When it comes to exposure and sustainability, nothing beats social media in the application game. A quick glance at market research will tell you that the big players and their all rounder products have saturated the market. A wild-card with potential can always disrupt this industry.

Snapchat is the best example for one of those disrupting applications that is constantly bothered by big players but it refuses to give in. It leverages AI, AR, and community driven design trends to provide unique experiences in the palm of our hands.

There are two ways you can approach your social media app development project. You can either go for a performant and exclusive native build or you can go for a one-size-fits-all hybrid application, compatible with both iOS and Android.

Where to start when building a Social Media App?

First of all you need to decide what kind of app you’re looking at and how you want to get there. This phase is the exploration phase which helps you determine your target demographic, your expectations, scope, and processes.

You can build one of it’s kind category-defining social media app or you can follow in the footsteps of the apps that fall in these popular categories:

• Chat messengers
• Inspirational and utility apps
• Communication, networking and entertainment

Now let’s talk about features

After using and studying every other social media app in the market you’d know that it must have signup, user profile, search, news feed, chats, media files sharing, push notifications, et al. What they won’t tell you is, how to get there. Let’s dive in.

User engagement :

Social media industry is already a tough spot to break into with some apps morphing into necessities from entertainment. Getting user attention might be tough because no one knows you yet and that won’t be the same as you start pumping money in your marketing. One thing you need to keep in mind is that you can’t ignore the big players in the industries. Treat them as your allies and give users an easy way to get onboard via Facebook/Google/Twitter SSO.

Customization :

If you’ve been a Medium reader or writer you’d be familiar with their popular publications and how they’ve established their brand image via nifty customizations. Medium knows how freedom of customization aids in retention and eventually loyalty. Give your user that freedom. But don’t go overboard. You know your frontend and backend, your user doesn’t.

Communities :

Use AI to get to know your users better than they know themselves and give them what they need right in front of their eyes without having to say or type. Create close communities and channels around these interests to help people socialize.

In app chat :

It’s quite simple. If you don’t give them an easy way to control their conversations inside your app they will find million other niche apps to do so. Messengers are not that simple anymore. Your messaging app should have group chats, direct messages, disappearing messages, rich media support, filters, user restriction, and recalling or deleting chats to qualify as an alternative.

Building a Social Media App

Having decided what functionality and features to build. You are good to go with the development of your own industry disruptor.

Scoping :

In this stage you’ll discuss processes and Methodology selection, deadlines determination, and the creation of user stories.

Wireframing :

This is the phase where all the experimentation happens and unicorns emerge from. Here’s what all goes in wireframing.

• UI/UX projection
• Feature mapping across the app
• Interaction planning
• Logic definition
• Creating an experience focused app architecture

Design

You can partner with relevant brands and plug products in between plays for brand exposure. You can also have a dedicated section assigned to the brands to advertise on your app or website via banners.

Participation fee

Now that we have a scaffolding with the information architecture and tried & tested user flows, we can start to put appeal into it via design. Our process ensures that the latest trends and best practices are put to good use.

The finalized designs are put to test via prototypes which provide insight in app logic and usability. Prototyping also proves to be a faster and efficient way to iterate before everything is recreated in implementation via code.

Development

Your scope decides what kind of development methodology would be appropriate for your project. You can either have them(Design and Development) work alongside or wait design to finish for implementation. It also depends on your engagement model or what type of teams you have.

Here’s how a common development phase looks Feature development>>Backend infrastructure>>Deploying APIs & Database

From here on we move to testing the implementation and see if anything needs consolidation.

QA/Testing

You will need to set up a test environment so that testing and fixing doesn’t mess with the live code. As there are a tonne of features that need testing, both modes(manual and automated) of testing are employed. For which you have several CI/CD tools that can make your work easy.

Our testing scope also ensures that the entirety of the application is as expected and corresponds to the definition of the project.

Deployment and maintenance

Ensure that the applications are safe, secure, and on par with App Store and Google Play guidelines. Also here’s where you would bring your marketing plan in action.

Thinking that deployment wraps up the social media app development cycle is wrong on so many levels. Since your app relies on engagement and performance metrics that only surface post-deployment. Using app analysis and performance metrics you can beat the big players in the game. As any other app, the road to success is constant change and adaptation as per the user trends. Enhancing app’s design and performance for the sake of better usability and popularity is a part of that consistent effort.

TL;DR

• Identify the gap in the market
• Define your target audience
• Define scope
• Get realistic estimates
• Build all the essential features
• Stick to mentioned development best practices

We have been building social media apps for companies looking for user exposure and consistent engagement. You can just bring your idea to the table and we will walk the talk to help you realize it in the best possible way.

Our expert social media app development team consists of dedicated designers, engineers, analysts, QA specialists, and marketers who will go above and beyond to deliver performant and highly customized solutions that meet your expectations.