Ingredients of success behind Bitstrips

(15 Nov, 2013) It’s like all of a sudden the social comic app Bitstrips has spread all over the Facebook. It has definitely become part of our life on social media, no matter if you want it. What are the magic ingredients to its acquisition of over 10 million users worldwide in months?

Leverage on social mobile media
Its most important marketing strategy was to integrate the app with Facebook for maximizing social exposure. Upon installation of the app, users are requested to register with their Facebook accounts and their comic strips will appear on Facebook as well.

Virality of Bitstrips happened all on Facebook. Bitstrips first appeared in 2008 as an educational website. Not until it launched the iPhone app in September 2012 and Facebook app in December 2012 did it crazily reach from 0 to 10 millions users in 7 months. No advertising has been made on the app at all!

So what makes it so compelling for users to engage in the comic strips and share them on Facebook?

Comic scenarios with rich visual elements as unique vehicle to communicate on social media
While contents of prevalent social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instragram and Pinterest, are delivered through texts and pictures, interactive social platform built upon comic virtual scenarios is unique.

To create stories and express self, numerous rich visual templates ranging from everyday life happenings to weird thoughts are available. For example, the comic stripes may show the avatar working with laptop in a nest up above the tree.

Innovative way to interact with friends in comic community
The app connects people in the comic world and users can bring friends into their own comic stories. The kind of interaction is special across social media platforms.

The highly expressive comic strips featuring friends’ avatars stimulate a sense of resonance from friends and keep the online community engaged in a lively and dynamic way.

Personalization with own imagination and self-expression
The social comics open limitless possibilities for users to fulfill their fantasies and express themselves on-the-go.

Users can customize their own avatars by defining facial traits and costumes. They can also create facial expressions, dialogues and captions on over 1,000 scenario templates.

Almost 90% of users personalize these scenes. It proved that users are highly engaged in the customization processes, which keeps the app addictive.

Most expressive images of emotions on social media
When compared to other social media, the social comic app also excels in its great variety and vivid facial expressions in conveying emotions. Those simple and flat emoticons just don’t do the same job.

Humor, novelty and relevance of contents
To strike users’ feelings, and create an impulse of sharing, Bitstrips comic strips feature humourous and fun storytelling. Bitstrips is also keen on updating new and timely scenarios, such as Christmas, to maintain intimate relevance to audiences’ everyday life.

All in all, in the aspect of engaging users, Bitstrips stands out from other social media in its uniqueness on comic storytelling, expressing emotions and thoughts, quality contents, and high level of customization. Mobile app and Facebook functions as vehicles to achieve its widespread virality with no advertising.

Marketers may take advantage on its popularity to create comic strips of their own and share it on Facebook to engage audiences before its official native ad placements are available.

References:
http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/16/bitstrips-bootstraps-social-comics-on-facebook-to-10m-users-and-50m-unique-cartoons/
http://www.businessinsider.com/bitstrips-creates-personalized-comic-strips-for-facebook-2013-10
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/bitstrips
http://allfacebook.com/bitstrips_b107243