Do you want to create a social networking website for different people? According to the DataReportal, there will be 4.65 billion social users worldwide now. It has revolutionized since Facebook was born.
Facebook remains the most trending social media site in the world. It has over 2.92 billion active users who share monthly photos, status updates, and comments about their lives.
People used to sign up for blogs to find out what was happening. But the modern world has changed, and most websites get their traffic from social media.
Suppose you want to create a website that competes with the big social media site. Then you should follow all these easy steps to create a website like Facebook on WordPress.
How much should you spend to build a Social Network Website?
Having a social media site gives a lot of expectations. Initially, building your site as a developer takes over a thousand bucks. Don’t hesitate! You don’t need to invest that many dollars. You can reduce your costs with a perfect plan and deploy your site.
You only need a domain from a renowned domain seller for a low price. Then select a strong WordPress hosting from a credible source. And finally, you need a responsive social network theme that works like Facebook.
Buy premium themes for a reasonable price from ThemeForest. Then add functionality with plugins that are free to use. That’s all you need. So, you can assume you need around a hundred dollars to develop your desired website.
Step 1: Get a Domain name for Your Website.
Finding a suitable domain name is a pesky task. First, we need to ensure if it is available or not from a reliable domain seller. GoDaddy is a good brand for domain registration.
Visit GoDaddy, type your desired domain name, and check availability. If it is available, register the URL for your website.
Step 2: Choose a dedicated web host
Web hosting is a server where your entire website is stored. All your user data, like photos, videos, status, and other links, are stored here. To handle this massive data, you need a powerful server to host and keep your website up and running 24/7. In addition, people worldwide will visit and interact with your website. So your hosting needs to fulfils some criteria to host your website.
Mandatory features for a dedicated Web Host:
1. Unmetered data transfer to assure scalability as your site grows.
2. Fast loading time with a minimum 99% Uptime guarantee.
3. SSL support to increase the integrity
If these 3 features comply with a reliable hosting vendor. Buy their hosting plan without worrying.
I find out all the exceptional features in SiteGround hosting. Buy their start-up WordPress hosting plan, and later upgrade to big plans as your site grows.
Step 3: Install WordPress
WordPress is a content management software. It is free and very convenient to install. I chose WordPress because creating a website is easy with no special skills.
From the hosting plan, you will get a WordPress installer option. Go to WordPress one-click installer and click install. Fill up all the required information and click next, and your website is ready to display.
Step 4: Get a Social Media WordPress Theme.
One of the main reasons people are comfortable using Facebook is because of the great UI. On WordPress, you only need to install a suitable theme that can enable you to have a great UI.
I am using the Cirkle theme, It is one of the best Social community WordPress Theme Based on BuddyPress. You can buy the theme from Themeforest to launch your social network at a minimal price. Using the BuddyPress plugin and Cirkle, your website development is more functional.
Why is Cirkle the perfect theme to make a social media website like Facebook?
Cirkle offers lots of customizability and includes the various footer and header sections. It has a clean and modern design, like the Facebook layout.
You will get multiple pre-built demo pages: import homepages, front-end login, registration, and inner pages with one click.
All these pages can be built and crafted with the Elementor page builder. It has a dark feature; switch your theme tone into dark mode anytime. Cirkle comes with a child theme to help you customize any versions of the pages. Your user can visit your site from different devices as it is a fully responsive theme. Cirkle pages are very lite and load quickly. Thus, it enhances the possibility of performing well in SEO metrics.
Cirkle is compatible with many useful plugins to make your website dynamic. For example, you can enable multilingual translation with a WPML plugin. To introduce the shop feature, you can integrate WooCommerce into it. All the standard features you find on Facebook can be enabled by BuddyPress.
Step 5: How to install Cirkle WordPress Theme:
Go to your WordPress dashboard and look for the Appearance tab. Click themes and then add new themes.
Now upload the .zip file of your theme and activate the theme.
After activating the theme, you will get a message above for installing the required plugin.
By clicking the prompt message, you will get a list of plugins. Select all and click install.
After installing the plugins, please select all the plugins and activate them.
Step 6: Import demo and user data
You have learned all the features of Cirkle. Now let us import the demo to give a shape of the theme.
Go to the Plugins tab and click installed plugins. Then, look for RT demo importer, open the plugin, choose the demo layout, and hit install. Wait for a few minutes to get installed.
Upload sample user data
After importing the demo, navigate to the theme folder, then click cirkle -> sample-data -> Member-data.csv. Next, download the file, go to WB Plugins, and upload the CSV file.
After all the demo imports, go to the WordPress dashboard setting and open the permalink tab. Select permalink as “Post name” and save changes.
Great, you are done with all the installation processes. Now you are free to customize the theme. You can change the theme logo, favicon, header and footer images, color combination, typography, and custom style from the theme Appearance settings.
Also, set your menu navigation format from the menu settings.
Cirkle has ready-made elementor layouts to ease your page creation. However, you won’t be stranded as you have several custom Elementor Widgets for your extended website functionality. Get all the widgets under the Radiustheme Elements section.
Step 7: Set up BuddyPress
Cirkle is powered by BuddyPress, it is best social networking WordPress plugin. You have already activated the plugin. You may add a person, group, or forum with modifications, tweaks, and other options.
Features of BuddyPress to power up Cirkle Theme
- Allow your users to register on your website
- Your users can create user profiles extensively
- Activity streams let users keep up with changes made to the whole site.
- You can make user groups into sub-communities.
- Users can become friends with each other.
- Users can send each other private messages.
- Plugins made by people other than BuddyPress can add to its features.
- Works with any WordPress theme that meets the standards.
- You can set it up with your current WordPress site.
Now we will configure BuddyPress from the settings. There are lists of options in a tab called “Components.” This tab shows you all the BuddyPress settings currently active on your site.
Most websites would be okay with the default parts. You can turn on or off any component by checking and unchecking the box next to it and saving changes. Now check all the pages for your user’s end.
- Your user can register by filling all the fields, just like Facebook sign-up.
- After successful registration, your user can set up their profile by signing in to their account.
- Users can add a friend from the pages menu and add as many members as they want.
- You can customize the Add friend page using the BuddyPress customizer.
- Users can form groups for their interests and maintain social activity.
- Other users can join their desired group from the group lists.
- You can customize the group page from BuddyPress customizer settings.
- Customize the news feed section for your users by BuddyPress customizer.
Step 8. Publish your social community website
There are other plugins you can use to enable the Cirkle theme functionality.
- Use GamiPress to create social badges
- Integrate BB Press to enable forums
- Install Media Press to showcase image galleries
- Additional BuddyPress features for allowing reactions with emoticons.
If all the settings are configured well, you are ready to publish your kind of Facebook site.
Bottomline
I hope you have followed all the steps pretty well. You can always look at the Cirkle theme’s documentation if facing any problems. If you still don’t understand any steps, you can create a ticket to RadiusTheme. After completing your website, you should expand the site to different communities. Finally, create a marketing strategy plan to increase your site engagements.
