Okay, so I am compiling a tweet thread on Best Practices + Marketing tactics for your Alexa Skills.

Why both, you might ask? Well you need a compelling skill to market, and marketing cannot solely elevate a skill. It's symbiotic. Thread

First and foremost, get a good pronounceable invocation name.

A Good Invocation name should
1) flow perfectly in a sentence (order a ride from uber)
2) avoid connecting words ("and", "from" etc)
3) aim to brand your skill (wild planet, bulls and cows)

Use Social Media to promote your skill, but create high quality marketing assets for Instagram / Twitter / FB / Reddit.

No Designing chops? Don't worry @arjun_g has built this helpful Marketing Assets Creator - https://marketing.voicefirst.tools/ 

One q's I get asked is - where do I promote? Ans : think of who your audience is?

Is it a game skill that casual gamers like? Reach out to Youtubers + Streamers for a review / promotion

Something that helps kids learn? Reach out to parents in FB groups / Ad profiles.

On Insta and Youtube, you can create short videos / profiles that can capture people's attention.

Exhibit A : https://www.instagram.com/p/B6XrSZ9pExQ/ 
Exhibit B : https://www.instagram.com/p/BpHsj0gh5cO/ 
(cc @oykuapp)

Story Stream from @oykuapp is a skill that plays Stories from Narrators on Youtube. They reached out to the Youtubers to ask them to promote the skill.

Effective way to identify the audience. Call to action was to listen to Narrators when you don't want to use a screen device.

Building a Game Skill? Take a leaf from Bulls and Cows - https://www.amazon.in/VOXOGENIC-TECHNOLOGIES-PVT-LTD-Bulls/dp/B07MTZ4BZW/

They setup a contest and gave gift cards to winners who topped the leaderboard for a certain week. This got users to come back to the skill, and engage heavily to get the highest score.

Once someone has enabled your skill, it is important to engage with them, and teach them about your skill.

Story Stream sends this nifty email welcoming me with things I can do with the skill. Use the Customer Profile API to get user's information.

A word of caution here though : Ask the user for their info, after you have established trust.

Established Trust = Played the story they wanted, user played the game and liked it, got their task done. No one likes in-your-face data collection without establishing trust.

Marketing Basics :

Create Social Media Profiles
Create Promotion Mailers and Graphics
Participate in Reddit and Facebook Communities where your audience is
Keep your content *and* users updated.

Alternate Marketing Avenue :

Reach out to Podcasts for promotion, as people use their Echo devices often to listen to Podcasts.

Back to Basics - Skill Metadata.

Have a compelling and professional logo.
Use your Skill Description to highlight rules, feedback email and features supported in skill.
Example phrases should work flawlessly.
Use keywords that you think users will search for!

Take a page from @LiamSorta when promoting your skill via images. Using Fortnite's Official fonts makes it resonate with the target audience.

Some good tips here : https://medium.com/@liamsorta/voice-marketing-7000-users-in-3-days-7efcc421ea1

Been testing a lot of skills recently from a Hackathon and found one thing that you should follow if you are building a Quiz.

If Option A is Bucharest for example, allow the users to say Option A and Bucharest. Accept Both values.

Users instinctively try Bucharest. #alexadevs