Social Media Apps: what are they?

Social media apps are applications which can either be downloaded and stored on your phone or tablet, or streamed through your internet browser. Social media apps generally involve messaging, photo-sharing and interactive content. There are multiple categories that social media apps can fall into. These can be confusing – this post will break down the different types of social media applications.

These are your most common apps. These apps are your “downloadable” apps, which can be bought and stored on your smartphone device or tablet and can be accessed anywhere and everywhere from just the touch of your fingertip.

Native social media apps link you immediately to social networking sites and are the most reliable apps as they are the fastest and most responsive way to access your social media accounts.

Because native social media apps are stored on your device, they have access to other features linked on your phone. Having a native social media app means that you are able to customize your app to push notifications and receive alerts straight to your smart device without having to open a browser.

Some native apps are not accessible for use from a web browser and therefore they have to first be downloaded onto your smartphone or tablet.

Social media web apps are designed to look and act like your social media native apps, but operate within a web browser. Generally these apps do have a native counterpart, which means you can choose to download and store these apps on your device, but if the app is too expensive or takes up too much storage on your phone, you can still access it via your internet.

Social media web apps are pretty much exactly the same as native apps in relation to what they can access and operate. Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms are accessible from the Internet as well as available for download.

Unfortunately for the developer of the app, a loyal user base is less frequent with a web social media app in comparison to a native social media app. This is because the user of the app does not have the actual icon on their smart device home screen and therefore is never reminded or sent notifications to bring them back to the social media content.

Social Media web apps also do not appear on online catalogues such as the ITunes App Store or Google Play, therefore they receive less recognition from users/buyers.

Examples: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest etc.

These platforms are apps that allow you to monitor and control multiple social media accounts.

Social media web app platforms allow external access to native apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

For instance, if you run a Facebook page, which is linked to your Facebook account, it allows you to administrate the page. This is when a social media web app platform comes into play. You are then given the access to monitor your page, receive insights into how many people are engaging your social media page, what your daily post reach is, where your audience is coming from and where your posts are targeted.

These apps are classified as web apps, as they are commonly used through browsers such as Safari and Chrome.

Social media web app platforms are the most common social media management devices. Hootsuite is a social media management system app, which allows the user to manage online brands and to send messages to a variety of social media services at once.  Other social media web apps such as TweetDeck, are specific web app platforms that are directly related to a social network, in this case, Twitter. TweetDeck is a social media dashboard application for management of Twitter accounts and just like Twitter, users can still send and receive tweets and view profiles.

Social Media Web App platforms are apps that also allow businesses to have an insight into their social media and networks that drive business results. Users that use these platforms are able to hear how their brand is spoken about, what their competitors are doing and how they compare and rank in the industry. Apps such as these social media platforms create loyalty between businesses and connect customers to their brand’s employees.

Examples: Spredfast, SproutSocial, Hootsuite, Social Flow, SalesForce Radian6