This is a guest post by Jimmy Schmidt, Director, Product at AppLovin, a marketing platform that leverages real-time data signals to understand consumers and match them with relevant brands.

With over 400 million active users, Instagram has grown to be one of the most important social networks in our digital world. By now, you’ve probably heard the stories of businesses -- from various verticals -- who’ve successfully leveraged Instagram to drive millions of new customers. Given that Instagram targets the native mobile app as the primary interface, it’s an ideal platform for promoting your mobile app business.

Every year, when the new iOS update comes out, the Branch teams waits anxiously to hear their marching orders from the Apple team at WWDC. And this year was no different. At first, it seemed like iOS 10 didn’t include anything that would significantly affect us, but as the betas progressed, it became clear that we’d have to do a bunch of work in preparation for the update.

With iOS 10, comes a complete host of changes ranging from in-message interactable apps, and a completely separate App Store, to links populated with full graphic previews. It’s a brave new world, and you probably are asking yourself where to start. We recommend just outfitting your regular iOS app with the changes necessary to support iMessage first.

Viral growth. It’s the stuff that app developers' dreams are made of. Once you find the feature that drives viral growth, you know you’re on a path to success. It’s sustainable and fast growth to your business, delivered at no cost.

iOS 10 introduces some powerful new functionality on top of the iOS 9 extension system that gave birth to custom keyboards and ad blockers. iOS 10 features a new App Store that lets user install apps directly into iMessage, the homegrown messaging platform baked into the iOS platform.

When I heard that iOS 10 was the first version to support app content discovery, I was overjoyed. The dream of app discovery through Apple’s native search would finally be a reality.

Facebook. It’s an ever flowing fountain of potential users for your mobile business. With over a billion daily active users, it’s the single largest, unified source of new users available today. No matter what your company does, you’ll have to devise a growth strategy that includes Facebook, and deep linking has to be a critical part of that.

Branch’s Referral Reward system was designed to give you the power to incentivize users to refer others to your app by allowing you to reward them for their referrals. According to Nielsen, 77% of consumers are more likely to buy a new product when learning about it from friends or family, so it makes sense that referrals should be a part of your growth strategy.

At last! You’ve reached your user acquisition goal, the monkey is finally off your back, and the light at the end of the tunnel is here. You’re firmly on your way to being the next big app. You breathe a sigh of relief, but before you can finish exhaling, you feel the crushing weight of a gorilla and the light recedes into the distance. I apologize for the idioms, but this point deserves emphasis: acquiring users is only the beginning of the arduous and ongoing battle to build and maintain your user base. Engaging users beyond the initial download is a daunting task, requiring significant investment and a concentrated and deliberate focus. This guide will provide figures, metrics, tools and tips to make your engagement challenge seem a little less formidable, or hopefully a lot.

Today, I’m excited to unveil a suite of new premium products, built upon our core linking infrastructure, that represent the future of the Branch platform. The release of Journeys™ Web to App Marketing and Deep Linked Email premium solutions fix broken experiences for the two most important channels that mobile marketers care about: mobile web and email.

 Mobile websites have long remained the largest and most cost-effective source of app installs. That’s why we’re pleased to announce Journeys™ Web to App Marketing, and deliver mobile marketers a turnkey solution to transform their mobile website into an effective channel to drive app growth with customizable digital creatives tailored for targeted audience segments.