How to Grow an App Without Dumping Money Into Ads

Watch the video version of this show on YouTube »

Maddie Kirby is currently the Senior Social Media Manager for the video journal app, 1 Second Everyday. Maddie started her social media marketing career at Ozwest. Ozwest is an exclusive distributor of Zing branded toy products and the Ozwest toy line in the USA and Canada.

While working at Ozwest, Maddie started growing her personal social media presence. Maddie has almost 400k followers on TikTok. Since joining 1 Second Everyday in 2019, Maddie has been instrumental in leveraging TikTok to organically drive millions of downloads.

Maddie has a bachelor’s degree in advertising from the University of Oregon, and has also worked for companies such as Bytedance, Inc., Egg Strategy, Transition Productions, and Atomicus Films.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to promote your app with user-created content
• Clever tricks to get your app noticed
• Why TikTok is a great place to market your app
• A great strategy for growing your app’s follower count

Links & Resources

• Maddie and David’s App Promotion Summit USA panel discussion
• Cesar Kuriyama’s Twitter
• Cesar Kuriyama’s TED Talk
• David Smith on The Sub Club Podcast
• Widgetsmith app

Maddie Kirby’s Links

• Maddie Kirby’s TikTok
• Maddie Kirby’s LinkedIn
• 1 Second Everyday’s website
• 1 Second Everyday is on Twitter
• 1 Second Everyday’s Instagram
• Zing Toys website

Follow us on Twitter:

• David Barnard
• Jacob Eiting
• RevenueCat
• Sub Club

Episode Transcript

Madison: 00:00:00

I like to think of them as content buckets or pillars. You pick three and stick with those for a little bit. Try a few ideas in each bucket. See what's working, what's not. Scrolling through the app is the best way to kind of keep on top of things. And then you have to be able to think really fast and post really fast because these trends come and go. 

Jacob: 00:00:39

Welcome to the Sub Club podcast. Our guest today is Maddie Kirby, Senior Social Media Manager at 1 Second Everyday. She began her career in social media marketing at toy company, Ozwest.

While working there she also started growing her personal social media presence, accumulating almost 400,000 followers on TikTok.

In 2019, Maddie joined 1 Second Everyday where she has been instrumental in leveraging TikTok to organically drive millions of downloads.

Maddie, welcome to the podcast.

Madison: 00:01:08

Thank you. I'm excited to be here.

Jacob: 00:01:10

I'm also here with David, my guest, which I forgot to introduce in our freaky Friday intro swap.

David: 00:01:16

I usually do the introductions, but that was great. Jacob.

Jacob: 00:01:19

Hey, you know what? I'm very, very, very versed at...

David: 00:01:21

You gotta mix things up. 

Jacob: 00:01:23

I'll pass back to David because he's the one who preps all the questions. 

David: 00:01:29

Nice. 

Maddie and I were on a panel together earlier this month, at App Promotion Summit, which is a great thing to watch. We can link it in the show notes.

It was four of us on the panel and it went really quick, but she shared a lot of really interesting stuff about what she's working on in social media marketing, and working with 1 Second Everyday on their TikTok presence.

So, I wanted to bring her on the podcast to actually give her time to talk a little more about it in the context of promoting apps, because she's been on a couple of other podcasts where they're talking more specifically about social media.

I'm super excited to have you, Maddie.

I do want to dive in. We typically do have more developer focused guests, you know, people that are doing the coding or focused on user acquisition, spending 50K a month on Facebook. And so that's another reason I was excited to have you on the podcast is to just get a really different perspective.

I think that there's a lot of potential in social media marketing. But not a lot of people talking about it in the app space and then...

Jacob: 00:02:40

Or just knowing how to do it, right?

How do you even start, especially if you're a developer-turned-promoter. I think a lot of app creators tend to do the things you were talking about. David does technical channels about buying ads on Facebook or whatever, where's a lot of leverage in social media stuff. If you can do it. 

David: 00:03:02

Yeah, absolutely. So, I did want to start with, you got your start in social media marketing, not with an app, which is another thing. It's like you came to the app marketing with such a different perspective, which I think is is really good. There's too many people who are just so narrowly focused in the kind of existing playbook for marketing apps.

So, are there any lessons from your time at of all the places a toy company? Any particular lessons from being at a toy company that you think helped you grow and learn this form of marketing and specifically that apply to subscription apps?

Madison: 00:03:41

Yeah. I don't know if it's necessarily a lesson or lessons that I've learned. But I think coming from the toy industry, which is also an industry where people don't leave it. They have a lot of people that started in the industry and then just stayed there forever. You have a lot of people that aren't really thinking beyond just what they are normally, what they're used to, I guess, is what I would say. 

Jacob: 00:04:05

Is what they're used to, like ads on Nickelodeon.

Madison: 00:04:08

Yeah, it's definitely commercials. Like when they were still talking about TV and trying to transition out of that, that's really funny that you brought that up, but that's kind of what we were talking about at the time. So I got really lucky and I had a great manager who really wanted me to push people outside of their boxes.

And I feel like I wouldn't have found TikTok unless I was at a toy company, because we were so focused on trying to connect to Gen Z and young people. And I heard some kids talking on our public transportation abo...