The “News on VKontakte” section is intended to inform you about the latest innovations on the social network. The VKontakte news feed has been one of the main functional elements since the founding of the social network. Since then, it has undergone virtually no visual changes. Only some functions have been added. For example, filtering unwanted news has become easier. But the main goal of the blog remains the same - to provide users with information about updating the wall of their friends or communities of which they are members. VKontakte news allows you to always stay up to date with the latest events.
The essence
Creating a new one-page website will now take just a few minutes. Moreover, the community owner does not even have to understand the intricacies of website building or code, hire specialists or spend hours of time on it. It is enough to click on a few buttons for the site to appear on the Internet and become available to all users.
Now the products will be seen by all people who are looking for similar items on the Internet. You will no longer have to limit yourself only to VK users - the site will be visible to those who are not registered on VKontakte. The main condition is that the community is open, this is worth checking in advance.
To do this, you just need to go to group management:
Go to the “Community Management” menu
In the field that opens, look at the group type. It should say “open”.
Let's check what type of group it is. It can be public, closed and private
We have already talked in our article about how to create a small online store right in your VK group. We recommend reading about this too.
The site is optimized for promotion - clients will see a block with benefits, the most important information, a button with a target action to be performed, contacts, and the place where the service is provided. In short, now it becomes much easier to present your products.
Developers conceive sites so that they are indexed and appear in search results in the same way as communities on VK. There are no special opportunities for SEO yet, so getting to the top will most likely be quite difficult. But if the business is unusual, for example, designer jewelry or leather goods that have no analogues in the region, then it will be easy to get to the top.
Examples of proper organization
Summer festival “VK Fest 2017”
Whoosh, and the blogger’s audience started thinking about visiting the festival
The fact that VKontakte correctly structured the attraction to their festival is not surprising; who else but them knows how to do it.
The organizers immediately planned to unite people with completely different interests on their site, and therefore invited communities with different themes to participate in the festival; they, in turn, informed their subscribers that their site would be organized at the festival. Thus, VK attracted additional participants.
Another good way to promote is through opinion leaders and simply famous personalities. VK agreed with them in advance and even before the festival they released several videos where different people were invited to visit the festival.
By the way, it was at VK Fest that the new project VK Mobile was presented. Perhaps for some this was the decisive argument when buying a ticket to the festival.
Festival TBRG OPEN FEST
We compared several trendy items with a ticket to the festival. Well, isn't it funny?
Yes, this is also a festival. Well, good events that VKontakte promotes are most often concerts, festivals, and less often meetings with famous people.
What is notable about the promotion of this event compared to others? We liked the illustrations and style of the posts; not every organizer pays attention to this, although these seem to be small things.
In addition, several interesting competitions were organized on the page, examples of which can be seen below.
A quest competition in which you had to find and take a photo against a background of graffiti
Competition for musicians, one of the prizes is performance at the festival
You had to record your own dance, the winner received a ticket to the event and gifts from partners
A simple task where you had to make a cool comment based on a fillword
By the way, all these competitions do not require large expenses, but they have a return.
Concert "OBLADAET"
Subscribers were invited to write their favorite tracks in the comments, but they don’t mind
There is something here that is not in the first two examples - potential event participants comment on the posts, albeit at the suggestion of the organizers. This is the content strategy: subscribers are asked questions - “Where did they find out about the artist” (here there is a double win, in addition to increasing activity, the organizers will learn about the most effective promotion channels) or they are simply given a reason to flood in the comments.
This affects the reach, given that friends’ posts that are commented on end up in recommendations.
Promotion “Night of Museums. Saint Petersburg"
Subscribers are told about interesting activities in seemingly not so interesting places
It may seem that there is nothing different in promoting this event from others. In fact, if you consider that it is necessary to attract participation from those who are not interested in cognitive-cultural events, then it becomes clear where the difficulty lies.
Those who run this page have chosen an excellent way to achieve their goal: each post briefly talks about the museum participant and its uniqueness. Conventionally, you look at the program of events, you have the option of going to the “Museum of Telephone History” or “Museum of Communications”. At first glance, there is not much difference here, and in the end it may turn out that you won’t go anywhere at all. To do this, you need to tell ordinary people what and how.
Conference "Digital"
An example of a motivating post, pay attention to the slogan “Change the world”, each post contains this phrase
Probably everyone reading this material has heard about Digitalale. So, they were included in this selection because when promoting they focus on why they need to come to the conference, or more precisely, they motivate. It actually looks convincing; thoughts arise that everyone who has weight in the digital sphere will be here.
What the site and link to it will look like
Before you start making a website, you should pay attention to the name of the community page on VK. The fact is that the site will have the same domain as the community. It will look like vk.link/, and after “/” the name of the group. For example, vk.link/black_butterfly.
If the group has a name like public543975 or club9483247, I advise you to first change this in the settings. It is worth creating a clear address that will be remembered and associated with the direction of the group.
The short link after creation will look like vk.link/community_name. It will open equally well on mobile devices and on PCs. It will also be possible to place a link to the site on any platform, unless prohibited by its rules.
How do I include current photos?
Go to your page and go to the “My News” section.
To the left of the “News” ribbon, there is a menu button (shaped like a cross). Click on it. In the list that appears, we tick two items: “Photos”, “Recommendations”.
Please note: here we can disable the display of unnecessary news.
As a result, we will see two new points. In the “Photos” section, all the new photos that our friends have posted and published on the pages of VKontakte groups will be presented.
If you want to prevent certain people's updates (news, comments, and photos) from being included in the list, you can exclude them. To do this, click on the “List of sources” link and remove the necessary people from the list.
The next block is “Recommendations”. Go to it - here you can see all the current updates. If you have not visited your page in the last two hours, then VK will kindly generate a list of current photos for you.
Making a website on VK: step by step
Go to community settings. Find the item “Site from a community”, click on “Create”. Almost everything in the community will automatically go to the site. Next, you will need to fill out the “title”, “description” and “action button” fields.
Where does website creation begin?
- Heading . You can come up with anything. One that will attract the attention of customers is perfect.
- Description . Tell us about what is offered on this site. Not very long. It’s better if it fits in 2-3 lines so that it fits organically and accurately conveys the essence.
- Cover . You can change and choose any one you like. It will show you how the title, description and button will be positioned. Convenient - you can select and immediately see how it looks for clients.
- Action button . You can choose from several options. Under the option there is a description of what will happen after the client clicks on the button. For example, when you press the “Write on VKontakte” button, the client will go to the community page and a dialogue will immediately open.
- Advantages . Here you can indicate one or more points in which the organization differs from its peers and competitors. You can add many options, they will click under the button. The font is small but readable. Attracts attention.
- Selection of goods . You can also choose whether only some of the products will be offered on the pages or all at once.
- Gallery . Placed under the selection. Here you can choose where photos for the gallery will be loaded from. This could be a specific album on VK or all possible photos from a community page. If you illustrate what the company has to offer, you will be more likely to buy.
- Reviews . This marks the place where real customer reviews of the products are located. You can choose a topic in which people write, but only if there is at least one review.
The benefits are written down and products are selected for the gallery.
Below these settings there are two buttons - “Save” and “Preview”. The first saves all changes and creates a site, and “Preview” opens a page with a demo version of the site. It's worth using it to see what the page will look like.
After saving, the site has its own address and “published” status. At any time, you can edit the site through a group in VK or hide it from public access for a while.
Below are the statistics. You can find out:
- how many users opened the page;
- how many users are unique;
- which users are active;
- how many people looked at the “contacts” tab;
- who moved into the community;
- how many people pressed the action button.
Convenient - you can always see the status of the site, there are statistics for different periods of time.
The background will be the image that the user chooses. But if he doesn’t yet have a suitable interesting photo that would reflect the essence of the business, a standard gradient will come in handy. Such a background will not distract buyers or confuse them.
This is what a gradient cover looks like
How to create an event in VK in a group
How to create an event in contact on behalf of a group? It is important to know that this function is only available on public pages. It is absent in other communities.
If you have an ordinary group, you can transfer it to public. But this procedure will take some time; you will have to wait for the community type to change.
It is important to enable the ability to create events on behalf of the group. For this:
- Open your community settings.
- In additional sections, find the “Events” item.
- Put a tick on it.
- Save your changes.
Now go to the main page of the public. A section with events should appear in the side menu. Click on the button to create a new meeting.
Next you need:
- Fill out the form that appears.
- Check the data is correct.
- Create a new event.
- Design his page.
- Information about the meeting will appear in the public section in the side section.
You have successfully created a VKontakte event on behalf of a group. A week before the specified start date, public participants will receive a notification. They will definitely be notified of this event.
Filling the site pages
To maximize conversion on the site, it is worth placing additional information on it - selections of products, useful articles, reviews from satisfied customers, many photographs of products and other information important for the buyer and decision-making.
To add all this, just check a few boxes. After this, the materials will be uploaded from the community to the site.
Let's take the example of a small community that makes custom bracelets and earrings. After creating a community-based site, the title and description will appear on the first screen - these are editable fields. There is also an action button. Here it is “write to VKontakte”, the method was chosen by the site owner.
A product from the community looks great against the background if it is beautifully photographed
The second screen displays the products and services that the business offers. In this case, these are earrings, bracelets, pendants, and sets. Below are catalogs of jewelry that is currently in stock.
Photos of products sold are selected in the “Product Selection” item
The third screen contains reviews. They are also automatically downloaded from the social network. All reviews are signed by real people, there is a date and time when they were left. In addition, you can open the VK page of the user who left this review. You can also click on the review and open it on VKontakte to view the full text.
You can click on reviews and find real buyers, this increases trust in the product
The last screen is contacts. On the left side is a map of the city where the establishment/workshop is located. It can be scaled if necessary.
On the right side are links and a specific physical address. It will come in handy if the client wants to go and personally pick up the goods from the workshop. In the links you can put any posts from the community or a link to the group itself of your choice. There you can place links with interesting posts or information that will help in choosing a product and push the client to purchase.
A real map of where the workshop is located, useful links that help the client make a choice
The launch of the free designer is commented on by SMM specialists and department heads. For example, this is how the head of the SMB department of the social network Daria Kostyuk comments on it:
“More than 2 million people develop their business on VKontakte. We continue to make the process easier and cheaper for those doing business online.”
Dmitry Kovalev, SMM and advertising specialist (Yandex.Money employee): “A convenient tool for micro-businesses - just right when there is no budget, team and time.”
Another specialist gave a detailed commentary on the news. This is what Sergey Evsyukov, leading SMM specialist at the creative agency RUPORT, says.
“At first glance, the appearance of a website builder is promising news. I got the finished landing page 3 minutes after I logged into the corresponding section in the admin menu from my smartphone.
But if we look at the innovation with partiality, then no revolution has occurred. In essence, administrators were simply asked to simply change the appearance of communities by hiding the social network interface. The very content of the future site will almost completely duplicate the content of the communities on the basis of which it is created. The social network did not provide any options for design, functionality or changing the layout - even the simplest ones like HTML or CSS.
I remembered the wiki menus that have been on VKontakte since the last decade. Many administrators turned news blocks using wiki markup into full-fledged information resources with easy navigation, a system of hyperlinks and individual design. It turns out that even in wiki pages there were much more opportunities for customization.
Perhaps VKontakte sites are suitable for small businesses that need a beautiful landing page and neither the issue of fine-tuning the landing page nor the issue of a domain name is important. Our agency works with large clients - we will not use this functionality for them.”
Right? How is that?
There is no recipe for success here, but there are a few basic principles that should be followed when organizing and promoting an offline event. It should be said right away that it is most effective to use several platforms at once, including offline, and not just VKontakte.
What you need to do:
- Determine the target audience;
- Create a page or use an existing one, fill it with the most important information about the event, basic content before starting promotion;
- Create a content plan for publications to work with the audience right up to the start of the event. It is important to involve the potential participant so that he feels personally involved in the event;
- Be prepared to answer questions. You can make a FAQ so you don't have to answer the same questions. This is what the organizers of VK Fest did, for example;
- Move forward! Here everyone chooses their own path, but targeting and advertising in thematic communities is simply a must-have.
