Do you know?
“The number
of social media users is projected to cross 3.43 billion in 2023, which will be
nearly half of the total population of the world then.“
These numbers provided by Statista, a
reputed online statistics portal, are astonishing! They showcase that this
industry is growing by leaps and bound. Not only individuals but even
professionals and business enterprises use these platforms for their growth. As
a result, a plethora of social networking app development services has emerged across the
globe. These apps have evolved over time with innumerable trendy features and
tools. So one needs to keep abreast with the latest trends for each platform to
build a top-of-the-line social media app.
This blog instills a detailed
overview, features, and technology stack for architecting social media or social
network apps. Let us delve into them.
Major
Types of Social Media Apps
●
Photo/media-sharing platforms like Instagram,
Snapchat, YouTube, etc.
●
Social network apps like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
●
Chatting apps like WhatsApp.
●
Blogging and publishing sites like Medium
●
Internet discussion forums like Reddit, Quora,
etc.
●
Business networking sites like LinkedIn.
●
Consumer review platforms like TripAdvisor.
●
Anonymous social networks like Anonyfish,
Minds.com, etc
These apps have a general set of
features embedded in them which are a must-have for any social media app. Let
us have a glance at them:
Captivating user interface: The UI should form a
great impression on users enabling easy navigation through the app. It should
have a powerful and interactive visual design.
Easy registration and login: Considering the short
attention span of today’s users, the registration and login processes must be
as easy as possible.
Easier search functionality: Users should easily be
able to search for anything by user names, tags, location, etc. As they start
searching, the results should be filtered out and shown in a drop-down style at
the earliest.
Private chatting and calling
functionalities: A convenient chat feature for sending messages, photos, or other media
and a calling feature to connect seamlessly are vital for these apps.
Message status: The users should be able
to know if their message was read by the other users; they should also be able
to hide their status if needed.
Ease of connectivity and expand user
following:
These apps must allow the users to easily access millions of people with ease
and thus, build a following at a fast rate.
Creating and editing user profile: A thoughtful user
profile that helps users to attract their target audience is essential for a
social app. Users must be able to edit or customize it as well.
Push notifications: For keeping the users
notified of recent activities and also about promotional activities, this
feature is a must-have in the apps.
Appealing and real-time news feed: Relevant, real-time, and
engaging news feed helps the users to stay tuned with information from friends
and other communities. This potential feature compels the users to keep
scrolling continuously.
Commenting, liking, and sharing: These features also
ensure more engagement of the users.
Ability to add posts: Users should be able to
express their thoughts on the platform. They should be able to share or upload
files in the form of text, image, audio, video, etc. formats.
Group or community creating feature: Users, whether
individuals or business entities, having common goals, interests, and values
should be able to form groups or communities.
Add or remove friends/connections
feature:
Users must have the freedom to add, remove, or block their connections and also
report if needed. This feature is extremely important in a world where unknown
people connect so fast.
Emojis, GIFs, and stickers: These functionalities
are necessary for ensuring that the apps give a more interactive and intuitive
feel to the users.
Ability to integrate with other social
media platforms: This feature helps the app owners to increase their user-base and drive
adoption, thereby increasing its popularity.
Top-level security and privacy of
information: Higher security and privacy features must be employed in the social apps
to ensure secure interactions, prevent sensitive information of users, gain
their confidence and thus, maintain the good reputation of the social network
app.
A few
more Advanced Features
●
Go live or broadcast feature
●
Hosting Watch Parties
●
Ability to highlight best stories
●
Ability to edit, crop or rotate images
●
Collaborative stories i.e. short-lived stories
for one-day or limited time-span
●
Person-to-person (P-2-P) payment
Now as we are done with the features
part, let us move to the technology stack requirements of these apps. There are
two major parts- frontend and backend. Apart from this, we will also discuss
the admin panel and database.
Social
networking app development: Aspects to look for in Technology Stack
Frontend
Frontend development depends on
several factors like frontend features to be inculcated, the framework to be
chosen for faster development, best performance, and the flexibility of the
app.
For developing a web frontend,
AngularJs and Bootstrap are considered reliable. Some can also use ReactJs.
After deciding these platforms, one can combine them with HTML and CSS for
styling capabilities and develop outstanding social apps.
For developing native apps, native
languages like the below can be preferred:
●
Android- Java or Kotlin
●
iOS- Objective C or Swift
For developing hybrid apps, one can
use frameworks like Ionic, React Native, Flutter, Cordova/PhoneGap, etc.
Backend
Backend is a crucial part of
development for determining what logic will be used and how. Node.js is being
widely used for backend development of dynamic social apps that focus on
real-time events that need quick data processing with minimal latency. Apart
from Node.js, PHP and Ruby are also being used for backend development.
Admin Panel
The Admin panel can dramatically
impact the budgets. Admin panel can be either developed in-house or with the
help of other development companies, depending on your requirements and goals.
Since it is a time and money intensive process, several companies don’t build
their Admin panels from scratch and work with a third-party service. However,
with third-party services, there are limitations as customization is not
possible.
Database
Social apps need a huge amount of
data to be accessed, stored, and processed. There are multiple databases
available for the diverse needs of the apps. One can select any database:
MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite or NoSQL database- for instance, MongoDB. However, we
recommend using PostgreSQL or MySQL. For cloud services, Amazon Web Services
are highly recommended as storage for all the data.
Wrap-up:
The best social network apps on the
internet attract millions of users daily. This fact has inspired several
business enthusiasts, investors, and entrepreneurs to break into this arena. We
hope this blog has guided you in your social app development journey with the
features and the technology stack to be used.
Please feel free to comment below to
let us know your thoughts on this.
