Working with the app developer team, I have learned the fact that- no application is developed overnight. Neither it is the job done by a single person. The rigorous developer and designer team ensure the comfort of providing the information on the tips of the user.
The social interaction with the help of technology is the innovation which is not going fade anytime or in near future.To calm my curious mind for how is the social networking application is developed, I discovered that there are three-tier structure-
- Mobile client
- Back-end &
- Database
Describing the first structure of the mobile app development, there are three basic features, defining an application as the social network-
- Profile
- Feeds
- Connections
Profile
The majority of social networking apps are profile-centric. For developers, this suggests that an information with personal details of the apps members is at the core of social network app development. The easiest way to build a user profile is to attach the app to social network profiles that users are already using.
For instance, basic profile information will be retrieved via REST API calls from social networks like LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. As an alternative, users can even enter an email and password to sign in, however, this needs a lot of work, therefore individuals could also be less inclined to decide on this feature.
Social media applications are fascinating for the user because it helps them to express themselves. Therefore it is essential for the developer team to associate some tools helping the user to personalize it. There are five ways of the profile personalization-
- Photo effects
- Background colors
- Theme settings such as defining the layout, content and the style of the profile.
- Bio customization with the option of animations. The display option in the bio should include- hobbies, interests, food preferences. One such example of this is, Euclid. It is the open source project featuring the animated profile of the user.
- Links to websites or blogs that a user will add.
There are some exceptional social media applications focusing on the content and providing the platform rather than being the profile-centric. The sites such as YouTube allows the user to upload the videos, Flickr permits the user to upload the photos without the status updates and the Medium is all about sharing the content.
Feeds
For the better user engagement on the social network applications, feed plays an important role. Content that is available on the feed often is shared by the users in various forms and mediums. Example- 24 hours stories created by users, photos, videos, GIF, and many more.
The sharing of the content from the feed section interests the people to use the social network more often. While drafting the feed section for the social media application, on the basis of user’s passion, there are lots of the content divided, based on the user’s preferences on the social media:
Whats Happening?
This is the most interesting section of the social network feed because it allows the user to share or post about where they are or what are they doing with whom. The user can use the check-in option to share the location with the help of the GPS.
This feature can be built into the application through the location API which further retrieves the location of the device from the GPS and the mobile network service providers. Such kind of the location data is used to monetize it. How?
Well, the location information from the social network application, the developer’s team can be able to read the actions of the users and on the basis of it, the team can recommend different benefits in the interest of the user. Example- discount coupons in the particular mall or the shopping brand, concert tickets, etc.
Although the major setback with the location information is, an absence of privacy concern. There are an increasing need and demand to control it further taking care of the user privacy information. There are studies that show app accessing the user’s location without asking their permission.
In a day, there are several times when this kind of the app behavior takes place, sometimes the app development team is not even aware of it. This happens because the developers are concerned with the revenue generated from the in-app advertisements and other features.
There are times when the in-app ads extract the user’s location data in order to display the ads in the better way or the user’s potential activity in the application. So what can we do to make it better than the other social network app developers?
While building the social network application, it is important to choose and select the trusted third party services so that the user can control their privacy while sharing the location of the social network.
Self-Expression
We, humans, like to express ourselves and the social media has become the ideal platform at the current time to do it, however, we want to. Be it photos, video or the status update, the desire to express oneself is the key to the user engagement with the social media application.
To make the social network application successful, the developer can take care of these three things:
- Tools that can help the user-generated content look different from each other.
- Creating the simple way for the user to share the content.
- Targeting a specific audience.
We can take the simple example here of the photo editor and sharing applications- Instagram engages the user with the catchy and attractive filters, and VSCOcam provides the platform for the professional photographers.
Even if users of a social app don’t really produce content however copy and paste it from alternative sources, this will even be seen as user-generated content, as a result of sharing different people’s thoughts is additionally a type of expressive style. For instance, I take advantage of Twitter for posting links not solely to my articles however to those written by others yet.
User-posted content will turn to be a very important growth factor for a social network. However, the terrible nature of user-generated content needs a large existing community before it will drive engagement.
Self-Esteem
The desire to look good what the humans need and on the same kind of content the feed depends upon in the social media application. The great thing about the self-esteem content is that it adds the value irrespective of the application community size.
Content sharing on the social media means pleasing the other people by expressing ourselves. Now there can be a different approach than this. Example- Spindle. It is the social journaling application, the platform for users to create content for themselves, first.
Once the content is generated for the user itself, they can share it with their friends. The content can be anything on the feed and to engage more and more users, there are mediums of the interactions. This can be in the form of writing reviews, ratings, shares, likes, comments, highlights and so on.
More the interaction, the user will be prompt to open the application and check the updates. The small potential interaction on the content from the feed will increase the connections in the social network application.
Connections
The meaning of being social means to stay connected with our community, group or kind of people. The social network applications should, therefore, provide the way to the user to stay connected with other users as well. It can be either by following them or sending a friend request. There are many other ways although to establish new connections:
- Content: To grow and build the engaging audience it is important to create the rich content for the social application. So how does the content becomes king when it comes to building the audience? With the help of sharing and interacting with the content, users build the connections. There are different ways the user engages with the content:
- Exploring: User like to learn the new things, discovering the different types of the content on the social media feed. The option of the displaying the multiple feeds from different mediums such as the user’s friend’s sharing the content and the trending content. Such feature will help to promote to the complete network.
- Chatter: Some users like to interact with the content shared on the user’s social media profile. Putting up the interactions therefore in the social network application can help them to be heard and join the conversation, seeking the attention.
- Follower/ Admirer: There are users who put like on everything they see on the social media profile. Users like to have the interaction in the form of being an admirer. Like, retweet or favorites are the ways through the user admire the other users. When you like and appreciate other user’s shared content on the profile, you are adding the value to it.
- Search: There is one difference between searching and exploring- Searchers are precise about what content they are looking for on the social media. Hashtags are the best way for the sorting the social media and twitter is using it in a great way to grow the number of the user following.
All these are the live examples of how can you sort the social media content and also help the user to discover what they want to.
Groups
When people share the common values, beliefs, and knowledge, they gather together in the public groups. You can either develop an application revolving around creating the public groups or just can be the add-on feature to the social media profile. There can be business people and the organization who can be part of the social network because of the group’s feature.
Events
The event-based application provides the connection beyond the digital world. You can build the social media application based solely on the events, you make the user stay in touch with the reality.
Such applications can help you to send the invitations to the users, and to earn the revenue, you can sell the tickets, thereby sourcing the explicit reward from the social app. Developing and offering the event-based social media application is the great way to have the real-time communication with the real world.
Social networks
There are instances when the user can import their connections from the leading social media profiles such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn and other popular social network platforms.
Address records
When you allow your developed application with the different email clients, it will help the user to send the application/ friend/ follower invitation straight.
SMS texts
The application download invitation can also be sent via SMS to the people from the user’s address record.
Exploration
Social network application allows the user to search another user with the help of username or the full name. To make it more precise, you can add the filters for the accurate search result. You can add the filters such as job, location, interests, hobbies and other useful information in sync with the profile.
Suggestions
Depending on the user profile information, you can develop the in-app feature regarding the new connection recommendations for them.
Messaging/ Chatbox
The social network applications establish the connectivity between the users. To keep them going, the group chats and conversations on the social networks encourage the user to open the social media apps frequently.
To develop in-built real-time chat box for the social media applications, there are certain reliable third-party services. If looked into the recent social applications up gradation, there are new features where the user can converse with voice, chat, and even video message to another user.
Meaningful/ Additional content
Social media applications are addictive and there is a valid reason behind it- Content. It is the content on the social network that spins the money. The content is helpful to enrich the social profiles by adding the advanced functionalities or even advancing the advertising possibilities through the partnership with the content providers such as game developers, artists, etc.
At present, the content adding the value to the social network profiles are the stickers. There are platforms that offer the stickers and other virtual products for the social network profiles. Some of them earn the revenue share from these stickers. You can choose to design your own stickers as well. All you need is to hire the professional designer who has the knowledge of illustration.
Backend Solutions
Social network applications manage too much of content on the daily basis. With the front-end functions of the app, there is a need to consider the back-end solutions as well. Your basic requirements for the back-end solutions should be based on how the performance of the application should be?
For an instance- how would you want your application to behave when there are one million users at a time? Which back-end solution will provide you the desired performance under such circumstances? Although there is a number of MVC PHP frameworks accelerating the app development process along with meeting the requirements for the performance, the final call is upon you.
Database
Based on the purpose and how you want to develop your social media application, you can choose the database between- SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL or NoSQL database such as MongoDB. It is highly recommendable to use MySQL or PostgreSQL for the development of social network application.
NoSQL database rarely supports too much one-to-one and one-to-many integral relationships. For an instance- MongoDB is the least choice when it comes to storing the likes of the user photos.
Admin Group/Panel
The admin panel plays another important role in the social app development after the content. The purpose of having the admin panel for the application is to provide the support to the users.
For an instance- When there are questions regarding the application or its feature, the user can directly approach the admin group with the query. The admin panel will then provide the solutions based on the questions/ doubts asked by the users.
Admin panel works on the important issues raised by the customers/ users such as feature functionalities, user’s performance, or even the payments. The admin group also has the rights to execute the integral features in the app controlling the user-generated content along with the user management.
The admin group of the social application has the statistic records with the integrated analytics. We recommend you to try the third party analytics system such as Google Analytics and also build the additional features for the admin group, to fulfill the app requirements from the admin panel side.
Not everything does the third party analytics system look after in the social network application. For an instance- Google analytics records the user behavior from the complete group but it shows no behavioral record of the particular user.
You can build the user-behavior log so as to learn the broad analytics.This kind of statistics will help you to learn the insights of the social network app performance, further coming up with the new ideas to upgrade or improve the application.
Conclusion
Overall, to build the social network application is the big deal- for the app owner and the developer team. To have the less amount of risk for the app development, we would recommend you to start with the modest version of the application. Gradually you can then work on it towards the top.
