In the 1850s, photography burst into our lives. It has become an integral part of everyday life and holidays, constantly developing and moving forward. Pictures act as one of the most powerful ways to show events as they are. However, today, it is also a way to show our emotions, feelings, and activity. All this was made possible thanks to the development of simple and portable cameras. But now, with the advent of a powerful and rapidly growing smartphone industry, this process has become even more popular and widespread.
Such trends have led to yet another business and media reinforcement called Instagram, which appeared in 2010 thanks to app developers from California. Today it is the most popular photo-sharing app. For example, more than 350,000,000 users join Instagram every month, 2,000,000 likes and more than 65,000,000 new photos appear. Such an amazing success cannot go unnoticed by startups, businessmen and app developers who are increasingly interested in creating a photo-sharing application, such as Instagram.
So, if you want to create an application like Instagram, you need to understand that such an idea is a very serious and large-scale project that requires a lot of desire and effort.
If you think that creating such an application is a non-competitive project, you need to have a rethink. Think of apps like Whatsapp and Telegram, both of them are quite similar but at the same time both are extremely popular. Thus, similar ideas are not always bad, the main thing is to find how to stand out and attract an audience. Also, people love something new and revolutionary, which can impress them in any way possible. Moreover, in this way, you create healthy competition in response to the monopolists. It would be great to dilute the atmosphere of the application market with something new related to sharing photos and ratings. Moreover, perhaps you all know the history of Standard Oil and understand what we mean.
In this article, we will tell you about the main steps that will help you make an application like Instagram.
What should be considered when developing a photo-sharing application?
Speaking about developing an Instagram-like application, in addition to advanced functionality, we must, first of all, understand what is important for any application. Below is a list without which it is impossible to imagine any service.
1 Analyze the market
This is one of the most important steps that should be implemented at the very beginning of the development process of your application.
Why is it important?
First, you need to know who your main competitors are. You also need to understand what features and additions exist in other photo-sharing services. Thus, intelligence gathering is one of the most important parts of the whole development process, which, if successful, makes up 30% of your achievements.
As a result of such an analysis, you should have a strategy and a business plan. Some companies offer services for the preparation of these documents, for example, app development companies can analyze the market, competitors and draw up a business plan for you. This one will take about 40 hours.
2 Look for investors
Of course, the cost of developing photo-sharing applications is quite high, and often people cannot fully fund it themselves. Thus, the best way to deal with the problem is to find an investor who will be interested in your project and be able to finance it.
3 Look for top app developers
Not everyone interested in developing a photo-sharing application is an experienced programmer who can develop the application himself at a minimal cost. Because of this, it is extremely important to find a good development team that can help you create a high-quality product.
4 Develop a marketing strategy
For any business, one of the most important things is contextual advertising. That’s why the best advice here is to launch an advertising campaign a few months before the release of the application and to warm up the interest of users through video and other media activities.
5 Add some special features
One of the main indicators of the success of an application is its unique features, which attract users. Look at Snapchat, which uses masks for seals and puppies. It can be weird and even stupid, but many people like it. So, feel free to include such features in your applications.
6 Come up with a unique design
Look at the design of Instagram – it is simple, convenient and captivates the user, as the game captivates the gamer. It takes about 40 hours to develop a UI/UX design for an application for both Android and iOS depending on the complexities of the design.
7 Test your applications
This factor is an almost sacred commandment. Always check products to avoid failures. This function can be performed by QA testers in your team.
If you follow these basic rules, you can develop a competitive application and even be on a par with the most powerful representatives of this industry of social networks, which have almost turned into monopolists.
