Community App Development Guide

Are you considering community app development?

Truth be told, community app development is not the most popular business venture in the tech industry today, but it does have its own charm.

In fact, if you examine some of the largest organizations and companies, they often have their own community apps. And the same goes for societies and large groups of people (religious or otherwise).

Does this spark a curiosity in you?

Well, we will discuss all about that and everything related in this blog. By the end, you will know whether or not to develop a community app, its cost, and the process to do so.

So, with this said, let’s get right into it, starting with a basic question…

What Is A Community App?

Wrapping your head around the idea of a community app can be a bit confusing since it’s such a loose term. But you don’t need to worry about that, we’ve got you covered.

A “Community App” refers to a mobile application that is built to host an interactive virtual community.

Now, the term “community” here may refer to any group of people, ranging from employees of an organization, developers who work on the same language, people who go to the same church or follow the same sect, and so on.

Coming back to the app itself, it allows users to engage in discussion with other members in a range of ways. This includes

• Sharing media
• Commenting on posts
• Like
• Sharing

and so on.

In many ways, it is quite similar to social media app development that we are all so familiar with.

The main goal of this app is to create a strong community by allowing a large group of people to interact, share stuff, and socialize.

Now, there are various reasons why an institute or organization will develop a community app. This will make itself clear by the end of this blog.

Moving on, let’s see how the community app works in the section below.

How Does the Community App Work?

So, how does a community app work? This is one of the most common queries in the topic of “community app development”. And in this section of the blog, we shall be answering it.

So, getting right into it:

Using a community app is much like using social media.

Rather, we will go as far as to say that a community app in this regard is a form of social media app, which is limited to a certain group of people.

Making it a “restricted social media app”.

The exact working of each platform highly depends on its nature and the target audience. Regardless, there are some features and functionalities that every community app shares.

Let’s have a look at these features in a bid to better understand the working of this solution. These are:

• Discussion forums
• Profile creation
• Chat & messaging
• Livestreaming
• Live & pre-recorded courses (LMS)
• Event hosting
• Event scheduling
• Content sharing options
• Custom groups and Spaces

If you want to develop a community app, there are other custom functionalities that you can add to it.

Speaking of community app development, let’s go through some of the best community apps in the market and get inspired.

Let’s look at some of the best apps for community groups. These are, as mentioned below:

1. Mighty Networks
2. Discord
3. Wild Apricot for Members
4. Slow AF Run Club
5. Slack
6. Telegram
7. Facebook
8. Quora
9. Kajabi

Looking at the list, you can recognize some of them as popular social media applications. While others are unrecognizable.

This is the perfect example of open-community apps like social media (Facebook, Telegram, etc) and closed-community apps like Wild Apricot for members.

The difference between types of community apps is important to understand before you get into community app development. With this cleared, it’s time to look at the reason to build a community app.

Why Build A Community App?

Truth be told: Mobile App Development can be EXPENSIVE! But that’s a small price to pay if you get results.

So, do you get results with community apps?

Well, you do – in fact – you get more than you bargained for. Confused, right? It will be quite clear by the end of this section.

Let’s get right into it, starting with:

• Higher Engagement

Whatever the nature of your business may be, you can always use higher engagement. And this is especially beneficial if you are selling a product or service.

Even if you are running a corporate business and want to create a community app for employees, higher engagement would keep your employees happier and more involved with the company.

How amazing is that?

If that’s not the reason enough to hire an app developer and go for community app development, the next one will seal the deal.

• Catalyst To Funnel

A sales funnel is difficult to create and even more difficult to maintain and optimize.

Confused about all the ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu? You should develop a community app. It’s a proven method that acts as a catalyst to funnel, helping businesses get more leads.

And this brings us to our next point.

• Better Sells

Are you running a product-based or service-based company?

Well, if you want to increase sales, community app development is just the thing you need.

Let us explain, with a community for your platform, you get a more accurate user base. And more importantly, a loyal one.

So, if you want to sell:

• Memberships
• Courses
• New products and services

OR

Offer a:

• Premium experience
• Value a website can’t
• Group coaching or a mastermind
• Live events

The community app allows you to do all of this. And when the sales go up, you have chances for…

· Higher Revenue Generation

There is not a single business in existence that doesn’t love money, which is the reason why improving sales via a community app is such a lucrative idea.

Think about it this way – better sales, higher engagement, & improved funnel give you higher revenue generation.

And who doesn’t love that?

So, these are some of the top reasons to go for community app development.

At this point, you are either convinced to develop a community app or not, but still want to read the blog.

Regardless, we shall guide you through the community app development process in the section below.

Community App Development Process

Gear up; it’s time to create a community app.

Community app development follows a path similar to mobile app development. Still, we shall be taking you through each step, discussing them in detail.

Therefore, with this being said, let’s get started:

Step 1: Market Research

It all starts with mobile app market research.

Before you go on to make a community app, you must first understand. Now, this can be a short process if you are making a closed-community app or a longer one if you are going to make an app like Quora or Facebook.

The main goal of this step is to understand the target audience (and competitors). And information gathered here acts as fuel for the entire development process.

So, once you are done with this, we will deal with…

Step 2: Idea For Community App

With all the information at your hand, it’s time to come up with an idea for your community app. This is the spearhead to direct the community app development process.

Whether you want to develop a community app for your company staff, for church goers, i.e., “church app development,” or you want to create a social media-like platform for a specific audience.

All in all, you need to draw a clear concept for the platform.

Step 3: Planning (Platform, Tech Stack, Features, & More)

It’s time to draw a roadmap for the community app development process.

There are a few things you need to choose, with the first one being the platform. Do you want to develop an iOS application or an Android app?

Or do you want to go with hybrid app development?

After you have selected the platform, the next thing you need to do is choose a mobile app development tech stack. You can go with the pre-set ones, or you can come up with custom ones.

In any case, it’s also time to explore the feature set. This is something that will be highly affected by the platform and tech stack.

We already discussed a few examples of community app features in starting of the blog.

Step 4: Community App Designing

With all said and done, we will start the process of “community app design and development”, first dealing with the UI/UX design part.

Now, this is no rocket science; rather, it’s closer to music theory (which is actually more difficult), since it has to do with creativity.

Take your time; create a design based on the user base, their persona, and requirements. Make sure to keep it simple and direct, but don’t be afraid to woo your users.

Once you have a user-friendly interface, it’s time to go for back-end development.

Step 5: Community App Development

Time to create a community app.

For this, mobile app developers will start writing the source. And you should expect this to take a lot of time.

Rather, this is the most time and resource-intensive process of community app development. For that reason, we highly recommend you keep a good community channel with the development team.

Step 6: Testing

With development done, we go into testing!

Testing is the norm before deploying the app. Something that we absolutely have to do.

For laymen out there, it is the process of finding out issues, fixing them, and improving the solution. Once this is done, it’s time to deploy the app in the market.

Step 7: Deployment

Finally, we have a community app ready to publish.

Depending on the platform, you will publish it on the App Store or publish it on Google Play Store. Even if you opted for hybrid app development.

Beware, Apple is a lot stricter with its publication guidelines, so they might reject your app for the slightest mistake.

If everything goes as planned, it will take upwards of two weeks at most. But the work doesn’t end here.

Though we haven’t mentioned it in this blog, there are a lot of things to do after community app development. This includes ASO – App Store Optimization, post-deployment app maintenance, and so on.

Speaking of which, going through the community app development process, you might be wondering, How much will all of this cost? Well, you aren’t the only one. In fact, it is quite a common question in the case of app development.

So, let’s answer it in the section below:

How Much Does a Community App Cost To Develop?

How much does it cost to develop a community app?

Well, this is sure a hard question to answer. The reason is that there is a range of factors involved in community app development.

For instance,

• Type of app
• Platform
• Tech stack
• Feature complexity
• Size of app
• Development approach
• Location of the development team

And so on.

Due to this, app development cost estimation is next to impossible without learning about project specifications.

It’s advised to consult an app development company, which will help you with the same.

How Can You Make Money With a Community App?

Last but not least, how can you make money from community app development?

And yes, you can! It’s not just a one-way investment. Rather, you get amazing ROI (return on investment) with a community app.

Let’s look at what these are below:

• Profit from increased sales
• Higher productivity in the workspace
• Better collaboration, more streamlined working
• Big data monetization
• Better insight into workplace, market, and user base micro-trends, for optimization.

And many more.

These are some of the direct and indirect ways in which you benefit from community app development. And with this being said, we have come to the end of our blog.

Conclusion

Community app development is an underdog that seems like a worthless investment in the age of modern technology. But reality is quite the opposite.

As we discussed in the blog, done right, community applications can be the gateway to greater success for an array of businesses while also being beneficial for their audience. Now, it’s time for you to develop a community app.

FAQ

Niketan Sharma

Niketan Sharma, CTO, Nimble AppGenie, is a tech enthusiast with more than a decade of experience in delivering high-value solutions that allow a brand to penetrate the market easily. With a strong hold on mobile app development, he is actively working to help businesses identify the potential of digital transformation by sharing insightful statistics, guides & blogs.