How to Create a Social Media App: A Complete Guide  

When social media started, the main goal was to make the process of communication easier and more convenient between friends and families and meet new people worldwide. 

Social Media Apps have completely changed our ways of communication such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and many more.   

These social media networking sites play an important role in transforming the world and provide diverse options to connect with the world digitally. 

A well-designed social media app can strengthen your business and foster customer loyalty. 

You can hardly find anyone who is not using social media in today’s world. 

In 2024, over five billion people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to over six billion in 2028.  

Now, you can imagine how social media is leading the world and if you are someone who wants to give a boost to your business through the development of a successful social media app, then this blog is for you  

In this blog, we will cover the step-by-step guide on how you can build a social media app and get more user engagement 

Why does your business need a social media app? 

Social media plays a crucial role in meeting new people and is a way for convenient communicate. Apart from this, social media can be highly beneficial for your business. Here are the factors 

Brand Engagement and customer loyalty 

A specific social media app helps businesses in better engagement with their customers which helps in providing a sense of community and maintains brand loyalty. 

Customers can interact with the brand directly and share their experiences and customers will always be updated with the latest news and offers. 

Direct Communication Channel 

 You should have a dedicated social media app for your business that allows direct communication with customers without any disruption. 

This direct communication can be used for customer support, feedback and for personalized marketing. 

Community Building

Social media can help in building a dedicated community around the brand.  

That will help in the company’s growth where people give their feedback and reviews to the company and the company makes improvements accordingly. 

This helps in enhancing customer retention and advocacy. 

Enhanced Customer Service

A dedicated app can enhance customer service processes that helps in easier communication with customers and address issues quickly and efficiently and resolve them instantly. 

How to develop a social media app?  

To develop a social media app, you must know about some major steps to be followed that are mentioned below:  

Step 1: Examine your purpose and Target Audience  

For creating a social media app, one must have an idea of their target audience and what is the purpose behind developing that specific social media app? 

How will your target audience perceive it? Why do audiences prefer your app over others in the market? 

What would be so unique about your app?  

You must ask yourself these questions if you want to develop a social media app because this is the root of your project which leads you to further steps. 

Research is a must in developing a social media app. It’ll give you an idea of what type of audience will consume your content and what are their age, demographics, sex, behavior, and interest you must be aware of these factors. 

You can do a literature review where you can review the previous research done on the same idea or concept as you have and try to find out the research gaps to work on.  

You can do surveys and focus group interviews to get an idea of how people will perceive your idea and what their suggestions are, which would be a cherry on the cake for your project.  

Step 2: Setting up your Goal  

When you decide to develop your app, you must know the goals of your App and what results you expect in the initial stages of your app development.  

First, think of short-term ones including app stability, building a foundation for growth and try to attract and gain more audience at the initial stages because that’s how you will be able to get the idea of how much the audience engages with your app and then act accordingly.  

Then focus on long-term goals including monetization of your apps, subscriptions, expanding your community, etc.  

Step 3: Create a Unique selling proposition (USP)   

You have always in mind what are the things that make your app different and unique from others because that’s how you can raise your business in the highly competitive market.  

If you are the one who wants to create a social media app then you must have a USP of your product to fetch the customers to your app more.  

Let’s look at some of the characteristics of USP that you must know before developing a social media app:  

• Think out of the box.  
• Clarity of your goal should be there.  
• Make the product stand out from the competition.  
• Innovative features can be added like AR/VR integration.  
• Ability to handle growing user base and content volume.  
• Responsive and helpful customer service.   
• Maintains privacy and security to build trust among customers.  
• Intuitive and appealing user interface.  

 Step 4: Designing the app  

Design plays a crucial role in developing a successful social media app. It decides how creatively you make your customers visit your app.  

Social media app designing refers to the process of designing a visually appealing User Interface (UI) that attracts users and keeps them engaged.  

You can add some creative design buttons, icons, and animations that help in making the app more interactive and enjoyable which leads to more user interaction. 

Do you know why a great social media design matters the most? 

Good design can evoke emotions, create a connection with users and make them comfortable on your app or website. 

Let’s take an example of some of the social media app design patterns:  

SKYPE  

Skype has come up with all new designs and features and more attractive visuals to stay connected with new people.  

Besides text, anyone can now share photos, videos, voice messages, and many more.   

BUMBLE  

Bumble updated its design with a new logo, bold fonts, and improved colors to enhance the overall user experience and added a new feature of opening messages to make the initial match outreach easier. (For example, who’s your dream dinner guest?)  

Step 5: Technology Stack Selection  

Choosing the right technology stack for social network app development is crucial to make certain   

• scalability,   
• performance,   
• the total cost of the development including developer’s fees, licensing costs, and many more depending on the technology stack you choose.  

How to Choose the Right Technology Stack? 

Step 1: Define the requirements and the purpose of your app  

Outline the purpose of your App, why you want to produce any app, and what type of app you want to develop whether it is related to health, dating apps, e-commerce, etc.  

Step 2: Front- End Development  

Choosing the right front-end tech stack for social media app development is crucial because it directly impacts user experience, performance, and the app’s overall success. The most popular front-end development technologies are:- 

• React native: React native helps in developing an app that runs both on Android and iOS. Widely used by major companies like Facebook, Instagram Pinterest, etc.  

• Vue.js: It is a progressive JavaScript framework for creating User Interfaces. It is built on top of standard HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and it is easy to learn and integrate.  

• Angular: It is a TypeScript-based open-source web application framework led by the Angular Team at Google. It provides a full-featured framework with a detailed solution for single-page applications (SPAs).  

• Flutter: Flutter is a User Interface toolkit by Google for creating a set of pre-designed widgets and provides strong support for custom UI and animations.  

It allows developers to construct high-quality applications from a single codebase for cross-platforms.  

• Svelte: Svelte is a new front-end framework that compiles components to highly efficient imperative code. It is best for high-performance web applications with minimal code complexity.  

Step 3: Back-End Development  

Backend development is nothing but the server side of an application, focusing on how the app works, manages data, and ensures seamless interaction between the server and database overall (front-end).  

Programming languages for the backend are mainly Node.js, Python, Java, PHP (Laravel), etc.  

The backend handles data storage, media files, and retrieval using Google Cloud storage and it also helps in designing data models that define the structure, and constraints of data stored in the database.  

The backend is also responsible for developing an API (Application Programming Interface). 

 API is a set of rules or protocols that allows software applications to communicate with each other to exchange data, functionality, and features.  

So, Backend development is crucial for creating a robust, secure, and scalable social media app. 

 It involves setting up servers, managing databases, developing APIs, and ensuring that the app functions smoothly and can handle growth and user demands effectively.  

 STEP 4: Testing and Quality Assurance  

Testing is a crucial phase in social media app development, and it’s conducted to check whether the app is functionally effective and delivers services as what you thought and as per your expectations and offers end-to-end security. It helps to identify and fix any issues or bugs. 

STEP 5: Deployment and Launch 

It’s time to prepare your app for deployment to diverse platforms like Google Play store, App Store and your desired platforms. 

After developing an app just keep in mind that social media app development is a continuous process as advancing technology and different updates in the market. 

So, set up analytics tools to monitor your app performance and user behavior after the post-launch. Then, update your app accordingly. 

How much does it cost to develop a social media app? 

The cost of a social media app can vary mainly depending on several factors such as the team stack selection, their salaries, UI/UX design for the app, total front and backend development, marketing and launching of an app and ongoing maintenance needs. 

Depending on these factors, the average cost of social media app development can range between $100,000 to $ 250,000 or more depending on the complexities of the apps and features of an app. 

Wrapping up  

As you already know the importance and growth of social media in today’s world and how you can grow your business by developing an app. 

 For developing a social media app, businesses must have good technological knowledge and have an idea of creating a social media app. 

How can we help? 

BigOhtech is a leading tech company that helps in web development and outsources highly skilled developers and designers to companies to achieve their business goals. 

BigOhTech helps in transforming the ideas of companies into reality by providing reliable, scalable app development with consideration of emerging technologies  

If you want to develop a social media app you can go ahead with our services and talk to our app developers who can make your task easy.  

FAQs  

1. What do I need to do before I create a social media web app?  

You need to have clarity of the purpose behind developing a social media web app. What would be your focus point? Why do you want to develop any app and for whom are you developing? 

 That means you must be aware of your target audience before developing any social media app.  

2. Can I make a social media app with React Native?  

Yes. You can develop an app with react native because react native helps in developing an app that runs on both iOS and Android.  

It allows developers to write code once and deploy it on both iOS and Android platforms. It also reduces development costs and time by allowing code sharing between platforms.  

3. How and Where to Find Social Media App Developers?  

To find a skilled social media app developer for your project, BigOhTech is a powerful option to go with.  

We outsource our developers to companies who are interested in building an app and we provide an easy and affordable method that helps in the growth of their business.  

You can use LinkedIn jobs to post your requirements or search for candidates with the right skills.  

4. What are the essential features of a social app?  

The essential features of social media apps are-  

• Designing of the app should be visually appealing  
• Customizable privacy settings  
• Creative and innovative User Interface (UI)  
• Create a Unique selling point  
• Selection of best technology stack