How to Build a Social Media App That Will Skyrocket?

In the past few years, solutions that help us keep in touch with friends and stay tuned into the latest news and trends have taken off. As per recent statistics, the daily engagement of an average person with at least one of these products amounts to nearly two-and-a-half hours. Furthermore, apps like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and others number a stunning 4.7 billion active members in total, meaning that every second person globally employs them for business affairs or entertainment. Over the past year alone, about half a million newbies have been joining them on a daily basis.

Therefore, if you as a business owner are nurturing plans to build a social media app, you’re heading in the right direction. Read on to learn about this promising trend.

What is a social media app?

Simply put, it’s a platform that enables its registered users to generate pieces of content in various formats, e.g. pictures, blog posts, or videos, and share them with their networks. Contemporary solutions involve ample opportunities for editing stories and posts, adding effects to them, and reacting to them in diverse ways. This retains the audience and keeps them engaged.

Businesses of all scales play on this affection for the above technology to build their marketing campaigns and advertise to target groups of consumers. In addition, such platforms are broadly utilized by different firms to search for new employees and build networks with partners.

Types of social media apps and their most popular examples

The following explanation of the purpose and use cases of the most common types of social media apps will guide you as a business owner in making up your mind about what sort of product to aim for.

Social networks

The main idea behind this technology is to connect users with common goals to help them find a job, build professional relations, join thematic groups, share thoughts, photos, and videos.

Media sharing networks

They are elaborated specifically for transferring certain kinds of content, i.e. photos and different formats of videos, as well as for live streaming. The technology is oftentimes focused on a particular form of content, e.g. Instagram is devised in a way that allows one to post compelling pictures with multiple effects in no time.

Discussion sites

These are undoubtedly the ‘pioneers’ among products of this sort. However, even today experts and amateurs in diverse spheres benefit from sharing and obtaining expertise on their topics of interest.

Content sharing networks

To develop a social media app for this area, one needs to keep in mind that they are intended primarily for storing and arranging a vast amount of links to consumers’ preferred resources. They can also include further features, e.g. uploading images, looking through collections of pictures, and downloading them.

Consumer review networks

These are valuable sources of customer feedback. When you create a social media app from this category, GPS technology is involved to display the location of places and their rankings in real-time. By employing these platforms, both businesses and their customers benefit. The former get to see the potential for improvement, while the latter discover outstanding venues in and around their location.

Blogging and publishing networks

These allow for the streamlined placing of posts and commenting on them from the device of one’s choice. This can take place either on a free-of-charge or paid basis. These venues serve for transmitting one’s ideas to a large audience and increasing brand recognition. They make their profits from third-party companies that carry out marketing campaigns with the support of hyped bloggers.

Social media app features to deliver

To develop a social media app that will truly skyrocket, consider equipping it with the following crucial functionality. After your MVP is on the market and gains favorable feedback, it will be the right time to embed it with intricate functionality.

Fundamental social media app features

• Fast and effortless signup with several registration options, i.e. via email, phone number, or valid accounts in other systems, e.g. Facebook and Google. Later on, you can consider including state-of-the-art signup, e.g. involving fingerprint recognition.
• Creating a tailored profile, including the possibility to manage privacy settings and conceal pieces of personal information of the user’s choice.
• Advanced search for joining groups, finding friends and business partners, and searching for relevant and compelling content by assorted tags, keywords, locations, etc.
• Viewing a newsfeed that encompasses a customized selection of updates and is frequently placed on the home screen.
• Expressing one’s opinion via leaving comments and reactions.
• Holding live chats with followers and friends with the possibility to create group conversations, include video, audio, and text attachments, and send appropriate emojis, stickers, and GIFs.
• Creating posts by either picking photos or videos from a phone gallery or taking them in real-time, as well as leaving text descriptions.
• Receiving push notifications on recent news, posts, private messages, and followers’ reactions.

Advanced upgrades

• Applying AR effects to images and videos, as well as creating collages to engage the audience.
• Advanced search based on location to leverage the potential of services to the full.
• Integrating one’s profile with other platforms to benefit from streamlined posting and outstanding user experience.

How to create a social media app from scratch

Below is a brief description of steps that need to be taken in order to build a social media app.

Step #1: Contracting with a trusted vendor

First and foremost, the company of your choice should be able to provide top-class project managers, business analysts, designers, iOS and Android developers, QA engineers, and other seasoned specialists at your request. Make sure that the team members master the required programming languages, frameworks, integration tools, and databases, e.g. Swift, Kotlin, Node.js, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and so on. Look through the company’s profile to see their successfully completed projects, and check out their customers’ reviews with trusted agencies such as Clutch, GoodFirms, etc.

Step #2: Going through the project discovery

This stage is essential for formulating clear project goals, stages, and estimates while summarizing all the requirements in well-thought-out documentation. As a result of this phase, you’ll obtain a detailed vision and plan on how to create a social media app that will bring profits and meet purchasers’ demands.

Step #3: Elaborating cutting-edge UI/UX design

Nothing will secure the runaway success of your startup as much as intuitive and responsive design. Top-notch professionals will work on wireframes, exhaustive mockups, and layouts to devise a visually compelling yet fully functional solution.

Step #4: Undertaking development and QA

By following the Agile methodology and breaking the process down into sprints, your vendor will ensure process flexibility and will be open to possible alterations to the initial plan while promptly delivering the working pieces of functionality. This being said, the discrepancies revealed are fixed on the go as the DevOps practices followed by professionals necessitate a continuous delivery approach.

Step #4: Releasing and maintaining your solution

After you make a social media app, or rather its initial basic version, and launch it, the process of continuous improvement begins. Based on the metrics, marketing surveys, and client feedback, you’ll be in the right position to upgrade your startup with inventive elements to meet market expectations.

Social media app monetization models

To develop a social media app that will bring you a steady income, study the monetization options to choose one or a few of them for your startup.

• Embedding advertisements into the newsfeed or playing them prior to a movie or a TV show is the most common way to provide an exceptional experience to subscribers on a free-of-charge basis while offering customized ads. These are based on viewers’ personal information.
• Adding premium features, e.g. access to training materials, enhanced job applicant databases, latest releases, etc. that are available to selected subscribers on a paid basis. Usage of the core components remains free to everyone.
• Enabling clients to make in-app purchases, i.e. pay for access to high-quality music compositions, movies, designer sticker packs, and so on.

Conclusion

To ensure positive results and high profitability of your initiative, all the peculiarities must be taken into account. For over fifteen years, Andersen has been providing top-notch social media app development services to organizations all over the world. Contact us to find out more about the terms of cooperation with us, as well as to get more insights on how we combine best industry practices with creative approaches to secure our partners’ prosperity.