Note From Steve: This post is written by a guest blogger

With the hugely successful free app Instagram being recently bought by Facebook for one billion dollars it has caused many of us to consider making an app of our own. Instagram is such a simple piece of technology, photo sharing with filters and hash tags, anyone could have come up with it. It has been suggested that Instagram was purchased by Facebook simply on the grounds that they were afraid of how fast this new social media platform was growing. Afraid it was set to take over, the most popular social network bit the bullet and bought it for themselves in order to remain in the driving seat.

So with this in mind, just how do you go about making your own little genius piece of technology?

An Idea

So firstly, you need an idea. It doesn’t need to be ground breaking, just a thought or a vague image of your app in your mind. Your tiny unclear idea is the start; once you have this you are ready to take the necessary steps to building your app.

Market Research

The next step is to do your market research in order to develop your idea. Create something solid on paper that gets your idea across in simple terms. Perhaps use a power point slide show in order to include important text, images and colours. Research your target market and then approach them, ask them to view your slide show and fill in a response form.

The more people you approach with your idea the better it will become, after all two heads are better than one and if that’s true than one hundred heads are better than two. You may wish to use a PR company, in particular technology PR in order to reach the masses.

Development

From your market research you should have a few good ideas that stand out. You will need to combine these ideas in to one ground breaking solid vision. Be 100% clear of every aspect of your page. Make final slides and mood boards. Also create a document stating the exact details or your app, what it does and how and why it would be used.

Create It!

Many of us are not blessed with great technological minds and when it comes to the actual building of the app most of us wouldn’t know where to start. There are great technology companies who can build your app for you. Make sure you get really involved though; don’t leave it all down to them interpreting your slides and pictures. Make sure they keep you up to date every step of the way and if it’s not looking like you had imagined it would tell them!

Promote It!

So now your amazing app is finished and in the app store ready for millions to download, how do you tell people about your app so they can search it and download it. You need to make the most of social media. Create Facebook; Twitter and Pinterest pages to promote your app. Make use of PR too, again specifically technology PR. Public relations can help you reach the masses and slowly but surely your app will start to be downloaded. The more it is downloaded the higher up it will climb on the ‘most popular’ app page, people will begin to rank it too so others can read all the brilliant things they have to say about it.

If you are careful and diligent in creating your app you could have something really exciting, and you never know perhaps you will create the next Instagram.