How To Make A Social Media App In 2021?

The power of bringing people together has never been more sought-after than today. Probably, that is the main reason why social media pull by staggering amounts of traffic daily. In 2020, there was a whopping number of 3.5 billion social media users worldwide with Facebook smashing the record.

Those figures alone are enough for anyone to realize the might and influence that social media commands over us. Therefore, it’d be an unforgivable crime for businesses not to take advantage of the influential powers of public networks. 

With that said, we’ve created a one-stop guide on how to build new social media apps for your business and what’s in it for you. Let’s get into it.

A Short Primer

Social media has gone from being tech geek buzz to a comprehensive platform where businesses can find greater exposure and identification at low to no costs. So it’s no wonder that some companies want to be at the top of the game and build their own social space.

However, social media platforms always come complete with a mobile application. This is the major success factor for such undertakings. Also, when it comes to investing, backend or the behind-the-scenes functions are what guzzles up the lion’s share of resources.

On this note, we’ve created a cheat sheet for you to get a better understanding of the future expenses. Mind that the costs below include standard functionality and one platform only.

Building a Social Media App: Key points

1. Use social sign-on

Interesting fact: almost 90% of users report being bothered by having to create new accounts on applications. Simplifying registration and login can make the difference between users flocking to your platform or fleeing at the sign of it. That is why forward-looking businesses are using social login that allows your community to access the app using their existing social account IDs. 

2. Opportunities for self-expression

Self-expression values are at an all-time high. And people are leaning on social networks to put themselves out there in a safe and pleasant way. This makes affordances for creative self-expression a mandate for any interactive media. Enable users to share their unique perspectives on anything by implementing features like customized profile pictures, themes, nicknames, etc.

3. Arranging the newsfeed

Although stories have taken the lead in this field, newsfeeds are part and parcel of traditional social networking. This feature reinforces a network-centric activity and keeps users in the loop. Note that leading social platforms have moved from a randomized newsfeed to an algorithm-based functionality to improve user experience.

4. Interaction with other services

Successful network platforms have it all. They don’t make their community race back and forth between services. Instead, all leading social media have a system for integrating third-party services into their network. To give you a better idea of possible interactions, here’s a list of 3rd-party services you can leverage:

• Relationship networks ( Facebook, LinkedIn, Tinder, etc)
• Media sharing social networks (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc)
• Discussion forums (Quora, Reddit, Digg, etc)
• Social publishing platforms (Medium, Twitter, etc)
• Bookmarking sites (Pinterest, Dribble, We Heart It, etc)
• Interest-based networks (Foodspotting, Goodreads, etc)

Also, consider implementing a cross-posting feature. It will allow your users to take a single piece of content and use it across various platforms.

5. Private messaging

Communication is what simply keeps social media on board. Private and secure communication channels are what will set up your application for success. Since there are a lot of things people prefer to share in private, you must prioritize data security first. 

Once you get to grips with the basics, it’s time to build a minimum viable product. It’s a simplified version of the project that contains only critical features for the audience to assess and rate your application. Let’s have a closer look at the MVP development process.

MVP For Social Media Apps

Although each company establishes its own bulletproof practices, there are five essential steps on the way to creating a robust social media solution. 

Step 1. Creating a strategy for the application

As the first step of the MVP process, your team should scrutinize the business idea and perform competitor research. Next, your team analyzes the requirements, creates a target audience portrait, and develops effective KPIs to measure MVP performance against your business objectives. 

Step 2. Design the application’s workflow

The design creating process includes the following milestones:

• Sketching

This refers to sketching out the basics of a UI before getting into the next stages. 

• Wireframing

It is one of the most important steps of a design process. Think of it as a detailed map of a city with all the streets, places, and traffic patterns. However, this map lacks color and illustrations. Therefore, it allows a person to understand the structure of the city (aka application) in detail, but it is not suitable for a person to fully enjoy its beauty. 

• Prototyping

A created prototype is a medium to a highly detailed representation of the final product that simulates the user’s interaction with the interface. It should allow the user to evaluate the content and interface as well as test the main ways of interaction as if it were a finished product.

• Design App Skins

As the final substep of creating the design, wireframes get converted into the social app design. 

Step 3. Development & Quality Assurance 

Typically, development and design processes go toe-to-toe in the usual app life cycle. Once the prototyping of the app is finished, developers power the back-end, get servers, databases, and APIs in place.

Quality assurance also known as testing refers to realizing bug-free products. Also, this stage aims at providing the highest quality to the users and building a solution that is compatible with the client’s requirements and expectations. 

Step 4. Publishing & Marketing the App

Before publishing your application, you and your team should take care of the following elements:

• The name of your app: memorable and eye-catching. A catchy name will help better position your solution and boost your app promotion.
• Icons: create a logo and image that will identify your application. 
• Landing page: good design encourages users to download your social media application.
• Screenshots: outline the differentiating features of your application. You can even zhoosh the things up with a video tutorial to help introduce the operation of the application.

As for the marketing costs, this expenditure item has to be factored in long before you upload the application to the marketplace. You should take into account basic marketing costs even before you contact an app development company. Your marketing strategy may include publishing releases on expert platforms, making appearances in specialized media and blogs, pitching tech blogs, and others. Overall, your marketing efforts should revolve around your financial or networking resources. 

Step 5. Maintenance & Support

It’s not enough to free float your product and skim the cream off. After the app is uploaded to the market places, you should ensure that your product is highly available, reliable, and up to current business needs. This is what maintenance and support are about.

The Final Word

The power of social media is now tangible than ever before. That is why developing a social media app remains among the top trends these days. As an entrepreneur, you cannot miss the chance to join the fast-growing market, even though the process of building a social media application is no walk in the park. We now hope that this article has made you one step closer to reaching your business goals and embracing a wealth of opportunities this niche provides.