If you’ve been a long-time reader, you’ll remember Status. And you’ll know that we love social app growth strategies more than anything else. They’re the precursor to many viral strategies.
So when we spotted OCSN, the “Original Character Social Network,” ranking on the App Store, we were thrilled.
We quickly recognized “WishRoll Inc.” as the developer’s name. Yes, it’s got their signature all over it.
Their app Status was an iteration of a previous app where they built up hype through multiple owned profiles with strong traction, an unreleased app, and a Discord channel.
They then used their Discord community to create videos to get access codes, which in turn generated more natural viral loops. They grew Status to hundreds of thousands of users, but it seems it was another experiment that ultimately led them to “ocsn”
OCSN
Original Characters, or OCs, are fan-created characters that fit into an existing universe like Harry Potter or Sonic, or belong to their own created universe. To get a sense of the market size, DeviantArt, the main OC hub, has 75 million registered users. C(.)ai has 223 million monthly visits. Most importantly, the TikTok niche runs deep.
Their idea with OCSN is to build a parallel-universe social network for all fictional characters. After all, they need their own dedicated social app to exist together—one adapted to their needs – and what better than a Twitter clone.
One of the founders created an account that reached 7.9 million views. They’ve been using a strategy very similar to what they did with their original Status accounts, posting walls of text like “me explaining to you that there’s a new RP social…” or “wondered what my OC would do if they had a sm account…”.
A smart move is to look at the comments — many are from real OCSN users surprised to find out she’s the “horse account,” while others are even submitting feature requests. There’s already a strong community on TikTok using OCSN, which fuels engagement on these videos and drives highly targeted virality.
They have two more dedicated accounts, including Nate’s (whom we recognize as the founder of Fitdrop and a solo TikTok/Reels founder expert).
And then there’s this last one, which might be run by a power user who’s managing the account for free with the team.
The most interesting part is the dozens of TikTok OC accounts that naturally post about OCSN.
Those are very direct and work exceptionally well since they’re posted by people in the core niche, and their audience – the actual target – is receptive to ideas within that niche.
We’ve experimented with a similar niche strategy for a social app months back and know that those videos are the ultimate social-proof-backed, high-converting content.
There are tons of niches like this. You can either find one that fits your product or go all in on one to fully dominate it.
Another “growth hack” (in double quotes since it often happens on its own) is to launch only on iOS at first and hold off on Android. It builds FOMO and boosts engagement on videos. This tends to work best for social or mass-market consumer apps, since direct subscription apps don’t have as much reason to rush Android support.
How do they keep hitting home runs again and again?
We think it comes down to really understanding their users. They build tight-knit, gated Discord communities that act like viral loops feeding back into the product. And the key is: they don’t force it.
The community feels so connected that their fandom/oc users just naturally start posting, sharing, and bringing in their friends.
After all, they’re building social media apps, so they’re deeply familiar with those dynamics and that they need to crack them.
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