How To Build a Social Media App and How Much Does It Cost You?

When having a thought about social media mobile apps, surely Instagram or Facebook are the ones that come directly to your mind. Wondering what’s so captivating in these social media apps and how they attract the attention of the users? Are you also looking forward to developing a social media app like Facebook or Instagram? But before you get into the process of app development, here the question is whether the world requires another social media app like Facebook or Instagram?

The way social media apps are redefining the way people connect and building connections, these apps have become a prominent part of our daily lives. The increasing number of active social media users has led this market to boom.  With ample potential opportunities, social media applications are becoming a big thing for businesses. 

If you are planning to create a social media app, then now is the time to turn your unique idea into the next big social media app. But before you get straight into the process of app development, here are the few questions that may spring up to your mind: 

Let’s discuss these points in detail for better understanding…

Why Is the Market Aiming For Social Media Apps?

In this digital driven world, almost everyone is using at least one social media app. From celebrities to a common man, everyone is using different social media apps whether it be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, SnapChat or more, to stay connected with their friends and relatives. Being an investor, you must be worried, whether there is a need to develop another social media app while there are already numerous types of social media apps that fulfill the purpose and cater to the specific audiences? To get an answer, here we have gathered some facts that enable you to understand why the market aims for social media apps..

Market Statistics and Insights of User Behavior

• According to market statistics, people worldwide are spending 2 hours and 25 minutes per day which has been increased to 2 hours 30 minutes in recent years. 
• In a month, the average user will visit 7.5 social media platforms.
• People ages 16-24 are spending 3 hours 18 minutes per day. 
• Social media apps are expected to generate $173 million in 2022 by integrated social media ads.

These statistics are clearly portraying the progressive picture of the user behavior and market insights of social media apps. Knowing all such facts and stats, you must be curious to get into the process of social media app development. But before you hire an iOS / android app development company, it is worth knowing what type of social media app fits your business needs. Different social media apps have different aspects of app development, therefore before proceeding with the app development services you need to look for the best-suited app options. 

What Type of Social Media App You Need To Develop in 2022?

Developing a successful social media app requires great efforts, planning and budget. So if you are planning to start a social media app development, you should understand what type of social media app you need to discuss. By evaluating your business requirements, target audience, competitors, or users appropriate functionality, you can choose from below options. 

Social Network apps

Social network apps like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn are specially designed to build relationships with users. Using these apps, users can connect and interact with people online and to share information. 

Media Sharing Networks

Apps like Youtube, Vimeo, TikTok are reshaping the social media app that allows you to share all kinds of media files (photos, videos , GIFs and more). Since sharing media content on wall, sending it to friends or commenting on the post has become a favorite activity of users, therefore, developing a social media sharing app has become a hot topic. 

Customer Review App

These types of social media apps play a vital role in decision making of users. Based upon buying and service experience with companies, users can share company’s feedback about their services, quality of products, likes and dislikes. Apps like Yelp, trustpilot are the major examples of this type of social media apps.

Discussion Forum Apps

Discussion forums apps like Quora or Reddit come under this category that allow users and topic experts to ask questions and answers to the questions from other users. Also, depending upon the reliability of the answer, experts can dislike or upvote answers. 

Undoubtedly, these are the most common types of social media apps but bringing a unique approach of app development can help you create a presence of your brand in the market. But to make any decision of developing a social media app, you need to understand all such important elements that help you build a successful social media app.

How To Make A Social Media App That Attract Massive Users?

Developing a social media app is a complex project that includes various aspects like what to include in your app, who you want to target, on which platform you need to launch an app, how complex structure you want for an app and more. You can either find a mobile app developer to custom tailor an app as per your business needs. But before you put efforts on the app development process, here we are briefing some of the important elements of the social media app development process. So let’s get started with the must have features and functionalities of developing social media apps.

Features and Functionalities to Create a Social Media App

What functionalities and features you want to include in your app can make a big difference in the app’s success. But here most startups make the biggest mistake of adding a plethora of features in the app that not only uplift the development time but also add up to the budget. So instead of stuffing your app with all those features that already existing apps are offering, it is worth prioritizing the list of features. 

Here are the essential features and functionalities that you can consider for social media app development:

• App Registration and Authorization: Allow users to get registered with an app and login via social network. To make it easier and quicker, social media integrations are important that help in transferring basic account details like account photo, full name and more. Most users prefer using Facebook, Twitter or Google+ for the easy and convenient signup procedure. 
• Profile Setting: Add the ability to edit profile settings such as picture, username, short bio, or it can be privacy settings, interest, location, number or friends or recent activity.
• Connections: Provide the flexibility to unfollow or follow other users based on interest, groups they belong to or location. Make sure your social media app has the flexibility to follow or add friends to expand their network on social media apps. 
• Share Content: This is the core functionality of your social media app. Allow users to create content whether it be text, images, videos, audios and more. To enhance user interaction and engagement, you add the flexibility to share content on the user’s wall or with friends. 
• Photo Filters: Allow users to post highly engaging and attractive content on the app using photo filters, stickers or even live streaming. This is the most popular trend in social media apps like Snapchat.
• News Feed: This feature of your app typically includes the updates from your connections or subscriptions. To create this feature you can hire a mobile app developer to customize to deliver an excellent user experience. Some apps use machine learning algorithms to determine your preferences and interests to offer personalized content suggestions. 
• Commenting and reposting: To enhance the interaction between users and content, it makes sense to add the feature of commenting, reposting the content or sharing it to others. This feature helps in creating a community within your app and keeps your users engaged.
• Search and Suggestion: By offering searching capabilities in your app allow users to extend their networks and discover other content that they might like. Using complex algorithms in app development, let your app suggest content based on browsing, name, age, interest, location, join groups and more. 
• In-App Message: This is the core functionality of your app that creates a room for confidential discussions, unlike comments that are visible to other users. Private chat features in the app allow users to comfortably get connected with the other users anytime.
• Push Notification: To increase the customer engagement, implementing this feature will be a worthy option. With this feature, users will be notified about a new message, a reaction or comment to their post and more. Push notifications are the perfect marketing tool that not only keep users updated with every single activity but also enhance user engagement.

These are the few advanced features that you need to integrate if you are planning to develop an MVP solution for social media apps. But if you are competing against industry giants like Facebook, Instagram or more, then you need to look for the advanced features and latest social media trends that help you attract more users.

Advanced Features and Functionalities to Create Social Media App

There are a plethora of trends and features that you consider implementing in your app. But keeping in mind the timeline and cost of app development, here are the few advanced features that you can look for:

• AR Filters: Applications like Snapchat or Instagram have created a buzzword in the digital world. To make a social media app more unique, you can consider integrating various filters and effects to make the photo and video more attractive. You can hire an app developer to customize your app feature. Also to increase user engagement, you can consider offering some exciting filters based on occasions, locations, events and more. To add more attractive filters to your social media app, app developers need to use ML Kit and ARCore to deliver a unique user experience. 
• Location-Based Content: It is one of the most exciting features of a social media app that provides content according to the user’s location. The app analyzes the location and shows content posted by others based on location. This will engage users to social media apps, all you need is to implement Google Places. 
• Editing Feature: Allow users to make their content highly attractive and engaging by providing the feature of editing pictures in app. 
• Voice/Video Call: Take in-app communication process to the next level by adding in-app voice and video calling features in the app. 
• Live Streaming: Live streaming is a real time feature that allows streamers to communicate with their followers and share experiences.
• Augmented Reality: Using AR filters to enhance a person’s appearance and add a fun and unusual twist to social network communication. 
• Natural learning Process: AI chatbots offer automated answers to frequently asked questions and tailor the user experience.     

Tech Stack Required For App Development

The performance of the app depends on the tools and technologies you use for the app development. There are various technologies that can be used during social media app development. If you want to make a mobile app, there are programming languages such as Swift and Objective C (iOS) and Kotlin and Java (Android). To give you a hint about app development, we have created a list of technologies and toolsets that you need to consider for app development.

Tech stack required for th Social Media App Development

• Programming Language for iOS App Development: Swift, Objective C
• Programming Language for Android App Development: Kotlin, Java
• Networking: Alamofire for iOS and OkHttp3
• Programming Language: Node.js
• Framework: Express 4
• Database: MySQL
• Chat: Socket.io
• Signup: Amazon SES, Amazon SNS
• API: Swagger
• Push Notification: FCM
• Geolocation: Google Maps
• Storage: Amazon S3
• Emails: Elastic Email
• AR Filters: ML Kit, AR Core
• Search: Elastic Search

You may gather some of the best tools and technologies to build a social media app, but the quality of the app is majorly depending upon the tools and the type of team you hire for the app development.

App Development Team Required for the Social Media App Development

If you are planning to develop a social media app like Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, then you need to hire a mobile app development company that can provide you a team of mobile app development that provide you a team of mobile app developer, UI/UX designer, quality assurance engineers, business analyst, project manager and more. 

The quality of the app is depending upon the team you hire for the app development and the skills they pour into the project. Despite having a brilliant app idea, you need to make sure that you onboard the team of experts that have skills and expertise to customize an app. 

But now the question is how to make money from your social media app?

Monetization Strategies To Make Better Profit From Your Social Media App

Whether you are a startup or a leading enterprise, your primary concern of developing a mobile app is to understand how to make money from your social media app. While there is a huge budget required for creating a social media app, make sure you have a proper monetization strategy in place to sustain longer in the market. Here are some of the monetization strategies that you can consider for app development. 

• Direct Sales: Try to avail the option of direct sales in your app for better user experience. In case if you are using this monetization strategy, then you need to strike a balance between too much self-promotion with a balance of exciting content.

• Video Marketing: Generating revenue from video marketing is always a rewarding monetization strategy for your social media app. The technique can involve ad revenue from racking up views, affiliate marketing and influencer promotion. Always use product-centric video content that helps you build a vast audience and make appealing brands. 

These are the two major revenue generation strategies that you need to look for to reap the best benefits from your app.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Social Media App?

After knowing all such features and functionalities, technologies and monetization strategies, investors are curious to know how much does it cost to build a social media app? If you are eyeing up the standard app development cost without knowing what exactly you need to include in your application then you might be mistaking. If you are using a SaaS or CMS solution, then surely the app development cost will be going significantly less and be much faster to launch an app.

If you are considering creating a social media app from scratch then you need to take into account the cost of back-end development which can take months or even years. Apart, the cost of the app is majorly depending upon the complexity of the app, features and functionalities, UI/UX design, app testing and more. 

If we conclude all such factors to determine the average cost of developing a social media app then it revolves around USD 20,000 to 25,000+ for each platform. But, if you are planning to target both platforms then it is worth choosing a cross-platform approach for app development. Using a cross-platform app development framework, you can save 40% cost and time. 

Before you make any decision, keep in mind these projections can go up and down, depending upon the complexity of your business needs. So to get right project estimations, you can book a free consultation slot to discuss details 

How We Can Help You Build Social Media Apps?

At the end of this blog, it is fair enough to say that developing a social media mobile app is no easy task. But before you start transforming your social media app idea into a robust solution, you need to hire a mobile app development company that can help you create a successful project that helps you expand your business reach. If you are planning to create a social media app that can help you attract users, then Alcax is a leading mobile app development company that has years of experience in crafting feature-rich solution media apps. If you have any doubts about developing a social media app and wondering how much it will cost you then you can connect with our experts for discussion.