Do you have an idea for a cool social network? Are you dreaming of pushing Facebook off its pedestal, but don’t know where to start? As the American philosopher Ralph Emerson said, “Difficulties exist to overcome them.” Here are the key steps to make such app.
Define a goal
Think about why you are creating a mobile network, how you plan to promote and monetize it. For example: “I want to create a source for veterinary clinics and make money on feed advertising”. Or: “I came up with a social network for mustache lovers.” Or: “As a photographer, I have always lacked a professional platform to find colleagues in the shop. And I decided to develop it.”
Create a portrait of your target audience
There are no universal social networks, each has its audience – people of a certain age category, interests. 83% of Facebook users are under 45. They check the news about 8 times a day and love to update their statuses and upload photos. 81% of Pinterest’s audience are women under 40. 45% of Snapchat users are under 24. They actively communicate on such platforms and write up to 20 messages daily. How to make a social media app includes this stage.
Think over the functionality
The first thing a user does on a social network is to register and fill out a profile. If something goes wrong at this stage, the user may well abandon your application in favor of a competitor. Therefore, decide in advance how the user will enter personal data into his profile: manually or the information will be automatically pulled from other networks.
The event stream is another must-have feature. People like to watch updates, comment on and fumble interesting posts, share statuses.
How users interact with the event feed depends on the idea behind the application. Facebook offers to respond to posts with different emojis: a couple of years ago, 5 more emojis were added to the classic “Like”. On Pinterest, users save interesting Pins to their board, and the app picks new ones.
Last but not least on the list are instant messengers. Users love them, and Snapchat confirms this – the social network started in 2011 as a messaging app. Today Snapchat has 191 million daily active users, and its CEO, Evan Spiegel, is one of the richest social media businessmen.
Want to get rich like Der Spiegel? Make a convenient registration in a social network, a messenger for the personal communication of users with support for different message formats. Decide what the content of the update feed will be – and move on to the next step in design social media app, starting to create a social media app.
Work out the interface
You have studied the audience. We found out what targeted actions users will take on the social network and what functionality they need. It’s time to get to the interface. Ideally, it should be so intuitive that people don’t have to constantly check the FAQ.
Group key information blocks in your profile, hide less important functions in the navigation menu. Make sure that users easily interact with the content of the social network – including in the application interface sharing icons, repost buttons, emoji. And don’t overwhelm media with complex color schemes and fonts. It is quite normal for an application’s interface to change.
Move on to development and testing
You have completed all stages of social media application design, from the concept of a mobile social network to its design and functionality. Found a great development team. It’s time to start the project.
Get ready that development is one of the most difficult and longest steps on the way to your mobile social network. Be philosophical about rework – it will make your product better.
If you decide to make a mobile social network, study the target audience, think over the functionality and usability. Choose performers and go. If there are more questions than answers, start with MVP and check the viability in a test build.