The Real About Social Components For Apps

The Top 5 reasons you should skip the social component for your app

Time for a reality check for all you app creators out there. Just before you got grounded back in the day, you heard your mom or your pop say: Just because everyone is doing it, doesn’t mean you have to. Yeah, remember? Well, the same goes for that app idea you have been trying to put together. You want all the bells and whistles, I know, I know, but you might not have fully thought out your plan. Don’t worry. I got this.

Just because someone has a social component with their app doesn’t mean you have to have one with yours. Now comes my list, the Top 5 reasons you should skip the social component for your app when it seems like everyone is doing it:

1. Let’s be honest, it just takes too damn long to create content on your app. For a social network to have any chance of going viral, it must be super quick and easy for people to create and share content within the social network of the app so that people can create and share often.
2. Your content isn’t that cool. Let’s say people can create content quickly and easily. Sure, you’ve satisfied one condition. However, the created content just isn’t that sticky. People like cool shit. If you’re doing something too similar to what people can already do gracefully in a popular app or your idea just isn’t that cool, people might not flock to your social network.
3. It’s difficult for people to easily consume your content. Let’s say you satisfy conditions 1 and 2, but there’s still a problem gaining traction. It’s likely an issue of how easy it is for people on your social network to consume the content that was created. Ask yourself: Is the final content some large image file that might take a while to load on people’s devices or eat up their bandwidth? Is the content going to take a user more than a few seconds to consume?
4. Your design is not up to par. If you don’t have the know-how or the budget to do a crisp, clean design, then you’ll turn potential users away. Consumers are used to a certain level of polish in social networking apps. So it’s crucial your app is on par with the latest trends; otherwise, you run the risk of people not taking your app too seriously. Don’t be cheap, hire a designer. ‘nuff said.
5. What if no one shows up to your little app party? If you’ve failed on the first handful of conditions, you still might get a little traction but not huge numbers. So anyone who does come to your social network will find a potential ghost town which, in the end run, just looks bad for your app even though the content that your app creates might be incredible. And that’s just no bueno, amigo.

Brought to you by your friends at Sneakers.