How to Create an App Like Instagram in 7 Easy Steps
If you take photos on your smartphone, you likely are familiar with Instagram. According to 2018 statistics, Instagram has over 1 Billion monthly users. The app is an easy to use interface that allows people to easily and quickly share their photos to the world instantly.
Since Instagram is easy to use, it has become extremely popular which has added to its success. The social media platform is worth about $100 Billion according to reports, making it a worthy challenge for entrepreneurs.
If you are looking to learn how to create an app like Instagram, it may be worthy to first look at the basic features that you need to include in a photo-sharing app.
Key Features Of Photo-Sharing Apps
1. Account Creation
Personalization is important to creating a photo-sharing app like Instagram. For many users, their Instagram profile is an extension of their personality. When you create your app like Instagram, make sure that you include a way for users to create an account that is personal to them.
Make sure that your account creation section is user friendly, this will ensure that everyone uses your mobile app. Account creation should also include a way for users to update their contact information including things like phone numbers and email addresses.
2. Post Creation
Instagram offers users a way to create posts of both photos and videos paired with text posts. Users can also use hashtags to help people search for posts of similar content. Photos and videos will require you to have a sufficient server, and working with a qualified mobile app developer can help you to assure you can meet the needs of your users.
3. Feed
Instagram allows people to create posts but the magic happens when users are able to view the posts created by other users on the app. A social media app like Instagram makes use of a news feed to ensure that users can view the posts of people that they follow on the app.
When you create an app like Instagram make sure that you are able to include a way for users to continuously scroll their feed. You can do this by using a programming code for infinite scroll. Infinite Scroll is a feature of many social media apps that allows users to continue to scroll down and see new posts for increased engagement.
4. Social Features
Social features are options like the Instagram Stories feature. Not everyone has the ability or time available to scroll for hours, so to see important updates from the people and companies that they follow, many users rely heavily upon Stories.
However, there are other features that make Instagram popular. Two of the more useful features that you should definitely include in your photo and video sharing app are live video and shoppable tags.
5. Image Customization
The feature that made Instagram famous was its image customization option through filters. Photo editing options inside of the app allows users to create interesting photos and videos for their followers without any additional apps keeping users in the app longer.
6. Geo-Location
Geo-location allows users to not only share where they are but also offers them a way to allow other users to check their location and find images based on location. This keeps people in the app longer. Keeping people in your social media app longer will help you to better monetize your app when it’s ready.
7. Messaging
People use social media to communicate and Instagram understands this. They allow users to send private messages and also to comment on posts. When you are working out how to create an app like Instagram, make sure that you include a messaging feature for increased usability.
8. Notifications
Push notifications are what helps keep people coming back to your app. When a user receives a notification, they will check your photo-sharing app to see the like, share, follow, comment, or message that prompted it. However, this doesn’t just stop there, they will usually surf the app for a bit afterward to see what is new.
9. Search
Search allows people to easily navigate your app to see the content they’d prefer to see with ease. Users following a lot of people will be able to use search functions like clicking hashtags to easily see content centered around a specific keyword. Instituting a way for users to automatically see the content that they’d prefer is an important part of creating a successful social media app.
Is Programming Knowledge Required to Create an App LIke Instagram?
Instagram is simple to use and this is primarily because of the programming that was involved to make it user friendly. Additionally, because of the expert app development of Instagram, it rarely experiences downtime.
When you are trying to learn how to make an app like Instagram, you have two choices. You can either program the app yourself, or you can work with an app development agency and make use of their tested app development process.
If you choose to create your photo-sharing app yourself, you may need to know programming languages like Python, JavaScript, Django, or Gunicorn. The benefit of working with an app developer over trying to do the programming yourself is that they already understand what functions each programming language can bring to the app and how best to use them.
How Long Does It Take to Create an App Like Instagram?
Depending on the features that you add to your photo-sharing app, development time could be over 900 hours. When building your app it can be important to think about what features are absolute musts to keep the development time down. Talking with an app developer can help you to reduce this time considerably.
Check out the table below to view the potential time commitment to developing your app.
| Feature | Time to Code |
| Social Network Authorization | 24 to 40 hours of coding time |
| Email Authorization | 56 to 80 hours of coding time |
| Profile Editing Feature | 22 to 48 hours of coding time |
| Post Creation Feature | 72 to 124 hours of coding time |
| Timeline Feature | 84 to 120 hours of coding time |
| Tags, Likes, and Comments | 48 to 76 hours of coding time |
| Image Customization | 80 to 120 hours of coding time |
| Geo-Position Tracking | 32 to 56 hours of coding time |
| Messaging Features | 80 to 160 hours of coding time |
| Notification Features | 40 to 72 hours of coding time |
| Search Features | 56 to 88 hours of coding time |
| Total Time Need to Code Your App | 594 to 984 hours |
This may seem daunting but a qualified mobile app development agency will understand how to create an app for you and be able to reduce not only the time associated with developing your photo app but will also be able to streamline the process.
Another benefit of working with app developers over doing it yourself is that they will ensure that your app works right the first time. Especially if they use an in-house development team.
How to Create an App Like Instagram
Creating an app like Instagram isn’t easy but you can definitely do it and be successful. If you follow the following steps.
1. Conduct Market Research to Define Target Audience
The first step to creating your photo-sharing app to rival Instagram is to figure out what your demographic is. You will need to consider the age you want to target, locations they live in, and if you want to target specific interest groups, like professionals.
By identifying your target audience, you can focus on what ideas, designs, and features you will need in your app. The more specific a demographic, the better it is to pinpoint the necessary features that you need to make your app a success.
2. Evaluate Competing Photo-Sharing Apps
Knowing your competition is important. A good way to understand what features and functions you should include in your app is to look at similar competitors and write down a list of what they do well, and what they need to improve.
When you build your app, make sure to include the features that your competitors haven’t thought of or aren’t doing well enough. Also, be sure to review what features work best in a photo-sharing app to ensure that your app is a success.
3. Finalize Your Photo-Sharing App Concept
The third step to making your photo-sharing app like Instagram is to share your ideas with your app developer. This will help you to discuss what features you’ve identified as necessities and what features would be nice to have but are not needed at the beginning. Remember you can always add new features to your app after it’s on the market.
4. Define Project Goals, Budget, Timeline, and Technologies
When you have discussed the finalized plan of your photo-sharing app like Instagram with your development team, it is time to work out the goals, budgets, and timelines of your app.
When you are creating your goals for your app make sure that you create SMART goals. SMART is an acronym that means:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Time-bound
Having SMART goals will ensure that you can successfully build your app in the timeframe that you have chosen to work out. It will also help you to improve your plan to make working with an app developer a success.
5. Promote Your App Like Instagram
Before you have launched your app, it’s important to think about how you will promote it. Investing in marketing can be one of the most important features of ensuring the success of your app.
You can launch a landing page for your app business and promote the app using pay-per-click campaigns, search engine optimization, or even social media marketing. Each of these methods has its own benefits and an experienced app development agency can help you decide how to market your app.
6. Develop Your App Like Instagram
Creating an app like Instagram could take you over 900 hours to do yourself. If you work with an app development company this time could be drastically reduced because of their expertise in making apps.
When you work with an app development agency, try to review their portfolio of past projects to see what work they’ve done in the past. Looking at previous work will help you to see that they can help you with your idea.
7. Gather User Feedback
Part of the app development process is beta testing. Beta testing is a method of getting real user feedback before your product launches to help you identify any possible issues with the user interface.
If you choose to skip this process, it may negatively affect your chances of having a successful app. When you work with an experienced app developer, they will typically have a beta testing process in place that you can benefit from. This will help reduce the time that it takes to launch your app.
How to Monetize Your App Like Instagram
Instagram knew its competition and knew how to make money without having to directly compete with its competition. This is exactly the reason why Facebook purchased the app back in 2012 in order to tap another market that was fairly unsaturated during that time, mobile apps.
One of the many reasons you may have for learning how to create an app like Instagram is to make money from monetization. Below, we list some of the ways that you can monetize your app.
Sponsorship and Advertisements
One of the most common ways for an app to make money is through sponsored posts and advertisements. People have come to expect them inside apps and businesses love to use social media apps to target new and current customers.
When you offer brands the ability to gain exposure to your users through sponsored posts and apps, you can make millions of dollars. For example, Instagram and Facebook combined made $69.7 Billion from advertising revenue in 2019.
In-App Purchases
In-app purchases can help you to raise more money for your app, but you must be careful with them. If you aren’t offering customers a useful service for the purchase, you can be looked at as greedy.
Some options for In-App purchases for your photo-sharing app are enhanced filtering options or additional functions that can be done in your app but not in other apps on the market.
While it may not be easy to make your own app like Instagram, once your app has launched and is gaining downloads, you will see that it was worth the investment.
When you decide to make your photo-sharing app like Instagram, work with Orange County app development agency, Idea Maker. Click on the link to get started.
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