Main features of social networks Before we compare platforms to build a social network website, let's point out the core features of such websites: – Member profiles store users’ data, display social network activity, let users share content, and make them discoverable. – The activity feed is crucial to inform participants about what is happening on the site. Users can interact with content (comment, follow, subscribe, share, mark like/dislike, etc.) on an interest basis. – Groups help to classify content and strengthen the connection between users with a common interest. They act as one of the key channels for attracting new members. – Social networks should allow members to create appropriate types of content. – A powerful search engine makes it easy for users to find the content they want, as well as friends and other users. – Social network spam and fraud protection ensures that users feel safe. Feedback mechanisms are required in case of complaints about other users or sending
Creating a mobile application for social networks cannot be considered in isolation from the social network itself. We can discuss the shortcomings of existing applications for dominant social networks. But you have to accept the fact that creating a mobile application today makes sense only to apply to your social network.
And before we talk about aspects of mobile application development, we deal with the possibility of creating your social network. Given the availability of technology and the experience gained, we give an affirmative answer. Is there a need for this in a market dominated by only a few players? After the presentation and takeoff of the Clubhouse, the answer, as every time, is positive. And it's not only that the market itself is not saturated (only half of the world's population uses social networks), but also the inability of large social networks to cover all aspects of human behavior. The business model of existing networks constrains their creativity, so every year a new brilliant startup hits the headline. And then it attracts the attention of investors.
Modern users shift their attention from desktops to mobile devices. Therefore, a mobile application is more a necessity for a successful launch than an opportunity. The application must be a part of the social network, as it will become the main way for users to interact.
What functions of the social network should the application support?
1. Quick and easy registration
Most likely, it is more convenient for your users to register using an existing Google, Apple, or Facebook account. Do not miss this opportunity to simplify the process of familiarizing themselves with your social network, shorten their path to a new experience to one button like "Sign in with". It is not superfluous to use access to user contacts so that a new user can quickly share a new experience with friends and expand your audience.
2. Customizable personal profile
Let each user express their feelings at the moment. Easy change of nickname, image, color theme, flexible page settings allow users to immediately feel like creators. Extra sections such as interests, preferences, location, education, marital status, and recent activity will also be useful. Your application should have access to the camera and geolocation module of the mobile device.
3. Connecting people
The ability to connect people by interests means an increase in the popularity of your network. Therefore, the application should provide one-click access to functions such as "friend" or "follow". Keep in mind, many applications have a useful function to invite new users to the network. And in the case of Clubhouse, this function carries exclusiveness, inciting additional interest in the social network.
4. Newsfeed
Content on social networks is the main thing to keep users' attention. You will not be able to organically support audience growth for a long time if you do not provide it with a good newsfeed. Such a feed is formed in two ways – an automatic algorithm of the social network engine (trend publications, popular, most important) and by users themselves (by subscribing to other pages, changing status, changing location). The internal construction algorithm can be simply predefined or managed by artificial intelligence systems, such as Qwerty AI. In the latter case, setting the newsfeed for each user will be individual, based on his favors. It also allows social network owners to have some influence on the entire audience, focusing on specific news.
5. Personal communication
Groups and communities form large content that allows people to find like-minded or necessary people. And then users often need to contact a tete-a-tete. It is necessary to provide them with the ability to communicate privately within the application, without using third-party resources. Retention of users within your system simply does not allow them to be distracted by other services and assess their usefulness. This is very important when you plan to monetize your social network and mobile application.
If you want to provide users with communication at a higher level (audio, video), you will need to create a messenger. For example, Qwerty AI Messenger allows you to organize chat rooms, transfer files, use artificial intelligence as a personal assistant.
6. Search
For new users, the search function may be the main one when creating their newsfeeds. A search engine allows beginners to quickly find interesting people, communities and groups, and start generating new content. It is easy to cope with when the amount of content is small, but with the growth of the audience, the situation changes. A huge amount of content can cause large delays and irrelevant search results. This will not happen if a social network uses a scalable platform like a QSNE, which has a powerful built-in search engine.
7. Notifications
Until other technologies are invented to notify users about changes in their feed, applications notify them with sounds and banners. This attracts the user's attention, forces him to open the application, and forms a reflex for waiting for updating on his feed. And yet this function should be customizable, allowing the user to decide when and what notifications to receive.
8. Files exchange
No one is interested in exchanging text messages alone. Users' attention is attracted to multimedia content, especially if it is supplemented by deep correction filters (as in Snapchat). It is multimedia that makes up most of the news feed. But such content requires a careful approach to the design of storage and distribution systems. Having a productive infrastructure and its CDN is a prerequisite for immediate access to heavy files around the world. An example of such infrastructure on the QSNE platform is Qwerty Cloud.
When developing a mobile application, you need to pay attention to the issue of storing content on a mobile device. It is necessary to find a reasonable compromise between unlimited data caching and the speed of downloading data from the server, referring to the limited resources of mobile devices.
9. Natural language processing
When you build a multilingual social network, you erase borders between countries. But automatic multilingualism helps to erase boundaries between people. This means that each user sees all the content in the default language of his application. Of course, you should leave an option to disable this function and to choose a language manually.
On the QSNE platform, automatic translation is processed by Transbot. It also provides multilingualism in trained chatbots using artificial intelligence Qwerty AI. In addition to the obvious functions of intelligent technical support, such chatbots can carry a game component. For example, a Digital Personality created can involve a lot of users in communication. It knows a lot, never sleeps, and is not offended.
10. Administration
Modern mobile applications, of course, do not offer external administration capabilities. Therefore, we are talking about the functions of the social network itself. The application should send analytics information reflecting the detailed actions of users in the application.
Such information is necessary for administrators to search for application errors, solve frequent problems with registration and identification of users, form impersonal profiles for marketing and advertising policies.
Conclusion
Well, we have identified the main functions of the mobile application. If you have an idea but do not yet have a social network, Qwerty Networks will help you implement it. If there is one, we will create an appropriate mobile application.
Of course, creating an application consists of several specific steps that should lead you to get a minimum viable product (MVP). This is the usual stage of any project, which must demonstrate basic functionality and compliance with technical requirements. Many successful startups (WhatsApp, Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, Dropbox, Foursquare, etc.) at this stage gained valuable experience to adjust their paradigm and attract investors.
It is MVP that will be the starting point for creating a full-featured application that is included in the continuous PDCA cycle until the end of the application lifecycle.