Todewy is a to do list app with a consumer social media twist to it. It lets you follow friends to see what tasks your friends are trying to complete, and to complete the task rather than checking it off like a normal to do list you actually upload a picture to complete the task.

Todewy’s marketing strategy on social media is very interesting from other case studies that we have done because there is not dedicated social media page for it — all social media marketing is done via the creator’s personal account, a strategy that has its own pros and cons.

Let’s dive into it.

Account Overview:

The creator of Todewy (@engineergirlfriend on social media) actually started marketing the app before it was event created. Rather than building the app first to market the finished product, she posted a TikTok photo carousel of mock ups of the app to gauge user interest.

Photo carousels are a bit of a cheat code on TikTok in terms of virality. They work so well in terms of going viral because the act of a user scrolling through all of the photos in a carousel increases the watch time of that post (much higher than a video, for example), thus increasing the chances of it getting pushed out on the algorithm to more people.

With carousels, you need the very first photo to have a strong hook and incentivize the user to scroll through the rest of the photo carousel. In the case of Todewy, the hook of “i want to show you a new app design” does a great job of capturing the user’s attention because it preys on people’s desire of wanting to be “in the know” of an unreleased/new thing. People are curious to see what new technology/new product is coming around the corner, and the idea of a new social todo list app appeals to a huge amount of people. Also, the photo of the creator itself is a high quality photo that also hooks people in.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again — being attractive is an advantage to have in social media. It doesn’t matter if you are a man, woman, or nonbinary — if you can, get an attractive person to be the face of your brand on social media. There is no downside associated with it and only upside.

After this initial post went viral (+700,000 views), she capitalized on the initial hype by posting daily updates of the app building process to re-engage previous viewers with her account. She posted these videos with the same TikTok photo carousel to increase engagement.

Example follow-up videos:

She continued this process until she eventually launched the app, and now rather than having her entire account be dedicated to Todewy, she posts a lot of other content and only occasionally mentions Todewy every now and then for things like new feature drops, announcements etc.

If you view social media as a long term marketing play instead of just a quick way to get some views, you need to branch out of posting content strictly about your product. By only posting content about your product, you do not provide users any reason to re-engage with your account. However, by mixing and matching posts related to your product + other topics in the general area, you continue to provide your followers reason to re-engage with your account, which then results in the possibility of a follower eventually trying out your product if they didn’t already.