1) The document provides guidance on developing social network applications, including defining what a social network app is, the types of social apps, features to include in an MVP, and trends to enhance apps. 2) It describes the key steps to developing a social media app as choosing the type, understanding the reasons to create one, building an MVP, and attracting users. 3) Various social app types are covered such as news, blogging, messaging, lifestyle, entertainment, and business-focused apps. The document also offers two examples of social apps developed by the company.

1. Social Network Application Development
Guide
In today’s time, we don’t start our mornings until we check all the notification
pop ups of our favourite ​social network applications​. Our mornings start
scrolling through Facebook feeds, reading headlines on News Apps, replying
texts on WhatsApp, ​LinkedIn​, and Skype. Today’s lives highly depend on online
communication, information sharing and networking. People around the world
spend around 4-5 hours a day on social network apps and many research
proved it too.

2. Just take a look at the number of active users of the most popular mobile
messaging apps across the US.
Perhaps you understand social network apps the kind of applications such as
Facebook​, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and sharing posts, likes, comments and send
private text to your contacts.
However, social media apps have moved beyond its contour and shaping
opportunities more than comment, share and communicate.
Before we initiate a talk about developing social network apps, lets
understand social network app by definition.
What is a Social Network App?
Though, social network apps don’t need an introduction or definition, but here
we go “ social network apps or websites are digital platforms to socialize and

3. exchange various types of content such as text, photos, and videos while
facilitating real-world activities such as likes, comments and messaging.”
How To Create A Social Network App?
If you are planning to develop a social media app, follow these steps below:
Step 1​ – Choose the type of your future social media app
Step 2​ – Get acquainted with the main reasons to create social network app
Step 3​ – Follow 5 steps to start a social media business
Step 4​ – Build an MVP of social media app
Step 5​ – Keep up with the main trends to enhance your social networking
app
Step 6​ – Choose your way to attract users to your social media app
Types Of Social Network App
When you plan to build a social network application development, it is
important to define the type of your app in advance. It helps you address your

4. target audience and that further assists you define the most appropriate
feature of your social app.
Here are top 10 social platforms and respective active users of the platforms:
But gone are the days when Facebook and Twitter dominated the social
media platforms. Since the things have gone to mobile, there emerged several
social media application and touching the new skies of success in their
businesses such as TikTok
If you want to develop an app like ​TikTok​, check this blog post
There are tons of social networking apps available to download for free. And
these apps come with several amazing features and services.
Let’s understand several types of social network apps and how they have
sustained success in the competitive market.

5. News Apps:​ News websites get serious competition and it’s not a surprise
because social networks are the fastest way to access information. Then
came news apps for mobile phones and people started reading news in their
smartphones. Now is the time for videos and live video streaming.
News Apps are also a strong social platform in terms of traffic and user
engagement. Thus, news apps as a networking platform must be interesting
for users.
Social Blogging Apps​: Blogging is one of the best ways to express
thoughts, emotions and consent for a thing one believes. And to do so, one
must get the convenience to write when they want, where they want and how
they want. What could be better than a mobile app that provides 24×7
opportunity to write thoughts and share with the world. Medium is one such
blogging based social networking app one can get inspiration.
Instant Messaging:
Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Snapchat and Telegram are world popular
instant messaging apps. The influence of instant messaging has dragged
businesses to join these platforms. The massive use of instant messaging
bound businesses to evolve their customer service strategies around these

6. platform and ensure real-time and seamless communication with consumers
through instant messaging.
For example​: WhatsApp offers an opportunity to set-up a business
account for individuals and a complete business profiles for well-known
business. Nyka – India’s beauty and cosmetic brand now send details like
invoices, shipment, delivery and other things directly on customer’s whatsapp
account.
Alike, an entertainment and ticket booking app BookMyShow send tickets on
customer’s whatsapp with digital barcode that they can get scanned at entry
point. No more paper print outs, complete digital experience bring
convenience to customer’s life as well as businesses operations.
Lifestyle Apps:
Fashion, movies, dining, fitness, dating, travel, leisure and sports are the
activities that make life interesting and drive to keep going and doing. Mobile
apps such as Foursquare for travel, Fitbit for fitness freaks, My Diet Coach to
count your eating habits, Sleep Cycle to ensure you get enough sleep, Health
Tap to tap your heart rate and other support, SkyScanner that give you alerts

7. on cheap flight fares for your preferred location. The app stores are flooded
with lifestyle apps, still there are scope for new ones that can help meet their
changing requirement in today’s fast paced lifestyle.
Entertainment Social Media Apps:
Earlier young generations got fond of entertainment and social media apps
such as live streaming apps, dating apps, media sharing apps, and so on. But
then it took up surge among different market segments. Even matrimony apps
are available dedicated to divorcess only. The market with innovative apps are
trying to touch and transform lives of people of every segment and creed.
Business Focused Social Interaction Apps:
LinkedIn, Skype, Trello, Jira and so on are top social apps widely used by
business professionals for secure and fast communication as well as project
management.
This type of apps though not as interesting as Facebook or dating apps or
other types of apps due to serving specific goals. But people who are looking
for jobs or sales leads across the world are in die-hard need of such platforms
that provide exposure, support collaboration and communication.

8. Finding Your Business Idea And Defining Your Strategy To Develop Social
Network App
Before you start looking for application developers for your social media app
type, here are 5 tips for you to help you simplify your journey:
1. Define Your Target Audience
Once you define your most appropriate audience, you can research what
those people are looking and what they are interested more in. Understand
target audience and their needs help you give a good start to your mobile
application.
2. Keep Your Marketing-Strategy Handy
The chances are very low that you got a 100% unique idea for app
development. Software industry has touched almost every sphere of life, and
so chances are high that there is already a competitive app available in the
market. But not to stress out. Build your own marketing-strategy and keep it
handy while giving shape to your application.
3. Focus On Key Aspects Initially

9. Remember how Instagram evolved? The popular photo and video sharing
social networking app was first released for iOS. After lots of testing and
innovations around implementing features, traffic-generation and user
engagement within the platform, Instagram was released fon Android after 2
years besides iOS.
You can also define key aspects initially. It could be cost, MVP, releasing
native app specific for Android or iOS or hybrid approach or anything else you
think significant as per your marketing strategy.
4. Keep UI/UX Simple
Engagement matters on an application. Initially no one login into your app to
tell you how your app is working. They’ll try the app to check features, and
look for something else they don’t find on other apps. Therefore, try to keep
UI/UX simple yet engaging. And intuitive and easy to navigate apps also helps
you leave a mark on the user’s mind.
5. Be Diligent To Boost The App
Once your application gets ready and you decide to make money from your
application, it is important to approach it with a few tactical methods to

10. succeed in the promotion. Have a place ready such as SEO strategy that gets
the app on the top list of search engine and play stores, lead generation
through developing landing page for your product and also selecting an
attractive brand name to get market recognition.
Top Features of an MVP Development
We have already discussed social applications can be of many types, hence
different focused target audience so as application features.
Still, some features remain unchanged for every app. The application needs
that to recognize every user and deliver him/her personalized experience
every time they logged-in. So, here are the features you should consider for
developing MVP of social network app:
User Profile​: User Profile helps app’s users to personalize their social
profile such as connect/follow/subscribe to like-minded people and maintain
privacy as they wish for. It also makes their profile more credible and
approachable on your platform. Having user data such as personal interests
and preferences also help you personalize experience for better user
engagement.
Search: ​With a number of profiles and multiple features, social apps allow
users to do a lot of activities of interest online. Henceforth, it is not possible to

11. find something/someone without a search bar. It must be in your app as
default.
News feed:​ People love consuming content online. Your app must make
the user’s actions visible to followers in news feed. It helps users stay
engaged with friends and followers and ignite communication through
features like, comments and interaction mediums.
Messaging:​ People join social sites to meet new people and chat with
them. Chatting is an integral part of social apps. So, your app should have a
messaging window along high-end security settings. Let the users decide and
customize settings for better chatting experience.
Media files sharing:​ People today use emojis, photos and videos to
communicate rather than text. Your app must facilitate multimedia file sharing
in messaging as well as in status/post updates.
Push Notifications:​ Push notifications work like gluing users to your
app. It simplifies sending an update to users about a new post, a new
message or activities other users are engaged within. The advantage of using
push notification is an app can send alert to users even when the app is
closed.

12. Invitations:​ Social app’s growth highly depends on the growth of
communities developed on the app. And to increase the community’s growth,
you must provide users an option to ‘request to join’ a community or simply
‘send invitation’ to somebody to join his/her network as a friend.
Trends to Enhance Your App
Basic features as quoted above are truly basic components of an application.
You need more than attractive features and intuitive U/UX to your app to stay
competitive and sustain successes for long term.
Here we list down some of the amazing trends buzzing around the world.
Think about how you can integrate few of them with your social networking
app and can make them more crowd-pleasing.
In-app payments:​ Social commerce is one of the fastest growing trends
for social app optimization and online shopping together. WhatsApp already
launched P2P payments recently. Instagram, photo and video sharing social
app, has also tested the ability to shop in-app and now users can make direct
purchases on the platform from selected brands, including Adidas, KKW
Beauty, Huda Beauty, Anastasia Beverly Hills and many others.

13. Marketplace​: In the business world, companies have to take their
products/services among people instead waiting for them to find you. Social
media and networking platforms are digital destinations where people are and
spending most of their time in a day. Hence, social apps have become a new
destination for commerce. Facebook has already included a marketplace and
many other apps provide shoppable advertisements.
VR/AR​: AR and VR now need no more introduction. These technologies are
very popular already and businesses are testing use-cases to integrate it
within their apps brilliantly. AR and VR modify the images and videos into
more interactive and engaging posts. Although developing features around AR
and VR is higher, in turn it helps multiple revenue.
Live Streaming​: Like video streaming adds a human touch to social posts
that text, pictures and edited videos can’t compete. Live streaming helps build
authority and credibility to the post as well as context. Besides Facebook,
LinkedIn – being a business focused networking app, provides live video
streaming.
An increasing number of brands are designing and adjusting their strategies
around these impeccable trends becoming popular with social applications.

14. Get insight of these trends and try to integrate these trends in your app.
Moreover, you can do it later after you release an app with MVP. If users
accept your new app, you’d better modify it further.
Our Expertise In Social Network App Development
Beneath, I listed just a couple of social media projects we built for our clients.
AllChat​: AllChat is a one-stop globalized & creative chat based smart mobile
application that connects community builder, facilitates creative marketplace,
supports multiple payment options and more.
Preloved​: Preloved is an Indian shop to sell and buy second-hand luxury
items. It’s easy here to find the right seller and buyer for your products.
Compared to other places, here rates are reasonable.
Ready To Build Your Social Network App?
Our clients get full assistance with building and launching their social media
projects. Fill in this short contact form and our managers will contact you as
soon as possible to answer your questions and estimate the time and cost of
your project at no charge.