Private Social Network for Churches – Mobile App Development

The past two decades have been instrumental in the way businesses have transformed, the way they have gone past the conventional marketing approaches and the way they have leveraged new modes to acquire customers. Social media being one of the prime ingredients behind this shift.

According to a recent survey by Hootsuite, 72% of B2B marketers who use paid channels online used paid social in 2019. The very same source also confirms that

50% of marketers say that the shift to private social channels have them rethinking their content strategy.

Businesses are leveraging private social channels for internal chats. Not only they provide a more native-like environment for sharing their words, it almost assures employees that their chats are closed and confined to their organization. Furthermore, the invitation to an internal social media group makes customers feel more included. And that is going to add to the experience you are going to offer.

On a similar note, the experienced mobile app development agency at The Brihaspati Infotech recently developed a tailored social media app for the Church musicians. The app serves as a collaborative platform for musicians with features like private texting and media sharing. App admins on the other side can enjoy being the owner of the business.

To start with, we have offered three screens for easy navigation- 

• The Home Screen (News Feed)
• The Message Screen (For all the chats)
• Profile Editor (The edit user profile details)

Developing a Custom Church Communication App: The Need

Churches organize religious events like discussing the Bible and inviting leading Preachers, quite often. The specially held programs often go unnoticed and fail to gather the desired audience volume, lack of publicity modes being one of the prime reasons. 

No doubt, there are Facebook Groups that notify the users but somehow the motive dissolves on a platform that offers news from a wide variety of niches. The followers also are devoid of any information about the events they have always wished to attend.

The client thus wanted to deliver an app that bridges this information gap where users can talk about the upcoming religious programs, share thoughts, quotes and more. They can further share the religious posts on their Facebook Feeds. The ease to connect on mobile, only makes it a handy option.

Church Social Network Mobile App Development

The app was one of a kind. Developing a social media app for a Christian ministry is something we don’t come across every day. It was thus vital for us to pay attention to every detail.

When the client approached us, the only things we were offered was the basic idea behind the app. Our Business experts took an in-depth overview of the business and its functioning. Wireframes took the shape of Mockups and were perfected through revisions. 

The app is designed for both mobile app development platforms -iOS and Android. Backed by the best of native mobile app technologies, our private social media app finds a perfect fit across OS platforms. We have used Java and Swift as the programming languages respectively for Android and iOS devices.

In-app Chat on Private Social Network App

Users need to register themselves before being a part of the church social network. They can directly sign in with their Gmail account or Apple IDs (iOS users) to access the app features. It fetches minimal details like the user name and the profile picture for instant profile creation.

Our experts have prioritized your privacy and security while developing the private social network app for churches. Users can find the desired profiles with the search bar to initiate chat. All it needs is the profile name. The app doesn’t ask for personal details like a Mobile number or discloses your mail id.

App users can exchange texts and media files between them. This is a one-to-one chat window and the conversation is inaccessible to any other user, including the app admin. The feature ensures that app users have the desired freedom to discuss anything and everything along with the media file support. Users can either attach a saved picture from the phone or click an instant picture. It is that easy.

In the following picture, the user can be seen searching for a fellow member and initiating a chat.

User Engagement on Private Social Media App

User engagement is as necessary as developing an app for your users. Several surveys have confirmed that 80% of the mobile apps are uninstalled in the first three weeks of usage. 

The bespoke social media app designed by our iOS experts offers an admin managed News Feed. App users can find religious posts right on their home screen. They can like the posts, add comments and share them on their Facebook wall.

In the following picture, we can find a News Feed post, the comments and the list of app users who liked it.

We have added custom buttons right under the posts. The Facebook Share button offers better exposure regarding the app. The user’s friends can discover it, expect more members for your next religious program.

Social Media Feeds 

The feed posts in our private Social Media app are solely managed by the App admins. They can add media files, or simply a quote and can post them for the app users. The feature is not available for regular users, making admins the real owner of the custom-designed church social media ministry app.

App admins are given an additional option in their profile editor screen, named Post Manager. As the name suggests, the section plays a key role in creating all the posts and managing them. We have added easy options to edit, remove or disable the existing posts. 

We have created custom options for updating the posts. The following picture explains the rest:

The admin can either publish the post immediately or schedule the posts for the future.  They can add the post/expiry date along with the time. We have added a custom calendar and time clock to manage the schedule. The app acts accordingly for the said post.

In the following picture, the admin can be seen creating a new post, and schedule it.

It is worth noticing that in the picture above, the admin has added a Youtube URL for the next post. The app creates a snippet for the URL. As a result, the app admin can preview the URL before actually posting it. 

With that, our custom-designed mobile app proves as a Private Social Media app the client had always wished for. They can expect more gathering for the upcoming religious programs and a larger user base that listens to them, while the religious followers can have better exposure to the programs they had always wished to be a part of.

Our Experience in Custom Mobile App Development

The client’s needs were confined to just the music ministry. However, if the demand comes our team of Android experts can deliver a similar app for any other niche. The app can be tailored to your requirement ensuring that it is perfectly aligned with the exact business model.

In the past, we have developed the Social Network app for Movie Buffs. As the name suggests the app offers a social media platform where users can build a reputation as a movie reviewer, follow other movie buffs, have chats, and more. 

Summing it up

Having a social media app that exactly speaks your business is rare. At least the giants don’t. A tailored app is definitely handy here. If you too feel a similar app can benefit your daily functioning or help you grow your audience, you can contact us right now. 

Our business experts will reach out to you for further discussions.