Music Marketing With The Yo Messaging App
You may have heard of Yo. It launched as a mobile app that allowed you to send the message "Yo" to other people on the app. A frenzy erupted somewhere along the way. $1.5 million in funding was raised. Confusion reigned. Then Yo began announcing new features effectively ending its run as a single action app. Suddenly the picture becomes clearer and another brief moment of novelty fades into business as usual. More money? More features! Popular communication app? Opportunity for music marketing!
If you haven't heard because you were too busy having a life, Yo was the app that just said "Yo". However Yo describes what they do as "Zero characters communication."
By "zero characters" they mean you don't have to type the word Yo, you just tap and it sends a Yo.
It was a bit more complex but the basic idea is that Yo was the app that "just says Yo."
Yo Is No Longer The App That Just Says Yo
But here's the thing. Yo is hot right now. Yo is adding features so it can be a different kind of hot, one that leverages early adopter giddiness for promo while bringing on new users who want to do more than just say Yo.
Yo initially added IFTTT integration allowing you to use Yo for a wide range of triggered actions as indicated by the IFTTT recipes on the Yo Channel.
This week they updated the app adding new capabilities like "link attachment." For example:
"News websites can now offer not only getting instant Yo notifications when a story breaks, but also attach the story itself and readers can open it in a frictionless and convenient way. When my friend posts a photo to Instagram, InstaYo can send not only the Yo to notify me about it, but also a link to the photo which will open in a single tap."
Plus they've got hashtags!
So How Could This Be Used For Music Marketing?
Some of you already see. But, keeping in mind that they're going to keep doing things to it that help people communicate and they're already starting to introduce popular marketing devices, such as hashtags, much of what you've already learned on other social media platforms will be applicable to Yo as long as you mind what's unique about Yo.
So I'm not going to give you a list of possible things you could do with Yo.
Instead, I'd say just start using it. Once you get past figuring out how it works and what's now possible, you'll start to discover and maybe even create new ways to use it for marketing.
More:
- Catching Up with the Creator of Yo: ‘It’s Our Job to Show That It’s Not a Joke’
- An App Like Yo Could Turn Out to Be Bigger Than Twitter
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch) recently launched DanceLand. Send news about music tech startups and services, DIY music biz and music marketing to: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
