How to Implement Real-Time Features in a Social Media App - Why Is It Important?

You have to be living under a rock if you have not wasted your time endlessly scrolling through thousands of posts and videos.

Social media has become an integral part of everyone’s life. While sharing perspectives and content is the primary reason why social media is being used nowadays, there was a time when chatting was the ultimate reason behind people using these platforms.

Recently with the development of several social media platforms, people have found their way to interact with all of them.

There is a specific application for reading text, watching videos, sharing thoughts, and whatnot.

However, have you ever wondered what makes these social media platforms engaging? Well, implementing real-time features is one of the biggest reasons.

In this post, let us take a quick look at some of the reasons why implementing real-time chat and video features is crucial in a social media application.

What are Real-Time Features in Social Media?

Before we identify why it is important to implement real-time features in a social media application, it is crucial to identify them.

Real-time features are those that allow you to interact with someone on the platform in real time.

The best example of this is your chat feature. Irrespective of where you are or what you have sent, the person you want to chat with is notified in real time, making communication easier and more realistic.

Some such features include -

1. Video Conferencing
2. Live Streaming
3. Data Syncing
4. Collaborative Tools
5. Voice Calls
6. Instant Messaging
7. Live Notifications

All these features are crucial for any social media platform. Not only do these features make the application engaging but also allow users to stay connected with their friends and family.

The sense of community is strengthened by real-time features and app maintenance services know it pretty well.

This is also the reason why there is a team of maintenance experts working regularly on making these features better.

3 Reasons Why Implement Real-Time Features in Social Media Platforms?

Real-time communication is the fundamental feature of every social media platform. Without implementing features like instant messaging, video conferencing, etc. one cannot imagine a social media platform.

Three of the main reasons why it is crucial to implement real-time features in social media are –

1. To Enhance User Engagement:

What is a social media platform without its users? NOTHING! If due any reason you are unable to keep your user hooked, you will not be able to generate traffic. Hence, to keep your user engaged, you have to provide regular engagement which can only be done by implementing real-time features.

For instance, if your users do not get notified about the latest updates, they may not return regularly. Whereas, someone who is waiting for a real-time reply will keep checking the notifications!

2. Create a Seamless Experience

A seamless experience is not only related to your UI. When a user can instantly connect with the person they intend, it also contributes to the seamlessness of your platform.

Ensuring that your user can send messages and check if it has been delivered or seen by the intended recipient helps your user to stay seamlessly connected, hence increasing the user time on your application. Hence, asking your social media app development company to integrate real-time features is a must.

3. Keeping the User Updated

Another reason why you need to implement real-time features on your social media is to keep your users up to date with the latest happenings. Some of the social media platforms function by pushing the latest news and content for users to engage.

If live notifications are not implemented, you may not be able to attract the attention of your users, leaving the opportunity to keep up with the latest trends.

How to Implement Real-Time Features in a Social Media Platform?

For those wondering how to implement these real-time features, here is a quick explanation of how you can establish real-time messaging on your social media platforms.

• To implement a real-time chat feature for your platform, you can use WebSockets. WebSockets, for those who are unfamiliar with it, is a two-way communication technology allowing instant exchange of data between server and client.

• Simply implement a WebSocket connection between both client and server.

• Ensure that the server checks and listens for incoming requests while managing message distribution, while the client focuses on maintaining an open connection to enable the sending and receiving of messages without repeatedly creating newer connections.

You can check various tutorials for step-by-step instructions for implementing real-time chat features in a social media app. Videos can give you better insights into ways you can add real-time features to your platform.

However, keep in mind that things often get too technical in such videos, hence you should rely on experts for implementation.

Implementing Real-Time Features is the Need of the Hour!

After identifying real-time features in social media, you might have an idea of their importance. Needless to say, without real-time features a social media application cannot survive.

Social media requires regular interaction. The more interactive your platform is, the higher the engagement on your application.

Hence, implementing real-time features is not just a requirement but it is the need of the hour!

I hope this post helped you understand the crucial nature of these features, why it is important to implement them, and how you can implement real-time chat features in social media. Thanks for reading, good luck!