Mobile 101: This post is part of our educational series on mobile technology. If you are new to the smart phone/app arena, this series is a good place to start.

Last week I received this email:

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, but I responded. Victor called me the next day.

He explained to me how his daughters “made him” get a smartphone. He figured out how to download apps and got excited when he found our “crib sheet” app from his alma mater.

Victor hadn’t been in contact with his school since he graduated in 1970, but reconnected with his frat house earlier that morning via the app. I call this “discovery”.

If you follow our blog, you’ve read my lovely wife’s series on best practices for promoting our app. When you promote, you get downloads from connections that already exist.

But what about the “Victors” of the world? When your app is in app stores, alumni find you. That’s powerful stuff.

How Discovery Happens

How do people get apps? In most cases, they search an app store:

Each type of phone has their own app store, but they work in much the same way. Search for a term and download an app.

When I first got my iPhone, the first thing I did was go into the App Store and search for “Duke,” because I’m a Dukie.

Based on feedback and statistics, “discovery” happens. Alumni are reconnecting by searching an app store for their alma mater.

In short, your alumni are out there looking for you.

And, as the case of “Victor” proves, they are not always the ones you’d expect.

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