“Yo.”
That’s it.
If you were one of the thousands who recently downloaded this flavor of the week app, you, like the rest of us, were somewhat disappointed, and probably because you expected something more from an app that has in a very short time rocketed to the top of the download charts and raised more than $1 million in investments.
But no. All it literally lets you do is send and receive the word “Yo.” Awesome…
So where does this leave us? Are we, as some text experts describe it, witnessing the “decline of civilization” when apps this “stupid” can hijack so much of our time and attention?
Not at all. To the contrary, we can all learn a few things about reaching our goals in marketing by looking a little closer at Yo’s obscure rise to fame.
Be Self-Aware
What are your goals in marketing? As dumb as Yo seems on the surface, its co-creators, Moshe Hogeg and Or Arbel, knew exactly what they wanted from the app when they set out to make it: a simple way to get in touch with people close to them. Finally, after several weeks of Hogeg pestering Arbel–and 8 hours of coding—Yo was born.
When you know what you hope to achieve before you begin your work—an increase in sales, brand awareness, whatever—that knowledge influences how you build your product. It’s also easier to step back and analyze its results and how successful what you have created is when you have expectations for it from the start.
Know Your Audience
Yo wasn’t that much of a stretch for Hogeg and Arbel to dream up. They already regularly communicated to their colleagues using single letter texts back and forth, such as “!” or “?” So consolidating that economy of language into an app that has no icon, doesn’t require you to login and essentially just taps the recipient on the shoulder was a perfect fit for their office—and, as it turns out, offices everywhere.
The more you know about your audience, the greater the chance you can deliver a product or service that hits the target and resonates with them.
Get Social
Yo was launched on April Fool’s Day (of course it was), but its timing really couldn’t have been more perfect. No one took it seriously—partly due to the calendar and partly due to its childish functionality– which is part of the reason why it stood out in a sea of other, more serious apps. It was different, and maybe most importantly, it was built entirely around communication and socializing. The creators even tried to keep Yo from spreading outside of their office, asking employees not to share it with friends. But some fires prove impossible to put out.
In this interconnected global economy, you have to get social to give your business a fighting chance. When you market your wares via social media you give people the option to share what you have to say. Once people start sharing your information, it has the opportunity to catch a break and go viral.
Of course not all your ideas will be as inexplicably successful as Yo, but the more clearly you understand what your goals in marketing are, your audience, and the value of sharing your content across multiple platforms, the better your business’s chances are to succeed.