 Gather feedback!

Now it’s time to send personal messages to your users. Address them with their personal name, remind them what you posted and on which group. Ask them their thoughts and if they had time to try out your product. Ask clearly, “Tell me what sucks.”

Thank people who leave nice feedback and ask them to share or invite their friends to like your Facebook page.

Note:

  • Respond quickly to comments.
  • Ask for people’s thoughts in the post to push them to interact.
  • If feedback is negative, stay cool (it’s actually a good thing as it shows they care about what you do) and tell them it’s a test version and that you were looking for feedback to upgrade your product.

Final comment #6: How we missed on 1000 more users

“ We posted right after final exams were finished and we should have posted a month before the start of the exam. Unfortunately, at this time the product wasn’t ready” Arnaud told us.

Advice:

  • For this to work you need an interesting product and a sympathetic message.  An ad post isn’t spam if it looks cool. People are fine with them if you are nice to them.
  • It’s fine to repeat the process, but you should wait at least 4 to 5 months. Otherwise, it can annoy people and end up in spam, you may get rejected from the group and you may get a bad image for your product.

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