Have you decided to develop your business on social networks? Well, this is very, very cool. Then we, for our part, will help and tell you how and what to do to make it as effective as possible.
Naturally, promotion begins with creating a community. We devote a whole series of articles to this process. We'll tell you everything from the very beginning, sort it out and place emphasis.
We will talk about creating a community using VKontakte as an example. Why? Find the answer here.
There will be 4 parts in total:
- Selecting a format, instructions for creating a community and working with its header.
- The subtleties of creating a unified community style: let's talk about effective design.
- Everything you need to know about the content.
- Community analytics and assessment of the effectiveness of its work.
Today we will take a closer look at the first point of the plan. So, let's go.
What to choose, or instead of withdrawal
It cannot be said that any format is better or worse than others. It all depends on your business and the purposes for which you go to social networks. Think about it and then make your final choice. We have collected all the features of each format and made a summary table to make it easier for you to navigate.
| Personal page | Public page | Group | ||
| Who is it suitable for? | Those whose name itself is a brand: presenters, photographers, business coaches, etc. | For those who want to focus on useful content in their promotion | For those who want to focus their promotion on active communication with their audience | |
| Name | The name of a real person, written in Russian letters, is used. The company name cannot be included in the name. | The name of the community and group can include the name of the company | ||
| Menu | No menu function | You can create a menu using wiki markup if you pin it to a special publication, but then other pinned publications will displace it | There is a separate section for the menu, located immediately below the name and status in a special tab, after the pinned post and description of the community | |
| Audience gathering | Collection occurs in two ways: – adding the target audience as friends (no more than 50 invitations per day, there is a limit on the number of friends – 10,000), – the target audience subscribes to your news itself (there are no restrictions on the number) | The audience itself must subscribe to the page. You can and should use advertising to increase the number of subscribers. There are also special widgets for the site | The audience joins the group voluntarily. It is also possible to invite participants, but with restrictions: - no more than 50 invitations per day, - you can only invite those who are on your friends list. Just like in public pages, there are advertisements and widgets for the site | |
| Interaction with the audience | Communication through personal messages, through comments on posts on the wall, through comments on photographs and videos. You can give the audience the opportunity to leave notes on the wall themselves | Communication through messages in the community, through comments on posts on the wall, through comments on photos and videos. There is a discussion block, it is located to the right of the wall. Subscribers cannot leave posts on the wall themselves, but there is an option to “Suggest news” | Communication through community messages, through comments on wall posts, through comments on photos and videos. There is a discussion block, it is located to the right of the wall, but if desired, it moves to the space above the wall. You can give the audience the opportunity to leave notes on the wall themselves | |
| Goods | There is a block of goods | |||
| Statistics | There is a statistics section | |||
| Additional chips | Due to the fact that a personal page is associated with a specific person, you can achieve greater trust from the audience | Additional advertising opportunity on the subscribers page in the special block “Interesting Pages” | The group can be open (anyone can join) or closed (the application for membership is approved by the administration) | |
Well, if, after reading this article, you realized that your existing community should not be a public, but a group, or vice versa, then everything can really be corrected. If the number of participants is up to 10,000, the creator himself can change the format.
Who will be interested in the group?
First of all, you must answer this question for yourself. Determining your target audience is the key to the success of your public page. You can even, without hesitation, encourage people to join the community with a direct encouragement: “Join us!”, “We’re interesting, take a look,” “Join our community quickly!” Where there is an open platform for imagination is the description of the VKontakte community. What to write, examples and options can be anything. The main thing is that they motivate them to visit your page.
But let's return to the target audience. Any factor is important here: age, gender, place of residence and even financial situation. Thus, advertising expensive branded clothing in a community designed for a small village, where mostly elderly people live, will hardly be interesting. Here it is better to carry out an advertising campaign for inexpensive food or create a public page about social benefits, if pensioners even visit the VKontakte website.
Also, if you are creating a community for business people, talking about business news and new technologies, it is better to avoid slang, words with strong emotional overtones or humor in your description.
On the contrary, if the public is going to be humorous in nature, you need to avoid dry and boring text. A cool description of the VKontakte community will attract much more public. It is unlikely that anyone will be interested in reading about the founders of the group, or about the goals that you are going to implement in this community. After all, if your target audience comes to your page to relax and laugh, it should start simply with a description. The description of the VKontakte community is funny, about jokes or anecdotes, humorous stories and satire should immediately bring a smile to the faces of the guests.
Creating a new life, a new community
We will not consider creating a personal page, everything is clear with this, almost everyone has a personal page. Let's talk about building a community. It's actually very easy to do. Here are step-by-step instructions:
- Go to your VKontakte page.
- Open the "Groups" section in the main menu.
- Click on the “Create Community” button. It is located in the upper right corner of the block with groups of which you are a member.
- Select a community format from the options provided.
There's something on the list that we didn't talk about above, and that's the "Event" format. It is worth choosing if you are organizing a specific event at a specific time in a specific place. To promote your business, a public page or group is better suited.
- After selecting the format, enter the name (you can change it in the settings, so don’t bother at this stage, and besides, we’ll talk about the name a little lower).
- Click the "Create Community" button. Next you will have to work with the settings.
VKontakte group URL
After creating a new group, it will automatically be assigned an address. It is a series of numbers. It’s not very nice, and no one wants to remember them. That is why it is important to take care of the aesthetics and good recognition of the name. Replace numbers with alphabetic characters. Come up with a small name or word that characterizes your brand.
To do this, open the “Community Management” section. Next, go to “Settings”. There you will find the original URL. Erase everything unnecessary and add a new version of the name (it should be written in Latin).
Agree, it will be easier for the audience to remember a letter combination of symbols than a chaotic set of numbers.
Whatever you call the community, that’s how it will work
One of the most important elements of any community is the name; it is by this name that VKontakte’s internal search is organized and by which clients will find you. Of course, the size of the community and its activity are also taken into account, but to a lesser extent, the name still remains the main factor. Therefore, it must contain a key that reflects the activity you are engaged in: “Online home textile store”, “Sewing workshop”, “Design studio” and so on. In addition, the key in the name will allow you to optimize the community for the wider Internet. The question arises: how to choose this key? Everything is very simple:
- Analyze your competitors' communities in search and see how their names look. If it’s good (the community is promoted according to a specific key and works quite successfully), then it can be made in the image and likeness, for recognition among the target audience.
- See which titles have the lowest competition in internal search to make it easier to get to the TOP of search results.
- Check the additionally selected key through Yandex.Wordstat. If a key has a lot of requests, then the likelihood increases that people will also enter it in VKontakte’s internal search.
We've decided on the key. Do you also want to insert the name of the company itself into the name of the community? Why not, but it’s better to do it after the key, because it should come first and without diluting it with other words: “Sewing workshop “Handlewoman”.”
If you work for a certain territory, for example, for a specific region, then it is better to indicate this too: “Rent apartments in Moscow”, “Organization of weddings in St. Petersburg”. It will help to weed out unnecessary audiences at the entrance.
But it is important to remember that the name is a laconic phrase. And VKontakte will not let you go wild, even if you really want to. The maximum length of a community name is 48 characters.
Don't forget about coherence. Names like “Custom Dresses Chita Rent Inexpensively” contain both a key and a link to the region, but do not inspire confidence at all. And if you are afraid that without the exact entry of the key, the search will not return you at the client’s request, then you can exhale. Machines have long learned to understand declension by numbers and cases.
Description of the VKontakte community: what to write and where to start
If you are completely confused and nothing comes to mind, don’t worry. Review similar pages of your competitors. Even if you don’t sell or advertise anything, there will still be competitors’ public pages. Find a similar idea or fan club and look there. At least something should still come to mind. Just look at the description of the VKontakte community. You will definitely come up with what to write, the main thing is not to copy a ready-made text.
More on this below. These tips will help you attract a lot of people to the group and make it popular.
URL: words are better than numbers
Another important point is the community address, that is, the URL. By default, when creating, you will be assigned a specific numeric ID, but we recommend replacing it with a CNC (human readable address) in the settings. That is, one that contains real words that are directly related to your business. And by the way, an important detail. Do you have a Web site? Then duplicate the name of this site in the community URL, so that in a large search for a branded query, both will come up. This will increase your company’s recognition and make it easier for customers to remember your name.
How to write a presentable description?
Your group can be on any topic, so the best first step is to look at your competitors' pages. After analyzing several successful examples, you can come up with something interesting to write to attract attention to your public page. The description must be self-selling. After reading it, people should be fired up with a desire to join the community.
If your public page is an online store, then the description should be compiled as high as possible. Because your earnings will depend on this. This is a kind of PR, which, if done correctly, you can attract the maximum number of clients.
The first word was eaten by a cow: why is it important to give community status?
Status is a place immediately below the name where you can place up to 140 characters of text. Very often, for some reason, the status is either completely forgotten or some kind of philosophical quote is written in it, and often this quote is not even related to business. The community is not your personal profile; this is inappropriate here. Moreover, the status may contain other important information that will make your business more efficient. Here are some options:
- USP (your advantages: record-breaking fast delivery, free consultation, etc.);
- telephone or other contact information;
- website address, if available;
- information about current promotions and discounts.
So don't waste space. In the status, we also recommend once again placing the key by which you are moving. And please do not use the Caps Lock key when writing, this bothers many people because they feel like they are being shouted at, and it’s just harder to read. =)
What is recommended to be placed on the cover?
Contact details
Company information (benefits)
Name and logo
You can specify all the blocks if it looks organic. Or select the most relevant information that suits your specific purposes.
Make sure that the background of the cover evokes a pleasant emotion in the audience. Of course, you won't be able to please everyone. But the point here is rather that you should not upload any gloomy and unattractive images. You don't want to scare off your potential buyers.
It is also important to consider your industry when choosing a background. If you are promoting legal services, then a picture with violets and butterflies is unlikely to be considered a suitable option.
Just look at a successful example of a cover for the VKontakte community (culinary theme). Beauty, isn't it?
Stylish, appropriate, pleasing to the eye.
Of course, the design of a group cannot be limited to the choice of cover and avatar. If necessary, you will have to create a beautiful menu, an illustrated product catalog, and select thematic covers for albums with photographs. It’s great if you can stick to a single style when decorating a group. Site owners often style the VKontakte community according to an identical principle.
But it’s enough to get by with the standard combination: Cover + Avatar + Menu. Here's what might come of it:
My light, mirror, tell me and tell me the whole truth!
The description, along with the name and status, makes up the so-called community header. Ideally, this includes design, but this is a separate block, which we will talk about in more detail in the next article. When a person enters your community, the first thing a person will look at is the header, so all the basic questions should be answered there.
The description will help to expand in detail what is already indicated in the title and status. Tell me truthfully:
- About company;
- about your activities;
- about competitive advantages;
- about the intricacies of work (delivery, ordering, prepayment, promotions, etc.).
Important ! Be sure to include contact information in the description or explain where they can be found.
Description is the same selling text. Looking at it, the client should at least become interested, and at maximum, take the targeted action. Here are some tips to make it as attractive as possible:
- Start by describing the client's problem that he can solve by contacting you. Or with a description of the bright future where the client will go after using your services. And the more colorfully the problem (and its solution, of course) or a bright future is depicted, the better. For example, problems: you have a headache, a tooth has fallen out, you have nothing to wear on a date in the evening. And a bright future: if you want a slim figure, your wedding will be the most elegant, you will receive a bouquet of the freshest flowers, etc.
- Avoid cliched phrases like “highly qualified specialists”, “reliable guarantees”, “unsurpassed quality”. Write simpler, more specific. Good specialists? Provide a link to their certifications or talk about their professional achievements. Reliable guarantees? Promise to return money if the product breaks within a week/month/year after purchase. Unrivaled quality? Share a list of suppliers or explain what materials you use and why they are the highest quality.
- Write not about your advantages, but about the client’s benefits. That is, we don’t praise ourselves, but tell them exactly how your company will help a person. Not “we can,” but “you will receive,” not “we have,” but “you will find.”
- Complete the description with a call to action: call, get a consultation, write, buy.
- Insert into the text the key that was used in the title or status, if possible. The main thing is that it looks natural. And I remind you that the community is optimized under one key. No need to write a list of keys. This will still not give results in promotion.
If the community is called upon to advertise
So we figured out what the description of the VKontakte community is. What to write if you are determined to get into advertising? Then the description should be more thoughtful and rational. It should clearly answer the target audience’s question: “What benefit will I get?” or “Why did I come to this page?” If you are engaged in a serious business and promoting a product or service, you need text optimized for a search engine. Most often, for beginners and people who are little familiar with such text optimization, it is best to turn to a professional copywriter.
Now you know almost everything about the description of the VKontakte community. What to write? Music, films, products, animals, or just a formal idea - it doesn’t matter why you create a public page, write the description thoughtfully and with soul. Then you will succeed!
Let's sum it up
Today we covered a lot of useful things:
- learned what formats of communities there are on VKontakte;
- clarified how they differ from each other;
- understood how to create a community;
- We figured out how to design its header: name, URL, status and description.
Next time we’ll talk about another very important component of any community - about design, which, by the way, means not only an avatar. But let's keep the intrigue for now. And that’s all for today, if you have any questions, write in the comments, we will definitely answer!
By the way, you can order all work on the community, as well as an audit of an already operating public page or its re-registration (and not only on VKontakte) from us. =)
Where does the community begin?
First of all, you need to work on a beautiful and concise name. It should be catchy and defiant. But it’s unlikely that anyone will understand what the group is talking about just from the name alone. It is for this purpose that there is a special section - description. Here you can explain to a guest who visits your page why the community is interesting and what its goal is. This is why you need a description of the VKontakte community. What to write? We'll talk about this below. These tips will help you attract a lot of people to the group and make it popular.
Formatting a description of a VK group
Even a well-written and verified description can be difficult to read. You can fix this with all kinds of emoji. Emoticons, icons and other elements will dilute the description, make it emotionally rich and will play on the reader’s subconscious. The description for a group in VK is an extremely important element. It is of paramount importance for attracting customers, search engine optimization and increasing sales.
Source of the article: https://zen.yandex.ru/media/id/5cab36c9d7348300b0a355d0/opisanie-soobscestva-vkontakte-5cb78d6292bca500b3368d0b
Group menu or wiki page
To find the information I need in the group, I use the news search. But 4 out of 5 of my friends don’t know about this opportunity. To solve this problem, you can use wiki markup or group menu.
Wiki markup on VKontakte is a special language for designing informational web pages. It allows you to create menus, tables and organize navigation for moving within a group. This will help you find the information you need about your products or services in 1 click. You can also implement a unique tag for a group of posts about individual products and services. This will also simplify the search.
Clicking on each direction leads to a section of the site with information about services. In the group itself, news about different directions can be found using a unique tag.
