Crafting a photo sharing app like Instagram: The Basics

After two centuries of rapid development photography has gone a long way from being a luxury to becoming a huge part of our everyday life. Nowadays your cat can have more photos than a royal family could afford just a couple of hundreds years ago.

The photography culture (or should we say cult?) is a big part of modern society. To capture a moment with high-quality and beautiful pictures, you don’t need to invest in a high-end professional camera anymore. As statistics data states, at the end of 2016 the amount of pictures taken by smartphone users has reached 2.08 billions. Every smartphone has a camera, so almost everyone today can take pictures and share them via social apps.

This is what Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger took advantage of back in 2010 – the year when Instagram was first launched. Ever since then the service is steadily growing and gaining popularity, reaching unbelievable heights. Nowadays it is the indisputable leader when it comes to sharing pictures, it’s well-known all around the world. The official data provided by the service sounds incredible.

Instagram users post more than 80 million pictures daily, they like the photos 3.5 billion times a day, and the monthly auditory reach is more than 400 million users. It’s nearly impossible to list all the events that photo-sharing apps could potentially be used on: parties, travels, self-advertising and much more.

Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/N0NnH_2L4oI

So what does it take to create an Instagram alternative from scratch?

While there is a leader in the market, it doesn’t mean that there is absolutely no place for new contenders. If you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve, what you want to share with the community , there is nothing impossible.

So, let’s imagine you’ve decided to create an app that would be similar to Instagram and allow you to share photos. The first thing to pay attention is the interaction map for Instagram users:

• Authorization (create a new profile, sign in an already existing one via social networks);
• Editing the profile (add, edit or delete your personal data);
• Posting the pictures (upload the pictures taken inside the all or uploaded from the device, mention the people, add the hashtags);
• Timeline (follow, like, comment);
• Social features (have the ability to share the post or invite your friends from Facebook);
• Pictures customization (crop it, rotate it, add filters);
• Location (let the location service get your geo-data via pictures taken in the app);
• Messenger (text+photo);
• Notifications, push-notifications;
• Search (username, just name, hashtags, post description).

It’s also important to pay attention to the interface of an app. Instagram can be a great example of a simple, stylish and easy to use design.

In the table below you can find the estimated time needed to create an Instagram alternative broken down into functional parts.

Speaking about design, UX will take from 64 to 96 hours. UI will most likely need 48-64 hours of time. Additional design features need 16+ hours, depending on how difficult your tasks are. Don’t forget that you’ll also need to design a great logo for your product, which will help you to move your brand further ahead of rivals.

At the rate of $50/hour, it’ll cost from $12800 to $22400 to create an Instagram alternative for iOS. An Android app is likely to take $12800 to $19600. The backend development will cost around $17600 – it doesn’t depend on the specifications of the users’ devices, this code runs on the server machine.

Given that the main goal of an app like that is photo sharing, you’ll certainly need to take care of optimization of an app design as well as ubiquitous exterior for all media. Instagram solved this problem by making all the photos squared.

The key efficiency indicators

When you create an alternative to an app like Instagram, you’ll certainly need to include some exclusive features to leave the rivals aside.

It doesn’t make any sense to create an app that will be a 100% identical to Instagram, cause they already have a loyal client base, which probably won’t leave them for you without any great reasons to do so. The best strategy is to bring on fresh new ideas as well as keeping an eye on the best Instagram features at the same time.

We’ll list done of the main indicators that you’ll need to pay attention to, if you want to check on your app’s popularity and progress:

• The amount of active users;
• The user’s participation;
• The app’s ability to keep the user.

Source: https://www.uihere.com/free-cliparts/social-media-facebook-inc-immersive-video-virtual-reality-360-camera-1164321

1. Active users

Goal: to bring as many new loyal users as possible.

You can check on this metric by looking at the stats on the gained and lost users and how fast the user base grows.

Ways to do it:

Media marketing: let the people know about your product, make them talk about it as much as possible. Create the social networks pages, contact your target audience, hire the people specializing in this — all of those things need to be done early, like 3-6 months before the app launch.

Referral program: reward your users for inviting the friends and leaving positive feedback by giving away free new filters, photo effects and other useful functions that can help them make the experience better.

Attracting the high profile users and using the smart PR: every app for photo sharing has its own important people. Such popular users can enhance your product’s status and popularity. It can be a popular client or a celebrity. You can attract them with the help of a free PR companies on your pages or free early access to your product. Moreover, you should post the content that can be interesting for such people.

2. User involvement

Goal: to make people spend more time in your app and log in more often

The involvement level can be assessed by the activity that takes place in your app: likes amount (new and overall), sent media amount (new/recent/overall) and so on.

Ways to do it:

It can be achieved by filling your all with social functions, like comments, likes, groups, friends, followers, channels, instruments to make a profile unique and other.

To attract the potential audience, you’ll need to offer high-quality and helpful editing tools that could satisfy the needs of the professionals. Ensure that the professional photographers get the best terms, and they’ll pay back by making your app unique and posting their quality content in your app.

3. Keeping the user

Goal: to make the users come back to your app

Ways to do it:

Send the push-notifications everytime something interesting happens. Provided your users will probably be mostly young people, send the notifications and letters at the right time (in the morning, when they’re getting ready for school or college, or later on to make them spend their free time in your app).

React to the feedback from your users, whether it’s positive or negative. It’ll show everyone you care about the people who use your app and are even ready to leave their feedback.

Launch different events for promotion to make your users get involved with everything that happens inside of your app, and make profit on it. All these factors are very important, because they show how satisfying is your app for your target audience, what profit you can make and where you need to head next in order to make your app even better.

Monetization

One more factor that most people are interested in, beside the costs of developing an app, is how to monetize it. There are multiple ways to make profit with the help of your app:

• Sponsorship and advertising (companies create their profiles and advertise themselves);
• In-app purchases (just as far as your imagination goes, you can sell filters, effects, even let the users smell their own photos);
• Special offers for active users.

Epilogue

So, what do you need to do to create an alternative to Instagram, a new photo sharing service? Just the following:

• Analyze the market, invent your strategy;
• Get the investors to help you;
• Find the developers that’ll create a MVP for you;
• Design your own marketing strategy and launch it a few months before the official app launch;
• Add some unique functions to your app, make it special;
• Test it to guarantee the highest quality of your services;
• Enjoy your (hopefully) successful app!

Don’t forget about your rivals though, always be alert to what happens in the market and what are the current trends. Remember, the best has no limits, you can always improve even further. If you launch the product that will not only satisfy people’s needs, but also be comfortable and nice to use, the success will surely come.

As you can see, the apps like Instagram are the important tools of the social marketing nowadays. So, if you really want to create an Instagram alternative and are ambitious enough to try it, then so be it and we hope that this article has been helpful. Get in touch with us today, and we can lay the foundation of your business and development needs!

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