Marketing, Social Media, and Getting People to Care
I thought launching MemeScanr into the App Store meant I had distributed it.
What I had actually done was place it on a shelf in a warehouse with hundreds of other photo cleaner apps and hope that strangers would somehow walk down the right aisle.
For two weeks after launch, I did almost no marketing. I told myself the product was good enough that people would find it. I checked the download numbers every morning.
They were not zero.
They were close.
Three downloads. Seven downloads. Four downloads. The numbers felt like a verdict.
Then, on a Thursday night, I posted a fifteen-second TikTok. I showed MemeScanr’s scan results screen with the line “your phone needs therapy” and a caption that said:
I built this app because my camera roll was making me feel like a bad person.
I almost did not post it. It felt too personal. It felt too small.
That TikTok got enough attention to change the trajectory of my launch. I got downloads, DMs, and my first reviews from strangers.
The product had not changed.
The App Store listing had not changed.
The only thing that changed was that I had finally told the right people, in their language, on their platform, why this thing might matter to them.
That was the night I understood:
Good products do not market themselves. Builders have to create paths to discovery.
The App Store Is Not a Distribution Strategy
This is the most important idea in this chapter:
The App Store is not a distribution strategy. The App Store is a conversion surface.
It converts interest into installs.
It does not create the interest by itself.
People usually find apps because of something they saw first:
- a TikTok
- a Reddit thread
- a Google result
- a friend’s recommendation
- an article
- an AI answer
- an In-App Event
The App Store page matters. But the visit usually comes from somewhere else.
That means your real job is not just to build the app.
It is to build paths to the app.
For MemeScanr, those paths look like this:
- memescanr.com
- afialabs.net
- TikTok
- App Store optimization
- word of mouth
- In-App Events
No single channel does all the work. Together they add up.
That is the strategy.
Not one silver bullet. A portfolio.
The Post That Almost Did Not Happen
I want to go back to that first TikTok because it taught me something important.
I had been sitting on MemeScanr for two weeks, telling myself I would start marketing “when the app is ready.” The app was already live. What I really meant was “when I feel ready,” which is a very different thing and has no fixed arrival date.
The reason that TikTok worked was not production value.
It was specificity.
I did not say, “download my photo cleanup app.”
I said, “my camera roll was making me feel like a bad person.”
That sentence worked because it named a feeling people recognized but had not heard described that way before.
The app was the solution.
The feeling was the hook.
That is the lesson I took:
Marketing as a solo builder is not about looking polished. It is about being specific enough that the right person thinks, wait, that is me.
What Counts as Marketing
If you hate marketing, make the definition smaller.
This still counts:
- posting a screenshot of a feature you shipped
- posting a lesson you learned while building
- posting a mistake and how you fixed it
- posting a before-and-after improvement
- posting a user reaction that surprised you
All of that is marketing.
You do not need to go viral.
You need to be visible long enough to become memorable.
Virality is luck. Memorability is discipline.
Build in Public Without Performing
Building in public is useful, but it has a failure mode.
The healthy version is simple: you share what you are working on as you work on it. The posts are honest, specific, and useful. Other builders and users find you, follow you, and some of them become early supporters.
The unhealthy version is performance. You post every tiny update like it is huge news. You manufacture drama. You post more than you build.
The difference is mostly about who you are writing for.
Healthy: This might help someone a few steps behind me.
Performative: I want attention.
My rule is simple:
Only post things you would still be glad you posted in six months, even if nobody engaged with them.
Your Website Is Infrastructure
Your App Store page is a product page.
It is not a brand page.
It is not a search engine strategy.
It is not your long-term relationship with the user.
For that, you need a website.
memescanr.com and afialabs.net exist because the App Store is not enough. The App Store shows you MemeScanr when someone is already close to downloading. A website helps before that moment. It can show up in search. It can tell your story. It can hold a privacy policy, support info, and future products.
Every serious builder should have a website for their app, even if it starts simple.
At minimum, it should include:
- what the app is
- who it is for
- screenshots
- a privacy policy
- a support path
- a way to contact you
That alone is useful.
Why Your Website Matters More Now
There is a specific reason the website matters even more now:
AI tools are becoming a real discovery layer.
When someone asks an AI tool for the best app in a category, that tool often looks to the web, not just the App Store.
If your app has no website presence, you reduce the chance that it shows up in that kind of discovery.
If your website clearly explains what your app does, who it is for, and why it is different, you create another path to discovery.
That is not hype. That is just the new shape of the internet.
A Simple Posting Rhythm
If you are wondering what to actually post, here is a simple rhythm:
Monday — Process. Something about the work. A bug, a lesson, a design decision.
Wednesday — Product. A feature, a screenshot, a short demo, a use case.
Friday — Reflection. What you learned this week. Short, honest, specific.
Three posts a week is enough.
Consistent beats perfect.
Case Study — The Screenshot That Changed the Conversion Rate
MemeScanr’s original App Store screenshots were accurate.
They were also boring.
They showed the scan results screen, the duplicate grid, the settings page. They looked clean. They also looked like every other cleanup app.
For a while, my App Store conversion rate sat in the “fine but not exciting” range.
Then I changed the first screenshot headline.
Instead of saying “Smart Scan,” it said:
“your phone needs therapy”
Same feature. Same product. Same screen.
Different words.
Conversion improved fast.
That change taught me something I still believe:
Marketing is often a language problem before it is a traffic problem.
Sometimes the product is good enough already.
You just have not found the five words that make the right person stop scrolling.
What Marketing Actually Is
Marketing is the repeated act of helping the right people understand why your product matters.
That is it.
And if your product really does help, then doing that is not cringe. It is part of the job.
> Think Before You Move On
What is the one platform where your target user already spends time? Not where you wish they spent time. Where they actually are. Commit to showing up there consistently for one month and see what happens.