Now that we've covered how you can improve your ranking in individual app stores, let's spend some time discussing how screenshots play a role in user downloads. And how you can get the most value from them, each app store allows you to upload images to feature in your app, both stores have different requirements. Apple allows you to have more assets than Google play does but Apple is also a lot more strict when it comes to their requirements. For apple, images have very specific sizes that must be met, or it will get rejected, even if it's just a pixel off, they're going to reject it, so be very careful. You have to upload images for each of the device options available and each of the device options have their own specific image sizing requirements. Also, both the screenshots and the video must be of the app itself, this means no images, no footage shot outside of the app, for example. You can't have a user talking about their favorite features of the app as a video that you want to highlight. Google is more lenient with their requirements, but they do have some recommendations that will improve your chances of getting featured if you follow them. If you don't follow the recommendations, you won't be featured, you probably won't be banned unless you do terrible things because they're pretty lenient. Google allows you to upload screenshots and videos featuring anything, as long as it conveys the essence of your app or game. For videos, you can add a video you have on YouTube, in fact, you have to use YouTube. So when uploading your video, make sure you have chosen a good thumbnail, as this will be the image that displays until a user clicks play. Or you can go ahead and set it to play by default, so the video just starts playing when a user clicks on to your app screen. Let's discuss why you should optimize your app, images and video because these are above the fold in both app stores, this is a great opportunity for conversion right improvements. You can use this as the first step in on boarding a user to the app and educating them about how to use the app and what next steps you want them to take once they open the app. Because of the screenshots and videos prominence, this forms of users very first impression of your app or game and help them decide whether or not to download it. Also, keep in mind not as much with Apple due to their strict requirements, but with Google, images and videos can provide social proof. You can have a video of people talking about what they love about your app or interviewing strangers on the street. The one thing you can't do with Google is include any content that reflects or suggests Google play store performance, ranking or price and promotional information. It's important to note the following stats from a study done by a company called Feature, and I'll include the link in the reference material. A user decides whether or not they want to download your app or look at your app in the first seven seconds. You only have this amount of time to capture their interest and convince them that your app is worth downloading. Also keep in mind only 9% of users will scroll past the first two screenshots for games. This increases to 17% of users, but this is still dismally low, you must use your video and images to immediately engage the user. The first two screenshots should be tested thoroughly and should be your best performing screenshots that highlight, what is best about your app and why they should download it right away. Let's discuss some best practices for app images, since we have such little time to convince the user to download the app, make sure to place your most important images first. If you're not sure which one is most important, make sure to test, in fact, you should always be testing just in case. Make sure that your screenshots and videos are appealing and eye catching, you want to grab their attention right away, any text on screen shots should be clean and easy to read. Users should be able to quickly understand what the image or video is showing them and if you have too many elements or too much text. This can confuse users and quickly lose their interest, with so little time to engage them, you want to do it quickly, next, get straight to the point. There are times in marketing where you may want to invoke curiosity and lead to a big reveal, but this doesn't tend to work well in app stores. Show off your best features and reasons to download it right out of the gate and stay on brand, you want users to associate your brand imagery and your app so that both are easily recognized. Remember to keep brand assets similar throughout all of your marketing in this next section. I would like to go over some examples of what works well and what some apps have done to help get your creative juices flowing. So, remember in both of the app stores, you can make your first two screenshots one longer image and add important text in Fish Brains case. We're currently using this option to highlight our most important feature, along with social proof to indicate our popularity, this may change in the future as we continue to test. Also, remember to tell a story, both tinder and bumble do great job at telling a story with their app images. Rather than just showing features of the app, they take you through the journey of a user, also, remember to edit the time battery life provider information the whole status bar area. You should do this because it relates back to Apple itself, this is a subconscious trick based on what Apple uses. Not all users will associate with it, and it may only work best in the APP store directly but if you look closely, Apple always uses 9, 41 or 12, 01 in their device screenshots. This is due to Steve Jobs, careful marketing, where announcements were made about 40 minutes into the presentation. So he wanted people to look at their phones or watches and have it display at the same time the device was showed on. The monitor included an interesting article about this, should you want to read more, you can also highlight awards and recognition that your app has received. For example, this app highlights a review and two awards, though it would be better if they provided who gave them the rewards, as it makes them a little bit more believable. For example, the VPN app here shows a quote from a respected magazine at the very top, backed up with social proof by the number of users who are using the app. And then reinforcing that expertise by highlighting news sites that they've been featured on, most importantly, take advantage of trends and always test what works best. Some images may work better during certain times of the year, for example, etc, updated their imagery to remind people to use their app for gifting during the Christmas season. Or take this image, which was updated at the new year to help guide users to downloading the app and helping them meet their New Year's resolutions. Let's briefly summarize what we learned, remember, you only have the first seven seconds to gain their interest and get them to download the app. So use images and video that captured the attention right away, next, take advantage of using each image slot available, always play by the rules of each platform. You don't want to get your app kicked off and always test images to see what works best for your industry and your users.
