- Registration & authorization
The first step of interaction with an app like Instagram is new account registration. When creating a photo-sharing app, add multiple options for user sign-ups and sign-ins: an email account, phone number, Google, and the most popular social media platforms.
The worst thing you can do is force users to fill out a form manually. The best thing to do is simplify the process and bring it down to a few seconds.
It’s also possible to make your app registration-free but only for some features. For example, you may allow users to watch some content without registration, but further interaction with it will require them to sign up.
Exploring how to make an app like Instagram, don’t forget to add the profile editing capabilities to the list of features. Users should be able to log into their account and change personal information, such as name, phone number, email address, profile picture, profile description, etc.
For this feature to work, you will need to create an interaction between the client and server-side of your application.
- Uploading photos & videos
Uploading photos and videos is the top priority feature for Instagram development. There are different ways of how you can implement such a feature. Think about adding the ability to preview content, upload existing photos and videos from a phone, or take photos with the camera right inside the app
- Photo editing & management
Photo uploading combined with robust photo editing features is one of the reasons why Instagram became popular in the first place. It is a must-have feature for Instagram-like applications. You can approach their creation in different ways. For example, you can add only some basic capabilities at the start, like adding stickers and text to the uploaded photos. If you want to know how to make an app like Instagram that users will fall in love with right away, consider developing more advanced functionality, such as the ability to adjust colors and tones, delete unnecessary objects, and so one right inside your application.
- Linking with social networks
Creating a connection with other social media networks will help users stay in touch with their friends and share content throughout all the networks. It’s a nice-to-have feature that you can also consider adding to create a photo-sharing app.
Instagram, first of all, is a social media platform. Users don’t only share their photos; they share their favorite places, best vacation spots, etc. Adding GPS is an essential step to make your application more valuable and exciting for users.
When developing the feature, you need to add auto geolocation detection and the function to set up the location manually for situations and locations when the GPS signal is weak.
You can’t make an app like Instagram without providing users with the ability to search for other users, groups, content, tagged photos, the latest news, and so on.
Real-time messaging is one of the features that makes Instagram tick. Users need to have the ability to communicate with their friends via direct messages and comments on each other’s photos.
You might want to leave this feature for further application improvements. Adding the ability for the app to notify users when they receive likes, comments, or new messaging will incentify them to interact with your app more.
Instagram wouldn’t be itself without its feed with photos. It is a must-have feature that allows users to view all the content in a profile without opening each photo.
Depending on your business goals, you might need to launch your app in different countries. Thus, users would need to have the ability to manually adjust the app’s settings, such as language. Also, they should also have the ability to enable and disable push notifications, configure the account’s privacy settings, and so on.
This is one of the key features that Instagram has today. Stories allow users to share some interesting moments from their lives that you don’t want to add to your feed. Stories automatically disappear after 24 hours if users don’t save them.
Stores are photos and videos with texts, stickers, filters, etc. Between 2017 and 2018, Instagram took this feature and moved it to the next level. Today, stories have a huge number of additional features, such as the ability to make boomerangs, superzooms, add question stickers, create story highlights, share shoppable posts, add hashtags and nametags, and much more.
Instagram serves as a great example of fast-growing and innovative apps. If you wonder how to make an app like Instagram, study its history and how it evolved throughout the years. You would be surprised to see how swiftly Instagram adapts to new realities and how it is the key trendsetter in the industry of social media apps.
7. Choose Instagram Monetization Strategy
