Let us start with What is Social Media Actually and Why it is Popular:

You might have already heard about many social media giants such as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and professional apps such as LinkedIn. These apps have propelled the organizations to multi-billion dollar empires, some of them even touching the trillion-dollar mark. 

What is a Social Network?

It is an online platform where you can build social organizations and relationships with people of common interests, family, or backgrounds. It had been initially projected as a simple virtual get-together platform. However, as of today, it has blown into a complete marketing tool for companies and organizations around the globe. Now, you can host online meetings with friends, family, and co-workers all through an app. It has really helped all types of industries such as IT, Software, and Academic to function smoothly despite the recent pandemic situation. The work from home scenario was so much suited that many companies are adopting this ecosystem. 

Features of a Social Network

The important feature of any social media network is that it should display an activity feed that should contain all the latest updates from friends or groups. Additionally, it should include a profile to set up personal information that includes names, profession, profile photo, age, and the option to add images and videos of the most recent activities in your life. 

It should be an open gateway to an easy-to-use interface for nearly everyone with an internet connection and a simple, smart device.

Now, why should you create one while there are already established social media platforms out there in the market?

Yes, already there is competition in the market. However, you can still target the audience based on some very basic yet effective approaches to the security of data, say no to an advertisement on the platform, keeping it simple, and catering to a specific skill set or percentage of people interested in a common topic. 

Hence, thanks to modern technology and the internet, you have the resources and opportunity to create your own custom social media app that is dedicated to your social sphere and customized to your community’s needs.

Benefit To Create a Social Media App

1. Creating Direct Relationships and Interactions

Using your own social media app can be really helpful as you are not bound by outside rules and regulations. You can design and add additional features which seem good for the community. 

2. Safe Community Space

Creating a secure community space that allows us to connect with followers, fans, and other subscribers can be a selling point of your brand new app. Therefore, you can practically push any useful functionality available in the market as you are free to make any decision you want.

3. Easy Monetization

If you have full control over the social media networks, you can strategically place advertisements through-out the application that would not hamper the user experience and would give you a chance to generate income for you and your team.

4. Kick-Out Distractions

There are many unwanted content and bloatware blogging in the current app ecosystem, and you can block such disadvantages giving you the best possible advantage.

So now, while creating a social media platform, it is a prerequisite to have a mobile application, and a lot of effort in developing the app would be in the backend. Backend is the real deal that makes the complete system run smoothly. 

You can design an app entirely from scratch or use an already existing web app and work on adding your specific requirements to it.

Requirements of a Social Media App 

Now let us discuss the application requirements.

1. User Interaction

This is the main component of any application or software. The features such as push, SMS, Email, publishing the content, animations, gestures, flow, and much more comes under the user interaction or UI. 

2. User Management

User registration, along with personal information such as Email, phone number, can be asked from the user to make a unique ID for the social registration.

3. In-App Communication

This includes the use of basic chat options, video calling and social media sharing options, ability to comment on the social media posts. 

4. Geolocation

Continuous location tracking can be used to give relevant experience to the user, such as nearby places to eat, cab booking, friends near me, and much more.

5. Data Placement

The audio, video, and texts on the app should be displayed accurately with proper database and structured data, lists, texts.

6. Data Sources Integration

You can use and display data from various sources using API calls. This can diversify the content you are displaying and increase viewership.

However, you can add other features as well, including security using encryption and add payment services if you want to have some premium content for the users, like premium articles, videos, and much more. 

You can also add a web portal where you can manage your app statistics and operations.

How to Create a Social Media App: Step-by-Step Guide

Some critical steps need to be followed to answer how to create a social media app. 

1. A Well-Planned Strategy

You should thoroughly study your idea to get the best possible strategy for the extra competitive market, analyze the requirements and sort the audience you want to serve. Establish the key performance indicators that should point you to the best possible scenarios and help run the application successfully.

2. Designing the Workflow

Designing the app is always the difficult part of any development cycle. There are many parts to the designing part.

a. Sketching

It includes the basic outline of your future dream application. As a result, they really help assess the features, their implementation, feasibility, and the interaction between them.

b. Wireframing

With the right wireframing platforms, we can start visualizing our sketch and creating the skeletal structure of the application.

c. Prototyping

It is a working model of the future application. It helps in realizing the development of the application. You can add and edit specific elements of the application before starting the development work.

d. Design App

Complete the User Interface and User Experience to provide the best possible solutions.

3. Development on both Android and iOS

The development of the application on major mobile platforms is utterly crucial for the success of the app. Thus, after the prototyping of the application is done, the backend services are set using servers, APIs, database, and storage settings. Manual and automated testing scenarios should be set using the latest quality assurance software. So after extensive testing and application development cycle, we can sort out the best possible app for the extensive rollout to the common public.

4. Publishing and Marketing

Marketing the app is more important than development. A professional team of best management talent is important for the success of the app. However, you can use various platforms to publicize the application, including other social media applications, reviews by professionals, ad campaigns, video guides, and an effective description of the application. This helps the business to stand out at Apple or Google Play Store. 

5. Maintenance and Support

Maintaining the app after the initial launch and the customer support for possible bugs is utterly important. Therefore, regular updates with new features should be pushed regularly. 

Some Quantitative Measures for How to Create A Social Media App

1. Acquisition: CPI and CAC

a. Cost Per Install (CPI)

It is calculated by tracking the number of installs that resulted from the effective advertisement. The calculation includes dividing the cost involved by the number of installs.

b. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

It is the sum of all the costs involved in all the marketing campaigns that have resulted in attracting a client. This can help in understanding the scaling opportunities available in the future.

2. User Activation

It is the number of active users divided by the number of downloads.

3. User Retention

It includes the proportion of the users who are still using the application after a specific amount of time.

4. Traction

 It corresponds to the market demand for such a product. 

Conclusion

Social Media App Development is not an easy task that can be completed in a day. A good team with a strong development background, a strong team of social media players, paired with a good and continuous flow of good and innovative ideas in flow with the market, can strike a deal for you. 

Therefore, to start working on how to create a social media app and give a life to your dream project. However,  we do here at EngineerBabu, which is a next-generation platform to provide your business an opportunity to work with other businesses. Reach out to us, and share your ideas with us to make your dream project a reality.

The post How to Create A Social Media App: Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

We are well aware of the influence it leaves on the online audience over a period.  Considering platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and so on, we have got a lot more options to thrive upon.

Twitter, as we know, is more of a micro-blogging web app and has gained popularity for various kinds of businesses over the time.

You have to make sure that every tweet you do is just confined to 140 characters and that’s what game is all about.
You have to win your customer or client by 140 characters. Social media is more of a taboo these days because it is a platform where people connect and communicate in both a professional and a personal way.
In fact, Social Media Marketing is considered to be a key element when it comes to marketing your business.

So, the question is how you will incorporate your business with your consumer domain?

First things first, business in not merely a professional relationship through which you can sell your services and products.
Business is where your services and products actually revolve around a customer’s psychology and their emotions.
You don’t sell merely a product; you sell a solution to their problems. You do not deal with just a person but their emotions too. Following are Twitter marketing tips for your startup–

Best way to Use Twitter for Marketing your Startup

1. Promote other Twitter members:

Dude, that’s one hell of advice, isn’t it? Well, it might sound like a big-deal but it isn’t.

Promoting others doesn’t mean you go on re-tweeting other peoples tweets just for the sake of getting retweeted.
You have to be honest about whatever you promote. Say, for example, you follow a twitter account of the famous star and often retweet their postings, that means you believe and agree to what that person believes in.
You have to make sure that whatever you share of your fellow Twitterati, it must add some value to your followers.

The key here is to grow your network via following and retweeting others. So, bringing someone’s tweet in the limelight will ultimately lead you towards the limelight.

The retweets that you do can be in any possible form. Your retweet may be any gesture, an appreciation or any kind of Thanksgiving.
Whatever form it takes, you have to make sure that you mean every word you mention. You have to retweet the posts which you believe would entertain and add value to your followers/niche.

2. Be Consistent to Build Trust:

To build your audience, it is very necessary that you be consistent. Once you establish a Twitter account and gain some followers, it is very important that you do not discontinue the frequency of your tweets.

People over the web follow you because they think and believe that you have something new to say and share on a daily basis.
If you break this trust, you’ll be doomed. You see, the point is that the people over the web have got many options over this huge WEB, if not you than someone else. There is a cut throat competition going on, and you can’t imagine how badly your competitors are willing to pull your leg down and smack you down.

It is possible that over the time you have work that’s piled up and are unfinished priorities.

So, to not-miss managing your Twitter account, you can schedule your tweets well in advance, or you can have a manager to manage your social media accounts (if you can afford it).
It is not that time consuming because tweets are maxed at 140 characters. There are many tools available to schedule your tweets.

3. Be active:

There is no point in having a social media account if you hardly stay updated and update people simultaneously.

If you are not active, you’re dead. The thing about social media sites and applications are that you have your own community.
You build your own community over the time. And when it’s about business, you have your assets attached to such social cultures on the web – your customers.
If you just build a community and aren’t active enough, you’ll lose everything you have built.

You should update your features, plus points and every little detail about your services and products in the most effective manner possible.

Twitter is the best place to find the right nerve and hit directly over there. Your clients which lie in various parts of the world will get to know your company and company ethics in the most entertaining and techie way possible.

4. Don’t lose focus from your niche:

So, how does this term fit into this article? Confused? Okay, so niche here means the niche of your products or services.

You have to make sure that whatever you post, it must be in some of the other way related to your products.
Social media posts can be done in many categories and in many ways. They are direct promotion, indirect promotion and so on.
So, if you sell earphones and headsets and are tweeting something about ADELE’s new song “HELLO”, there must be some inter-linking element to both the ends.

You cannot blindly go on tweeting about anything, because that might in some case add value to your customers but not your business.

Try interlinking your products and launch a campaign which can last for a week or two. It is easy to get noticed when you have a generic tweet related to your product. This is a part of social media marketing.

5. Your tweets are supposed to be BANG-ON:

So, when you are done with the above steps but still lag behind, what could be the possible reason? It might be possible that your tweets are too numb and lame.

What is the point of tweeting on a regular basis even when there are no engagements on your tweets or no-one retweets? It hurts, right?

See, there can be multiple ways to win your customer, and your job is to find out that via different experiments.

Even Edison had to try a thousand times to get the bulb working. No, the point here is not about trying out for thousands of times but rather innovating your tweets. Arrange some quiz, giveaways, contests, awards, tweet-a-thon, etc. which would engage your followers. Share some facts or try reaching out for new ideas via your customers.

The best and worst part about Twitter is that it’s only 140 characters. It’s upon you to choose wisely and work smartly with your twitter handle.

Don’t just push it to headlines, bring it in an all-new form to say the same thing. You could turn a quote related to your devices into the headline of your tweet. Cool, isn’t it? You have got the spice, so start sprinkling.

I really hope that these tips might help you change your startup/business for the better. I hope it helps you out build a great Twitter community.

We have Startups and Entrepreneurs to help you build wireframe by visualizing your need. You may get in touch with us at EngineerBabu.

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