How You Can Be the Next Big Thing In Social Media Apps

Everyone wants to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, or the next Evan Spiegel. Chances of being an overnight billionaire with a brilliant app are slim to none. That is, unless you do this…

Give to the people what Snapchat won’t.

If you do that one simple thing, you could be the next icon in the social media world. The door is wide open, and I’m shocked that nobody is walking in. The opportunity is now, and the time frame for Snapchat to be able to do whatever it wants, rather than what the users want, is about to end.

There are two different ways to break into the social media app creation kingdom:

1) Create a new social media app based on a concept that nobody has ever seen.

2) Perfect a concept that already exists, and snatch the audience for your own.

We’ve seen this happen in the past, both scenarios. But these are the only ways to make it happen. And out of the two choices, the second one sure takes a lot less brain power and sheer luck.

So here’s your chance, genius programmer. This is your gift. You can have this for free. Will you be the one who takes this advice and runs with it, to the land of billionaire app developers? I guess that’s up to you. On to the goods.

Do These Things that Snapchat Won’t, & You’ll Own the Market

1 - Offer Ownership of Favorite Filters

The one thing that makes the Snapchat experience so much fun is when you find a filter that really works for you. That also is the worst part of the user experience. Why? Because Snapchat removes lenses after a certain period of time.

No matter how popular or in-demand, Snapchat thinks its a good thing to take away lenses and keep new ones in rotation. But the bad thing is, they keep replacing the best with lenses that really suck. And it’s getting worse over time.

They also keep changing the best aspects of lenses, like removing the voice changing effects and replacing it with a slimmer variety of external voice effects that are hard to understand. This has ruined the entire user experience for many.

For creatives, you can forget becoming well-known for using certain lenses to create “character roles”, because the lenses don’t stay forever. And sadly, the best are gone for good, unless you pay $5.99 to have them for 24 hours.

Do This - create a new social app that allows the users to own the best face changing and voice changing lenses forever, and they will use it forever.

2. Make it More Social

Snapchat is the least social “social media” app. They’ve made a few attempts to give it more social interaction, like with the creation of groups, but it just doesn’t cut it.

The common criticism of Snapchat since day one is the fact that they have not nailed the social interaction aspect of the app. It’s still too disjointed. The design and functionality is not conducive to social interaction and growth.

Do This - make your Snapchat clone app more social by adding an aspect of interaction that promotes more visibility of networking, and it will grow an audience like wildfire.

3. Take Out the Clutter

Let’s face it… Snapchat is messy, cluttered, and disorganized in its design. And they don’t make it any better by constantly changing the format on a monthly basis. There’s no central theme to the app, and it lacks direction.

As soon as you figure out the changes, and how to navigate around the app, they run an update and put you back on square one. There’s nothing more frustrating and mind-boggling. I have seen great improvements, only to have them vanish within a week or two after they have been implemented.

I still can’t figure out if Snapchat is a social media app, or a news app. And there’s so much jumbled mess in the “Discover”, “Subscriptions”, and “For You” section, I rarely ever use it.

Snap Inc. apparently thinks they know best when it comes to delivering what we want. But they’re definitely not doing a good job of reading our minds.

Do This - bring back the simplicity and focus of your Snapchat clone app, and listen to the users when it comes to making updates and improvements rather than guessing on their behalf.

4. Make Uploading Actually Work

I don’t know what happened since the inception of Snapchat, but one thing has definitely gotten worse by the minute… the ability to upload snaps.

I’m not sure if this is a problem with the app, or if it’s network congestion that would be causing the problem. But I do know that there are other social media apps with certain Snapchat-like features who aren’t experiencing the same problem.

There’s nothing worse than uploading the funnest story you’ve ever done, only to find out a few hours later that half the snaps didn’t make it through the process, leaving your brilliant story making no sense whatsoever to your big audience.

Whatever it was that allowed snaps to easily post back in the old days needs to come back. Fast. The least they could do in the meantime is acknowledge the problem to the user base. But that might be asking too much (sarcasm).

Do This - make your Snapchat clone simple enough that uploads actually, well, upload. Cut any and all of the extra crap if it hurts the one function that the app is built around.

In Summary…

Some genius programming hack is going to be smart enough to take this advice seriously, and become the next billionaire app developer. Could it be you? Who knows. But if someone doesn’t act on it fast enough, the Facebook/Instagram juggernaut will figure this out and make the final modifications to their apps that put the final nail in the Snapchat coffin.

Carlton Flowers
The SnapPro