How To Make A Successful Social Media App

Social Media App Development is the megatrend of our time. There is more than 4.5 billion active social media user with the numbers growing every day.

With over 7 billion phone users across the world and more than 90% of the time being spent on mobile apps, you know social media apps require quite a lot of screen time.

In fact, on average people use mobile apps for around 4 hours and more than 2 hours of these are on social media.

Social media is useful for every aspect of life whether it is socializing, professional life, or even for businesses. Platforms like Instagram and Facebook have become hubs for businesses as well as people. And they are generating quite a lot of revenue.

In fact, Instagram alone is making over 1 billion today. This clearly shows how much potential the industry as a whole has. As one might expect this success has attracted a lot of businesses from across the world to build social media apps of their own.

Finding app development services to make a social media platform isn’t all that difficult. But the difficult part is, making a successful platform.

In this blog, we shall be discussing just that. Therefore, if you want to create a successful mobile app, let’s get right into it, starting with:

Social Media App Development: All You Need To Know

Social media apps are a concept that doesn’t need to be described. Everyone and anyone know what these apps are.

As the name suggests, these platforms are accessible via the web or a mobile app (the latter is more common). They allow users to create an online social profile. The functions of the profile differ from platform to platform but they all allow users to share media like photos, videos, audio, etc.

Moreover, the user can also add other users to their network in form of friends. This allows them to consume media from their feeds. In addition to this, there are also features for in-app communication like video calling, messaging, and so on.

Overall, this is a virtual society where you can interact with other people via their social media ID or account as it is called.

When it comes social media app development refers to the process used to create these apps. Let’s look at some popular examples of these social media apps:

• Snapchat

• WhatsApp

• Twitter

• Instagram

• Facebook

• WeChat

• TikTok

• Messenger

• LinkedIn

These are popular social media apps. If you have a smartphone, there are high chances that you are already using some of these apps.

In any case, if you want to build a successful app, you need to fill it with the right features, let’s discuss this in the next section.

Essential Features For Social Media Apps

Features are an essential part of creating a successful platform. To create a successful social media app like Instagram or TikTok, you need to fill it with the right combination of basic and advanced features.

Therefore, it’s a good idea to list out features before you look for mobile app developers for hire. Some features that you should consider including in your app are, as mentioned below:

Login Video Calling In-app messaging Share audio In-app photo editor Notification Share status

Account Management Audio Call Share photos Share videos Add people to the network Create or join forums Profile picture

These are some of the basic and advanced features that should be included in every social media application. In any case, you can create your own unique features and add them to the application.

Moving on, let’s look at the process to create a social media app.

Build Social Media App: Process To Create A Successful App

To make a social media app that is popular among people and attracts a strong user base, you need to follow a process.

In this section of the blog, we shall be discussing that process step-by-step in detail. So, without further ado, let’s get right into it:

1. Market research

You need to know the market you will be competing in. And that’s why you need to conduct market research before anything else.

Here, you can analyze competitors, their strategies, their strength as well weaknesses. Apart from this, you can also go through the market for audience base audit as well as market opening.

All of the data collected in market research will be very helpful in every step of development.

2. Conceptualization

Following research, it is time to prepare your concept. If you want to build social media app that will wrack havoc in the market, you need a concept worthy of that.

There is no right way to find the concept you can take any path that fits you. Therefore, when this is done, it’s time to validate the idea.

3. Validation

You can’t move into development with an idea you aren’t sure about. For that reason, it is important to validate the idea.

After this is done, you have to …

4. Choose A Business Plan

Well, choosing the right business plan is just as important as choosing the right concept. Therefore, when it comes to this, take your time; use the data from market research to find the right business plan for your project.

5. Hire Developer

This is where you hire dedicated developers.

There are various ways that you can use to hire developers. Some of these are, as mentioned below:

• Hire Freelancers

• IT Staff Augmentation

• Outsource

• Assemble in-house team

• Hire part-time developer

6. Choose Platform

With a development partner by your side, it’s time to choose the platform you will be used to create the app.

For instance, you can either go with android app development or iOS app development in native platforms.

Apart from this, you can also go with hybrid app development.

7. Create Tech Stack

Tech stack refers to the set of technologies used to develop social media apps. Based on the project requirements

8. Front-End Development

With all set and done, it’s time to start the development process. The first thing you need to deal with is its design.

Here, the UI/UX designers will be creating the client side. This user interface and user experience both are very important in social media apps, even more so than in other apps.

9. Back-End Development

This is the part where a team of developers will build social media app.

In this part, they will be writing the source code of the platform and creating the final version. This step can take steps, and even years depending on the project.

10. Testing

Following the development, it’s time to test the app before it is launched. This is done to check whether or not, it is up to market standards.

11. Launch

With everything done, it’s time to launch the social media app in the market.

Based on the platform deployment can be a bit different but the process takes 2 weeks at most.

Cost of Custom Social Media App Development

So, how much does custom social media app development cost? Well, it actually depends on the project. But in any case, the average cost ranges from $15,000 to $150,000.