How to make your own social media app?

There are thousands of social media apps on the market. They have different concepts and target audience. We share photos on Instagram, operate a vlog on YouTube, use Facebook for communication with relatives and friends, LinkedIn helps us to build professional network and TripAdvisor allows us to share our travelling experience with the rest of the world.  So is there any sense to add one more service to this ocean of social media apps? The answer is yes, because people have different interests, backgrounds and hobbies. So one more service that will unite people based taking into account their common preferences will be always welcomed. So if you decided to make your own social media app, we’ll provide you with the key tips that you should take on board.

How to develop a social media app?

In order to build a viable social media app one should adhere to the following plan:

  • Create your own strategy
  • Find the development team
  • Build an MVP
  • Develop your app

Creating a strategy

Prior to the development process, you should work on your strategy. This includes a complete market analysis, research of the future competitors, and determination of the target audience. Analyze social media apps already presented on the market to see what are their strong and weak points.

You can conduct a series of interviews with your potential users to understand what new features they want to see in a social app and what features in the existing apps they dislike.

It’s also important to think about marketing strategies such as user retention and  lead generation from the start. You should present the unicity of your product by pointing out its strongest feature.

And if you would like to generate income with your app, consider different types of monetization for you to use.

Find the development team

Once you created a strategy, you should start looking for people who will develop your social media app. While shortlisting the development companies pay close attention to their experience, work framework and rates. It’s better to choose a development team that is specializing in social media development. You can consider hiring outsourcing company from abroad as they always offer low rates but professional service.

Build an MVP

MVP stands for minimum viable product. It’s a good strategy to use it for your startup project. Usually MVP contains only key features. It can help you to test your app before adding more functionality (which means spending more money) to see how people like it and if there is a chance for your app to become popular.

Develop your app

Now it’s time to proceed with developing your app. Here are the basic features that most social apps have, though you can add specific features if that is what your business idea demands.

Basic features

  • Social login
  • User profile
  • Connections
  • Messenger
  • News feed
  • Search
  • Push notifications

Advanced features

  • Photo editing
  • Live streaming
  • Geolocation and tags
  • Chatbots
  • AR

How much will it cost?

The cost of the social media app development depends on two factors: complexity of the features and development company’s rates. The latter ones can vary greatly depending on the geographical location of the vendor. The highest rates are in the USA, the lowest are in the Eastern Europe.

About Author