If you have dreamt about having a successful app like Facebook, who can blame you? Anyone would consider learning how to make app like Facebook. For once, Facebook is a viral social media platform. It has over 2.23 billion users from everywhere around the world.
Facebook has become a useful platform for many. Both the young and mature see it as an avenue to express themselves. They share their ideas, opinions, and creativity. They also find and connect with long-lost friends. The professionals and business-minded can also find networks that will, in turn, become profitable to them. It’s also possible to sell and buy goods or services through Facebook.
So, it’s an all-round marketplace that will rightfully influence anyone to figure out how to create a social media app with a similar solution.
What is Facebook?
Facebook is a web-based application that’s designed to enable a user to build social networks and relate with others. People connect on the platform based on their hobbies, backgrounds, career interests, or family connections.
To use the app, you need to sign up using your email, name, or phone number. You may choose to build your profile by adding details about you, work, location, and others. But that’s up to you.
However, you’ll still need to upload your contacts and send friend requests to your acquaintances. You could also join groups and like pages that discuss topics that are of interest to you. In this platform, you can share your creativity in various ways, such as posting pictures, videos, articles, and music, e.t.c.
How to make an app like Facebook
There are several stages involved in building an app similar to Facebook:
The ideation
Building up your idea is the first step to creating your app. You probably have an idea, but you still need to study it to make a strategy. Exploring the idea involves looking at the competitive advantage, identifying the target audience, analyzing the requirements, establishing the KPIs, and drawing a model. This study will help you identify the gaps that you need to fill with your app.
Design the app’s skeleton
The design process will take a few steps, as highlighted below:
- Outlining – come up with an outline to show how the application should look. This representation will enable you to visualize the software and give an idea if it’s viable.
- Wireframing – this step is for the app’s development team to visualize the application’s main structure. The skeleton can also give an idea about the end user’s experience.
- Prototyping – this involves creating a functional model of the intended app. It creates a better understanding of the app. Make changes where necessary before starting the coding process.
- Create app skins – create an app design from the wireframes. It’s best to have a thorough knowledge of the existing solutions and upcoming trends to build a solution that fills the gaps.
Development and QA
This goes hand in hand with the design process. After prototyping, begin building the back-end and setting up databases, APIs, servers, and suitable storage. Ensure the product matches all technical user guidelines and standards for this kind of a platform. Testing could be manual and automatic. It not only reveals issues with the code but tests the usability as well.
Publish and market the app
Create descriptions for your app and promotional materials. Such materials can be video guides, screens, and marketing copy.
Maintenance and support
Consider how the app will stay updated when it’s out in the market.
Facebook features
Before you can get down to business, decide the features your app will have.
- The User Interface: it should be simple, highly usable, and elegant. Make the registration process and navigation through the app hassle-free
- The User Profile: the user must build their profile within the app without a hassle.
- News Feed: let the users keep up to date with what’s happening by enabling news feed.
- Customization: every user is unique and may want to get creative with their social media profiles. For this reason, create a solution that enables subscribers to create custom profiles that match their unique tastes and preferences.
- File Sharing Feature: today’s social media apps support the sharing of documents, images, videos, and other content. You can’t forget emojis, animations, and stickers.
- Search: a functional search bar comes in handy when app users want to browse through the app and find friends, products, conversations, pages, and any other content of their interest.
- Storytelling Feature: any good social media app has the function for subscribers to create and interact with content. Content is the basis of social networking. So, build your app with this feature.
- Accessibility: any good app should strive to cater to the needs of the different people in society. Facebook has various features designed to create an exceptional experience for users with disabilities. For instance, scalable font sizes and contextual headers enable the visually impaired and those using screen readers, respectively, an easier time navigating the site.
- Push Notification: it’s a useful feature that allows real-time alerts about profile status changes or any other element on the app.
Today, Facebook has more features that make it a great app. You cannot ignore some of these features if you want your app to have a competitive advantage. The features include in-app communication, user management, data source integration, payment integration, security, and geolocation.
What’s the budget for creating an app like Facebook?
To create an app like Facebook, you should set aside at least USD5,000. The cost can go up to USD17,000, depending on the features you include and the people you hire. One way to create a great app like Facebook at a fair price is to customize it to the specific features you want. If you wish to hire a team, you could interview different professionals for each position. Compare their qualifications and charges. Then, pick a professional with the right skills for each job at a fee that matches your budget.
How to make an app like Facebook for free?
Let’s say you want to create Facebook app, but the budget scares you? What can you do? Do not worry. It’s possible to pursue your idea at a negligible cost. All you need is to find an app builder that offers templates for developing social media apps similar to Facebook. Check whether the template provides a Facebook page’s essential functions such as profile, newsfeed, storytelling, and interaction with content.
To learn how these app builders work, we invite you to try a Facebook app builder by AppsGeyser. The company offers a Facebook template that allows you to convert an existing Facebook page into an Android app. This template creates a safe and functional Facebook page with push notifications, newsfeeds, and other features.
If you use Android how to create app like Facebook using AppGeyser’s Template is quick and straightforward. You first need to set your Facebook Page to public view and obtain the link. Paste this link to the AppsGeyser template and fill in the required details. You may choose any of the icons available or upload yours. Include the relevant keywords, give the app a name and description. Consider localizing to various languages. Once done, click the preview section to see how the Facebook app works before finalizing.
How to make a Facebook app with AppsGeyser
- Open AppsGeyser website;
- Choose the Facebook Page App Template;
- Insert Facebook Page link;
- Name the app;
- Upload an icon;
- Download the app.
An app builder like this one by AppsGeyser comes with ready technology that anyone can use to come up with a mobile app for free. The resultant app may not match Facebook’s stellar functions, but you get a raw product for free. You could use this product as your prototype to learn more about your idea before investing heavily in it.
Join the many mobile app creators who make money from social media apps like Facebook, even without coding skills or huge investments.