# How to Get Users Engaged With Your App

> A NachoTuesday interview — the C-Suite Insights series from NachoNacho, the B2B SaaS and AI
> marketplace. In conversation with Francesca Gargaglia, Co-Founder, Social+.

- **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/nachotuesday/video/How-to-Get-Users-Engaged-With-Your-App
- **Guest:** Francesca Gargaglia, Co-Founder, Social+
- **Guest on LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/in/francescagargaglia/
- **Recorded:** 2024-07-17
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPEcUWvK5ec

## Summary

In this Nacho Tuesday webinar, Francesca, COO and co-founder of Social+, introduces their platform designed to boost user engagement and revenue for brands by integrating pre-built social features into their apps and websites. Amity enables the collection of first-party data, unlocking AI insights for better business decisions and new revenue streams. Francesca shares her non-traditional path to tech entrepreneurship and emphasizes the critical importance of adding real value and creating personalized, high-quality digital experiences to combat user churn. She highlights the power of building branded communities within a company's own digital ecosystem for increased engagement, data ownership, and enhanced user experience. Key Talking Points: High-Quality, Personalized Digital Experiences are Crucial for User Engagement : Users expect app interactions to be engaging, similar to social media platforms, and are likely to abandon apps that lack value, are static, or don't allow for personalization and interaction with like-minded individuals. Building Branded Communities Within Your Own Digital Platforms Offers Significant Advantages : Owning and curating the community environment allows for better moderation, data control, and a higher quality user experience compared to relying solely on external social media groups. Focusing on Quality, Authenticity, and User Feedback is Key to Sustaining a Successful Community : Consistency in providing valuable, curated, and safe content, actively engaging with community members (especially founders in smaller companies), and incorporating user feedback are essential for long-term growth and loyalty.

## Product discussed

- **Name:** Amity
- **Page:** https://nachonacho.com/product/amity
- **What it is:** A powerful tool that can help you create a more engaging and interactive experience for your users.
- **NachoNacho deal:** 10% CASHBACK All Plans. Forever.
- **Estimated savings:** Save up to $3,600/year

## Full transcript

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another Nacho Tuesday. Today, I have Francesca here with Amity. She's the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder as well. Without further ado, Francesca, could you introduce yourself and your team? What do you guys do over there? (00:39) Hi, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today. Yes, I'm the co-founder and co-CEO of Amity. Amity is a tech company that enables brands and organizations around the world to increase engagement in their apps or websites. We provide them with all the technology and know-how they need to make their digital platforms super engaging and increase revenues. We do this by giving them pre-built social features—capabilities that can be very easily added to any existing app or website. Then we enable them to collect a lot of first-party data, and of course, this unlocks powerful AI insights that can be translated into impactful business decisions and new revenue channels. So that's about it. (01:15) Very cool. We did a pretty big event last week in New York for New York Tech Week as well. You made a big splash out here in the US market. (01:44) Yes, I heard from my team. Unfortunately, I couldn't be there myself, but I heard that the event was a success. Everybody had a lot of fun, and there were a lot of people joining. Absolutely. Tell us about how you got to where you are in your career. What led you guys to start Amity? (02:24) Wow, how I got to Amity is almost a coincidence. The truth is that I went to law school and started my career working in international law firms. I come from a very different background than tech. A few years ago, I was working in consulting and then, coincidentally, I got connected with Korawad, who is my co-founder. I was very impressed by how driven and passionate he was about starting his own project. I got so inspired that I decided to drop everything and move to Thailand because that's where we started the company. We figured that since we were building a tech-heavy product, it was a good idea to start from there for cost reasons and because of the existing network. So I decided to join and embark on this new challenge. It was definitely a big change in my career. My parents freaked out a little bit, but eventually, Amity started to grow. It's definitely a decision I don't regret; it's actually one of my best calls so far. I'm having a lot of fun, learning tons, and I've discovered a passion for entrepreneurship. As parents always do until you show them what you can do, you know what I mean? Look at where you guys are right now. So where are you based out of? I know some of your team members are still in Thailand, and you're in London. How do you guys design your team? (03:23) We are a very global company, to be honest. Most of our R&D is based in Asia. Bangkok is our tech hub, where we have most of our engineering and product teams. Then we have smaller offices around the world: London, Milan, San Francisco, and a few other people spread around in Brazil and Indonesia. We try to provide support to customers in local time zones, so we have sales teams, customer success teams, and technical support pretty much on every continent. Now, most of our job and our interactions with customers are remote. (03:59) Very cool. As any good company these days should be. With recent advances in technology and the forced behavior of COVID, it allowed a lot of companies to realize that you can get anything done from anywhere in the world. That's great to hear about. I know user engagement is very important for what you guys offer at Amity. In your opinion, what is the best way to get users engaged with your app if you have a SaaS company or an app? (04:32) There are many ways, but I think the secret sauce is really adding real value to them and making sure that the experience they have with the app is high quality and personalized. The great majority of users abandon an app after the first use or within the first month from downloading it, which is quite interesting if you think about how much it costs companies to acquire that user in the first place. This happens because the experience they have is so low quality and static. They open the app for the first time and can't really do anything. They don't feel like they can express their opinion or personalize their experience, or interact with people who share their interests. Social networks have really made us very (05:35) spoiled in terms of the quality of the digital experiences that we want to have. Users expect their interaction with an app to be as engaging or at least somewhere close to the level of engagement that they experience on social media platforms. Otherwise, they just don't feel compelled to keep using that product. So we always recommend to our customers to really look into what value they are adding to the users and definitely never compromise in terms of quality of the digital experience. (06:06) Yep, that's a good point. Actually, I think you can learn a lot from other industries or even other product categories. For example, we’re a B2B company, and you guys have a lot of B2B clients as well. You can even learn a lot from B2C companies and what they're doing. To your point, social networking and how some B2C marketers are very good at building community is essential. I think community is going to be so powerful going forward, given the fact that it's easier than ever to launch new apps and new companies. The market is just getting flooded with thousands and thousands of SaaS products. If you're able to build a community and network effects, it gives you a really strong competitive advantage to attract and retain customers. (06:31) So, I guess, with that said, engagement is so critical for the success of a product. Why do you think so? (06:58) I mean, I couldn't agree more with what you said about the importance of communities. I really believe that behind every successful brand, there is a community—a set of people that have something in common, who feel represented by the brand, its values, and what it stands for. Being able to leverage these communities, engage these people, and use them as a sounding board, beta testers, and advisors is crucial. The relationship that a brand is able to build with its community is probably the most precious thing the brand can create. For me, our technology is a way for brands to build that relationship in a curated digital environment. (07:32) The truth is, the great majority of online engagement for brands and organizations today is a bit monopolized by social networks because social media are usually the place where a brand would go to connect with their digital communities. They would create Facebook groups or subreddits, but that is a very poor experience for both the brand and the users. There is a lot of control given away by the brand; they often don't know who is part of a group, there is very little moderation, and there is a lot of spam and fake news. The secret sauce, in our opinion, for the brand to really own and curate the relationship with their communities is to build that within their own digital platforms. This adds a lot of value not only to the brand but also to the users, as they will have a high-quality experience crafted for them. This is really a way to boost engagement. (08:38) Very cool. The ability to customize the integration so it integrates well with your systems is crucial. I'm sure you guys also get a lot of custom analytics and details on how people are using it, what works, and what doesn't. That really supports the brand's efforts to build that community internally. You kind of miss out on some of that with external social networks, the verticalized approach, if you will. (09:07) 100%, that's entirely correct. I like to position our product as a way to enable your community to build your roadmap and product strategy for you. Having that data and real-time picture of what your customers think about the product, their pain points, and feedback really allows you to build a connection with them that was unavailable before. On social media, it is very hard to do that. (09:38) Yeah, and onboarding is going to be really important for that. So, I guess, with that said, what do businesses get wrong with their efforts to get users engaged with their apps, and what tips do you have for onboarding users properly? (10:08) Of course, there are a lot of strategies that we have seen being successful in the past based on our experience with customers. However, there is not only one recipe that fits every type of company. A lot has to do with your goals and what your business wants to achieve. But what I can say is very important is curating the initial launch strategy for your community and your onboarding journey very carefully. Something we always recommend to brands is to put a lot of effort into adding value by creating the right type of content and spending time ensuring that the experience feels authentic, relevant, curated, and safe for users. It's about focusing on quality. (10:42) Sometimes, there is this common belief that the more features you add to an app, the more people will want to use it. In my opinion, this is wrong because sometimes you can use an app for the first time and feel overwhelmed by the number of features and tabs available. For me, it's not about the number of features but the quality of the content and interactions that you can have. We always recommend our customers to start with a few key use cases and really nail them, making sure that users are truly engaged. Then, listen to user feedback to see what other use cases to launch. (11:16) Yeah, that's a great point, especially for new products launching or even a new community. I interviewed the CEO of BeInCommunity a couple of weeks ago, and one thing he recommended was the handholding process for onboarding new users, especially in a community. You actually talk with them, engage with them, make them feel comfortable, and welcome into the community. Answer all their questions. From that, you can create a stickiness where people feel... (12:19) valued and want to be a part of it, and they'll stick around. Other people who come in afterward are much more likely to stick around as well. It’s also about making your customers and your community feel valuable and important in the decision-making process. The internet allows us to give customers a voice and make them feel that they can participate in shaping the direction of the brands they love. This becomes very important when ensuring that your customers are engaged with the brand and within your community. (12:50) And that's very important, too. A lot of people might think that B2B companies or software companies can’t really do this, but with tools like what you guys provide, it's definitely possible. Going forward, one of the game-changing strategies will be how to build a community around your product. That’s what will help you differentiate in the market with all these thousands of similar "me-too" products out there. (13:17) Absolutely. What I’m seeing is that investing time in building these communities adds value to the brand in many ways. Very loyal customers essentially become an extension of your sales team, spending time referring the product to others. I sometimes browse public support forums for different software products, and I see many power users spending time helping others. They do this out of genuine passion for the brand and are not paid or incentivized. What could be more powerful for a brand than having such organic brand awareness and reaching new potential customers for free? (13:43) That’s a high net promoter score in action. Many people just want to be part of something. It might seem trivial, but if you're launching a cool product and people are genuinely excited, it's easy to overlook their enthusiasm. Treating them as co-partners in your company's growth, rather than just customers, and listening to their feedback can help you grow something special. A lot of entrepreneurs fail because they think that if they build it, people will come. They get excited about the features but may not connect with the customers' problems or the brand, leading customers to look elsewhere. (14:14) There’s nothing more important than fostering the right connection with your customers, listening to them, and understanding their pain points and issues with the product. For us, this is particularly important because we mostly sell SDKs and APIs, which need to be integrated with the platforms that our customers use. It's crucial that this process is perceived as easy, so we spend a lot of time improving it and ensuring the product serves customers well. (15:14) We also treasure these interactions. Do you offer onboarding services? Do you have an implementation team that works with engineers to help smooth out the process? (15:40) Yes, we do. Our goal is to make the integration and onboarding process as straightforward as possible. We invest a lot of resources into providing UI kits, onboarding guides, and making the technology accessible to everyone. Social features and digital communities are difficult to launch because the feature set required is complex. We want the integration process to be simple, but we also have professional services and technical support teams that work with customers to ensure a smooth process. We can even handle the integration and onboarding for them if needed. (16:01) Great. What kind of features are your customers most excited about today? (16:37) We provide a comprehensive suite of social features, including chat, discussion forums, social feeds, profiles, and recently added video modules. Video features like stories, live streaming, and live commerce are becoming very popular because video is probably the most engaging social feature. More companies are looking to integrate these into their builds. Additionally, we use AI to transform data into insights, helping customers guide their business decisions and increase revenues. This aspect is particularly exciting for our customers as it reduces the effort needed to analyze data and turn it into valuable information. (17:30) Very cool. Next time we do an event, we should include a live stream portion so people who can’t be in New York, like those in London, can still participate. That would be very cool. (18:01) Absolutely. What other tips can you offer for building and sustaining a successful community? (18:37) Consistency is key. Never compromise on quality and authenticity. The key is to keep your community focused. Curated communities that are niche tend to be more successful. For example, if you operate in the wellness space or financial services, it's important for your community to have healthy discussions around these topics without random ads or trolls. Providing a curated experience and moderating content are crucial. Having a small team to foster relationships and guide conversations in the right direction is beneficial. (19:00) Absolutely. What about founders? Do you recommend that they get actively engaged as well? (19:24) I think it's especially important for smaller companies that might not have all the resources for a dedicated community manager. People prefer talking to real people rather than faceless companies. Having founders engage directly and put a face to the brand can be very powerful. For larger companies, it's beneficial to rely on partners and give them roles within the community, such as top sponsors or customers. This leverages existing networks and provides exposure for your brand partners. It’s a win-win situation, reducing your workload while increasing brand visibility. (20:58) That’s a great point. We try to do that at Nacho Nao as well, and it definitely works. It makes partners feel engaged and valued. Many brands could benefit from this approach. And to your point, many people think B2B companies are just about brand logos and business decisions. It’s important to pick values to be associated with your brand and be consistent in communicating and upholding those values. As you mentioned, younger generations are particularly interested in this. (23:19) More and more, people are focusing on picking brands that align with their values. The community can definitely help you foster this connection. So, where does monetization fit into this? If you're building a community, especially with a software app, what monetization tips do you have? (23:46) There are many ways to monetize a community. For us, it's crucial that the investment customers make in buying our technology and building their community is always value-positive. We see this as a way for them to unlock new revenue streams. The main avenues for monetization are definitely not running random ads, although that’s one possible method. (24:17) When you have an engaged community, you collect a lot of first-party data. This data is extremely valuable because it helps you understand your customers better. By doing so, you can improve your offerings, align new products and features with their expectations, and correct mistakes. This data opens up possibilities for embedded commerce, tailored campaigns, and growing existing revenues. (24:49) Another important aspect for us is offering premium partner placements. This allows top partners to host premium discussion forums or simply showcase their brand to your community. This is an easy way for customers to monetize their community. Additionally, premium content and subscription models can be introduced. Not everything in your community has to be free. You can offer access to premium discussion forums or live streaming for a fee. There are many ways to quickly monetize, starting with having effective metrics and increasing engagement. (25:58) It’s interesting—I once met a CEO running a tech company who said, “I know social; I don’t need data.” I disagreed, pointing out that 99% of users leaving the app on the first day is a significant issue. Many marketers focus solely on customer acquisition, but customer retention is equally important. Investing millions in acquiring customers who then drop off after a week is a waste of money. It’s crucial to focus on how to engage and retain them. (26:31) The KPI is worthless if customers don’t stick around or if they don’t engage with other features or find a way to monetize them. Even if you’re not directly monetizing your community, getting users engaged with your product and brand can lead to premium upsells for other features later on. The community can be a starting point to get people using your product in various ways. (27:23) Exactly. The community adds value in many ways, even by strengthening relationships with your power customers. Over time, this will transform into more revenue and valuable insights for the brand. (27:54) For someone starting from scratch and excited about today’s webinar, what books would you recommend for creating a great product and engaging users with their app or community? (28:23) I recommend checking out our ebooks. We invest a lot of time in creating valuable content, not just for selling our product but for educating companies on the importance of investing in brand communities. I believe in the power of communities to make positive changes and improve our lives. We publish several books to guide people in their community journey, available on our website and social channels. They are free of charge, though you may need to sign up for our newsletter to download them. You can unsubscribe anytime. (29:32) Is there anything else you'd like potential customers to know about Amity and why they should choose your platform today? (30:02) Absolutely. Our platform can add value to any app or digital platform. Social and community features are becoming core elements of apps, similar to search or home screens in the past. At Amity, we aim to lead in this space and are always open to customer feedback, shaping our product roadmap based on it. If a company wants to transform their app into something engaging and revenue-driving, they should definitely consider Amity. (30:41) What’s next for Amity over the next five years? (31:17) We’ll continue working hard, anticipating market needs and defining our roadmap. We’re dedicated to ensuring our customers grow their communities and succeed with our product. We don’t just sell features; we work closely with our customers to make their communities successful, engaging, and viral. Our goal is to be the biggest social network that nobody has heard of—keeping communities powered everywhere. (31:51) It sounds like you have a solid North Star and strong values, which are key to success for any entrepreneur. It’s great to hear your story and learn about your product. I definitely recommend checking out Amity. They’re a fantastic partner of ours. (32:15) You can learn more about their company at amity.co and find them in NachoNacho’s B2B SaaS Marketplace, the best place to buy SaaS. Franchesca, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate your time. (32:30) Thank you so much, Andy.

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