How To Design A Social Media App

From a business point of view, social media is one of the most promising markets. Want to create a social media app?

There is no denying the fact that social media cannot be ignored by today’s society. From a business point of view, social media is one of the most promising markets. 

Many organizations use social media as a marketing tool to promote their business since they have their audience present on Facebook, google+, Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest. Have you ever thought what makes these social networking apps successful? 

The rapid development is opening new landscapes within this play-area and social media app development has become a major game in the business world!

Want To Create a Social Media App? Let’s Look At Some Facts Shall We?

• Over 3.6 billion people were using social media worldwide in the year 2020. This number is projected to increase to almost 4.41 billion in 2025.

• On an average, internet users spend 144 minutes per day on social media and messaging apps.

• Market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass one billion registered accounts and currently boasts approximately 2.7 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular social network worldwide.

• In June 2020, the top social media apps in the Apple App Store included mobile messaging apps WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, as well as the ever-popular app version of Facebook.

When planning to design a social media app, it is essential that one understands all the types of apps there are in the market. This will help you find your niche and identify your competitors. Not only this, but also understand your target audience, and offer users a more appropriate functionality.

Types Of Social Media Apps

1.  Social networking apps

The main goal of these apps is to connect people for personal or professional reasons. From finding a job, joining a new community to connecting with a long lost friend, these apps will do the magic. For example: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook.

2.  Media sharing apps

If you want to target artists and creators, this is the app for you! People these days love sharing videos, photos, GIFs etc to platforms like Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest etc. 

3.  Blogging and publishing apps

Writing is not as easy as it looks and writers do need an app that would let them write their mind. SUch apps help writers to write from any gadget they want anytime. For example: WordPress, Medium. 

4.  Discussion forums

If you want to build a social media app where a community of people share their insights, experiences, ideas, opinions etc, this type of app is for you. For example: Quora.

5.  Customer review apps

The major goal of these apps is to share their reviews about brands, services and products. Good customer reviews can help one grow business. For example: Yelp, TripAdvisor.

6.  Service Provider apps

These types of apps help you undertake a particular service. From booking a cab, finding a plumber to booking a hotel etc, these apps are at your service. For example: Ola, UrbanCompany.

Now that we have understood the existing apps, let’s focus on how to make a social media app.

How To Develop A Social Media App?

Step-1: Find your purpose, target audience and competitors

The first step for social media app developers is to know the purpose of their app. Network apps allow people, organisations and companies to create, exchange and share information over a network of people. 

If you have an idea, good for you, but a full understanding of the market, target audience, potential users and what your current competitors lack is very important information. Also, if you want to earn money from your app, think of all possible monetization options. 

Once you are done with conceptualizing your future application and its missions, goals, user engagement ideas and competitive analysis, get ready for building out of the box growth strategies. 

Step-2: Design social network app’s workflow

The next step is to create a defined workflow. This is to attain a specific pathway a user will follow in order to achieve the required set of goals. Hence, this step will define a complete user journey. The app workflow is a very critical step since it defines steps the user takes while they interact with your product. 

Step-3: Development and design for both iOS and Android

As the name of this step suggests, it is equally important to design a social media app for android and for iOS. If you are using a SaaS solution then you don’t have to worry about this step but if you are planning to start from scratch so we suggest you start with creating a wireframe. Wireframes are the skeletal structure of the app, which represents how the app’s fundamental looks.

A wireframe will help your design and development team to visualise how the app works and what pages link together. The next step is prototyping which will create a working model of your app. This will help everyone understand how the app is functioning for android and IOS.

Step-4: Build your community and market the app

Now that your app is ready, it is time for you to win users and build a community! Start thinking about initial marketing strategies and campaigns that help draw the people’s attention, increase app downloads and user engagement.

7 Tips To Design Social Network App

Social networks app development is a tricky game! You must be sure that the app’s design is intuitive, easy to use and that same time appealing to your audience. Let’s talk about the best practices one can keep in mind while planning the look and feel of one’s app.

• Keep it simple – A clean design always helps since people are already familiar with using the same. It helps you enthrall the users towards your value rather than distracting them away from it. When you focus on your offerings you don’t give your customers the space to think only of your brand, in turn. If you want to use your social media app for business, this is one of the key characteristics that you should focus on.

• Communication is key – Allow your users to communicate with each other with the help of video call, audio call, recorded voice notes, ability to share content with each other. This is how you will build your community and keep your users engaged. 

• Focus on the Navigation – The minimalistic approach is the best one when it comes to designing navigation. If you create navigation with numerous features it will be too complicated for the user to keep up. The best practice is to ensure that all your icons and buttons are placed in the best part of the screen for the user to identify them easily. 
• Keep it consistent – You need to make sure that the design of your app remains synchronised in order to avoid any confusion that the user might face. By using consistency in your app it will create a logical structure that will clearly define where users can find what. This process will spare your app from confused and frustrated users.
• Round design elements –  Do you know why Facebook or Instagram use round profile pictures? Well, it helps to focus on a user’s face and further makes it simple for other users to remember or distinguish them from others.

• Allow people to personalise – Provide users the freedom and choices to share information, media, links, content etc in order to add their personality to their specific profiles.
• Color codes are very important – Choose colors of the same family that help in providing a seamless user experience.

How can you make money from a social media app?

You can easily monetize your social network app design and start earning returns from the cost that you invested in social media app development. Below are a few ways to achieve your goals:

1. Paid subscriptions: With an app based community, you can offer users paid subscriptions. It is best to first offer a free trial with good content and one or more paid trials that offer more in-depth and high-value content. 
2. Paid content: If you have a lot of users engaged with your content, you can use social apps for business. Paid sponsorship is one way you can convert your user reach into money.
3. In-app purchases: You can give your users the liberty to directly make digital purchases. For example, ebook, a video or audio file. 

Final Words

I hope that creating a social media mobile app is not as tough as you previously thought it was! I have walked you through the facts of social media apps, we have also talked about how to make an app from scratch, right from ideation to implementation and designing. Feel free to reach out to a social media app development company to guide you better and create your own app in no time. Take the first step today!