Creating A Viral Social Media App: A Complete Manual

Published on: September 2, 2024
Written by: Daksh Upadhyay
social media App development

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The Genesis of Social Media

“Hot” or “Not,”  also known as Facemash, developed in 2003 by Mark Zuckerberg, was the origin of the world-famous Facebook. It was closed by Zuckerberg & Harvard. Due to causing privacy violations & copyright and also breaching the security standards. 

We all know the story of what happened later: Mark Zuckerberg became the world’s youngest billionaire. 

But did Zuckerberg invent social media app development? The answer is no; it had existed before, he revolutionized social media app development. A 17-year-old boy named Dave Wolley develops a notes program in 1973.  The aim was to create a board where users write a note & others respond to it. He also created Talkomatic, a multi-user chat room. This shows an early implementation of social media applications.

The history states that they were created to interact & share with others on an online platform. From Notes to Facebook to LinkedIn, every platform facilitated our basic urge, i.e., communication. The ever-evolving technology has also made us reimagine the ways we interact and build a social network. Everyone is using social media applications regularly, which can be seen as a necessity for people. Did you ever think of how we shift to digital platforms for communication? If your answer is yes, then we have something good for you!

In this blog, we have covered a complete manual to create a viral social media app. 

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Understanding the Social Media Apps

Social Media Apps

In this modern developing era, when everything is transforming with time, social media app development  get evolved & transformed. What exactly is a social media app? Its platform to connect and share the content. Also allows to interact with new people while consuming the data.
They anyway cater to various interests, target audiences, and demographics, but they also unify the users. Some of the social media applications & common factors:

Social networking sites: Facebook and LinkedIn are examples of this category. These are designed for connecting with friends and family and networking with professionals, respectively. If you wish to build a social network, our industry experts are here to help you.

Photos & video sharing apps: Its aim is to create & share video or multimedia content on Instagram & YouTube. Youtube offers uploading and viewing videos of all lengths, whereas Instagram focuses on short videos and photos.

Messaging Apps: Their role is to provide a messaging platform. Examples of mostly used messaging apps are WhatsApp & Telegram. They also provide features of audio texting and video messaging.

Content Discovery & Aggregation: It allows users to share content & save the links to interesting content to manage them. It allows to reshare with the community. Application like Pinterest & Reddit. It allows to discover, explore, & discuss the topic of interest with the users.
Social Gaming Platform: Discord & Twitch are the applications used worldwide in gaming. These apps have combined the worlds of gaming and social interaction. They made us all flip out at some moment.
Dating Apss: The applications are designed for making up romantic connections & finding the partners for dating. Not like connecting with friends & family.

Tinder is known for its swipe-right-to-like feature, and Bumble made the statement with the “Women take the first move in heterosexual matches” feature.

There are other types of social media app development  as well, such as microblogging platforms, review and recommendation sites, professional development and learning apps, and many more. Each app has its own unique features and purpose. After reading this blog, you also want to build a networking application. Stay tuned to know more!

How to Create a Social Media App

Well, you have an idea and are interested in creating a social media apps development. If You are interested in making it viral like Snapchat, TikTok & Instagram. We know it’s bit difficult. We understand this problem, so we had created a social media manual for preparing the application. Starting from planning to deployment, we are here to help.

What do we need to plan before starting the process?

The first step to any process starts with ideation, which you might have done more or less.
The important step is planning or identifying what will be its features, the target audience, and many more. Now, we need a roadmap and milestones for each phase of a social media app development.

These can essentially be categorized into four major components, and here’s a list of the same:

1.Defining the All’s Purpose & Featured: It is the most important step in social media app development. Everything depends on its features & engagement. Write some of the important points while deciding the features & purpose:

(a)Who are we building the app for? This means you need to identify your target audience.

(b)What is the app’s purpose? Establish the primary goal of your social media apps development . Is the app for building a social network, sharing multimedia content, facilitating communication, or something else? The features of the applications depend on the purpose of the app.

(c)After defining the target audience & idea about the features. We can follow the next step.

2.Unique Selling Points (USP): Deciding on the app’s unique selling points (USP) is vital for the social media apps development process. It is going to mediate the process of creating the app, help developers, and differentiate you with others.

3.Competitor Analysis: It is a key task, and it will help you position your social media app uniquely and avoid features that are already successful in the market. It is important to determine what gap or need your app will be filling. You must research similar existing apps and see what they offer and what their shortcomings are.
A SWOT analysis will work really well here. With the help of SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, & threats), analysis helps in many things. A demo of the SWOT analysis & template is given below to make it more clear.

4.Creating a Business Model (Revenue Stream and Monetization): The last step of the ideation process is thinking about how to generate revenue.

5.App features also depends on premium applications.

Subscription application, in-app purchase, and many other features.
After reading this, you may be feeling a little bit stressed out or puzzled in your mind about how to choose it. Our experts are here to help you identify the process & features as well.
After identifying the complete features, just like identifying an elephant in the room, i.e., the main task of how to create a social media app development ? Developing the social media app is a tiresome task. With various features that depend on various factors. We break down the complete process for you below:

Defining the App’s Purpose and Features:

It is a crucial step as the success of your social media app is going to rely on its features and user engagement. Take a notebook and pen or an iPad and jot down the following things:

Who are we building the app for? This means you need to identify your target audience.

What is the App’s Purpose ? Establish the primary goal of your social media app. Is the app for building a social network, sharing multimedia content, facilitating communication, or something else? The purpose of your app will determine the features of the app.

Once you have clear ideas about the purpose and the target audience, we can move on to the next step. 

Unique Selling Points (USP):

Deciding on the app’s unique selling points (USP) is vital for the social media app development process. It is going to mediate the process of creating the app, help developers, and differentiate you with others.

Competitor Analysis:

It is a key task ,and it will help you position your social media app uniquely and avoid features that are already successful in the market. It is important to determine what gap or need your app will be filling. You must research similar existing apps and see what they offer and what their shortcomings are.

A SWOT Analysis will work really well here. By doing a SWOT ( Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threat) analysis, you will be able to figure out a lot. An example of how to do a SWOT analysis and a template are given for you. 

swot analysis
Template For SWOT Analysis

Creating a Business Model (Revenue Stream and Monetization):

The last step of the ideation process is thinking about how to generate revenue. This could affect the app’s features, such as premium features, subscriptions, providing in-app purchases, and many more.
It’s okay to feel a little confused and stressed. Our team of seasoned web developers is here with you in the ideation process as well.

 

Once the whole process of ideation is over, we must address the elephant in the room, i.e., how to create a social media app. The development of an app is a tedious task involving the development of various features, and it depends on various factors. Well, we tried to break down the whole process for you briefly. 

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Understanding the Social Media App Development

Design- Wireframes, Prototyping, UI, UX,
As we pointed out, you must have realized that social media app development involves several stages, each with its own set of processes. It can be time-consuming, but it will be worth it. After brainstorming the core features, target audience, and researching the market, we must lay out the outline of the timelines and deliverables, estimate the costs of development, decide on technology stack, and many more. For doing some of these things, you will need help from industry experts. We will explain all these things in the next upcoming blogs. Let’s start briefly with the design and development, their main components, and their functions.

Design

Designing in social media app development involves creating the visual and functional aspects. It also ensures that the app is user-friendly, aesthetic, and many more. It will majorly involve four steps:

1.Wireframes: These are simplified visual representations of the app’s layout and basic structure. This helps to identify the places of the elements according to the pages. Which proves an idea of organising the content on the application. This gives an idea of visual user interface and the stability of the application. This also helps in generating instant feedback from the users.

2.Prototype: It stimulates the user interaction with the application or the website. This also helps in identifying the correct design before developing the apps.

3.User Interface (UI): This helps to identify the visual of the application. This includes everything from the colors to the icons. This enhances the overall look & align of the app with the defining target audience and aesthetic look of the app.

Development

1.Front-End Development: It refers to the development of the client-side of the app. It defines the UX/UI of the app that we just discussed. Our team of experienced front-end developers can help you with your social media app development process.

Back-end development: involves developing the server-side components. These include databases, server logic, and more.

API Development: Application Programming Interface (API) refers to the tools and functions required for communication between two programs.

Testing and Quality Assurance: The last step in the development of a social media app will be testing. Testing helps to identify the function & flow of the application. The working of the app. We also need to test the app in controlled environment. As well as allow some users to test it. After this, if any issue or bug arises, try to fix it.

After the final set completion that is testing, it’s time for deployment of the social media app. This means preparing the app for release. For releasing it, we need to submit the app in the relevant app store. Such as Google Play Store & Apple App Store. For the reviewing process. The launch of the social media app for the users is the next step. The app also requires post-launch support. This helps in checking the app performance to bring necessary updates & maintenance.
After this, one more step needs to be followed, which is the promotion of the app to make people aware of it. It can be started with pre-launch or post-launch depending upon the suitability. According to us, pre-launch is beneficial. In this, you need to focus on strategies related to awareness & increasing the visibility of the app. It can include social media marketing, content marketing, partnerships, billboard advertising, and much more. You can also go through our blog on Top 5 outstanding Digital Marketing services to Improve Results

Tips for Social Media App Development

Some steps need to be followed while enhancing the user experience during the process of ideation. The more users feel comfortable, the more successful your app will be. So, here’s the list:

User Profiles: Customizing the user profile is one of the popular features. You should also decide what information users can share about themselves. This often includes profile pictures, personal information, and bios.
Content Creation & Sharing: We need to decide which type of content the user can create & share. Like on YouTube, all lengths of videos can be created & shared, but Instagram has a limit.

Interaction and Communication: How your users will interact with each other. As the purpose is to connect, communicate with new people, & interact with them. It’s treated as an important component. Some useful features like comments, sharing, video calls, and private messaging.

Privacy and Security: You have to integrate robust features of data privacy and security.

Analytics and Insights: You must offer the feature of tools to track their engagement and activity. It also allows in tracing the views and followers to check the growth or other factors.

You can discuss all these while discussing your planning with the developers. If you need help with planning, you can also discuss that with our developers. Technoprofiles is known for its custom web development.

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Conclusion

So far, we have briefly discussed the emergence of social media, types of social media apps, and social media app development. We also touched upon the components of the design and development of an app. We had covered all the main points in the blog in brief. It requires deep learning & understanding to know more about it in a detailed manner. There are different types of programming languages, databases, and much more that need in-depth analysis, and we will be covering a few things in our next blog. It will be beneficial for you to understand what is better for creating a social media app and building a social network. It requires giving plenty of time to the planning and ideation process. As the success depends on this process. The development of a social media app will require a seamless blend of creativity, technical expertise, and a deep understanding of your target consumers. There are enough people available in the market to help you out, and you must seek information wherever and whenever required. By future planning, taking the earlier precautions, & following the guidelines. This will surely help in creating viral social media apps. You must also spend time in marketing. Lastly, I would suggest taking a leap of faith and starting your journey of entrepreneurship and building a social media app.
Social Media App

About Author

Written By Daksh Upadhyay

Daksh, is an experienced Frontend developer with a passion for social media marketing and writing technical content. With more than 4 years of experience in the development industry, his expertise lies in UX and UI designing, Tailwind, and Bootstrap. When not coding, Daksh enjoys staying up-to-date with the latest trends in social media marketing and technology. He also enjoys sharing his knowledge with young, aspiring developers.