What are the differences between a group and a public page?
- As mentioned above, only a group can be made closed. This will hide all basic community information from visitors - the data will be available to participants. Joining with the approval of the administration (see how to add an admin in a VKontakte group).
- The main meaning lies in the name. A public page is intended for maintaining a platform on a social network that represents a specific media personality, business, trademark, etc. A group is needed to unite people with similar interests.
- The "Suggest news" function is available only for pages.
- The layout of the available blocks varies greatly. The popular Discussions tool can be placed in several places in a group. Have we already explained how to create a discussion in a VKontakte group? In the public only on the right side. The “Latest News” section is also available only in the group.
- The group has an active tool for inviting friends. In the community there is only the “Tell friends” option. Very different things.
It should be noted that the choice of community type most often depends on the need to make it private. Therefore, by default, groups are selected.
But we are now interested in a different situation. Let's say we once created a group. And now we lack the functionality that is available on public pages. What should I do?
We can always change the type of community.
Differences between a public page and a VKontakte group
A public page is created to post information relating to a company, brand or personality. People subscribe to this page to receive news. Everyone gets access to the information posted on the page, even those who are not registered on VKontakte.
Group. The purpose of its creation is to unite a group of people based on their interests. There are two types of groups - open and closed. To view information in a closed group, the user needs to register in the service and become a member of the community. A significant advantage of the group is that it can be beautifully decorated. There is a special wiki markup that allows you to create a menu.
How else does a public differ from a group in contact, see the table:
| Functionality | Page | Group |
| Publishing entries | Administrator | All participants |
| Commenting | Enable or disable for all subscribers. | 3 types: everyone can add posts and comment; entries are added by the admin, and users comment; admin publishes entries, comments are closed. |
| Creating internal pages | — | + |
| Inviting friends | — | + |
| Menu design (wiki markup) | — | + |
| Privacy | Available to everyone without VK registration | Open (everyone can join), closed (you approve applications), private (you submit applications) |
| Subscriber management | Removal is not available. Only adding to the black list. | Both deleting and adding to the black list are allowed. |
| Community link | Available to all friends in the “Interesting Pages” block | Can be hidden by privacy settings from the “Groups” block |
| Link URL type | vk.com/public777*** | vk.com/club777*** |
When choosing whether a group or a public page is better, do not forget about the goals of each of these communities. A group is an association based on the interests of participants for their communication and discussion of various issues. And the public is intended to inform subscribers about news and interesting information. The public page is somewhat similar to Twitter, and the group resembles a mini forum.
If you want to know what are the ways to make money on VKontakte, click on the link
How to transfer a group to a public page and back
First, pay attention to the following facts:
- Changing the community type, available once a month.
- If the number of subscribers is large enough, the decision to approve the application is considered by the administration. To get advice on this issue, you can contact VKontakte support service.
- The translation function is only available to the group creator. Other managers, including administrators, will not be able to do this. But they can answer any questions you may have. If you have them, you need to find out the admin in the VKontakte group and then contact him.
So let's get down to business.
Let's imagine that we once created a closed VKontakte group. And now we want to transfer it to a public page. We go to the social network (see login to VK). Go to the “Communities” section, find the desired group in the list and open it.
In the right menu block, expand all available items. At the very bottom there is a link “Translate to page”. Click on it.
Link to change community type
A pop-up window will appear notifying you of the changes that will be applied. Here you need to specify the page type:
- Place, company;
- Organization;
- Media personality;
- Work or product.
Select the desired item in the list, and then click on the “Translate to page” button.
Selecting a page type
This procedure requires confirmation from the owner. You have two options - push a notification to a linked device, or receive a call to your phone. In the example we will choose the second option. Click on the appropriate link. Our number will be displayed in the form - here we click on the “Call” button.
We confirm the operation via phone
A call will come to your phone. You must enter the last 4 digits of the number in the form, and then click on the “Send code” button.
Enter the code
If everything was done correctly, the community type will be changed.
Make a group public
In the group under the avatar (main photo) there is a button in the form of an “ellipses” (and More), click.
A drop-down menu appears with the “Translate to page” item.
An information window appears notifying you of all changes that will occur when changing the community type. Read the consequences carefully so that you can immediately assess whether you need these changes or not.
What does this mean?
In my experience, I will say that all posts “not on behalf of the group” may disappear on the wall.
By default, only its owner can make entries on a public wall, and then “on behalf of the community.”
Therefore, even if you are an admin and owner, but wrote on your own behalf, then VK can “clean” the community wall after changing its type to public.
Similar bugs also happened on Facebook (which VK is so keen on)
Let's do the reverse procedure
The process is similar here. Just go to the desired page and find the “Transfer to group” link in the menu.
Transferring a public page to a group
The next step is even simpler. There is no need to select a type, just click on the “Transfer to group” button.
Button to confirm the operation
After this, the change will be made successfully.
Popular
Guide on how to transfer a page to a group
Let's take a photo example to see how a public page is transferred to a group. Let me note right away that the interaction with the mobile application specified in the manual may differ from yours due to different mobile devices (* author’s note)
Let's start by logging into your account and going to the page that we will turn into a group. In the right menu we find the active link “Transfer to group” and click on it.
On top of our public page, a pop-up window opens for us. In which, you will be asked whether you are completely sure of the move or not, and will also briefly list what will change. If you have decided, click the “Translate” button.
Next, a confirmation window for moving the page to the group will open. For obvious reasons, my mobile device is the gadget you see in the photo. Let’s immediately make a short digression and tell you how to transfer a page via a mobile device.
Considering that VK already knows what mobile device I have, it still offers to link it. Click the active button “Link device”. After which, in the window that opens, you will see a message that the notification has been sent.
Note:
Log in to your VK account on your mobile device in advance.
A notification beep sounds on the gadget, I click open and a page opens with a confirmation window for the action, namely transfer the page to a group. Next, click receive code and an SMS message with a code will be sent to your number linked to your account for confirmation. After which you will enter the code and turn the public into a group.
And we will continue and consider the classic version, without using a mobile device. In the first option, we chose to link the device, and now let's select the active link “Verify via SMS”. After clicking on it, a page will open with the last digits of your number, and the “get code” button, if the number has not changed, click it.
After this, an additional field for the code will appear on the pop-up window screen, which will be sent to your mobile. telephone. When you have received your code, enter it and click on the “Send code” button. After this, the page will automatically update and now your public (public page) will become a group.
Note:
Be sure to read and pay attention to the warnings of the social network VKontakte. You can make this functional move of a public to a group no more than once a month.
Why transfer the page to a group?
The question of whether it is worth it and, most importantly, why, to transfer a public page to a group, should be addressed first of all, of course, to yourself. Think and consider before transferring a page; if you are going to develop a public or group to make money, then there is of course no significant difference in choosing which is better (public or group). You can make money from advertising both in a group and in public, it depends on popularity and large audience reach, and not on internal functionality.
If this is the provision of services, then the group will undoubtedly be more interesting, there you can create topics for discussion, make, for example, a convenient menu in the group header. When choosing between a public page or group, be sure to think about whether it’s worth doing or not.
Recommended with this material:
Basic public settings
PS You can always return to this page and change information/settings (to do this, use the “Manage” button in the menu on the right of the main page of your public page).
basic information
the name in the previous step, here you can change it.
Community description – a few sentences describing your group. It must be written down, firstly, to immediately make it clear to visitors to your community “what will it be about?”, and secondly, perhaps in the future this will help bring additional audiences to your public from search engines (from Yandex).
Community cover – image, size 1590 by 400 pixels: click “Upload”, select the image on your computer. PS In the next article we will tell you how to create or where to get a beautiful cover for your community on VK.
Page Address – Community URL. How the path to your page will look in the browser address bar (English letters, numbers, underscores are acceptable).
Action button
It will be displayed in the most visible place in your group - immediately below the page cover.
Possible options: go to the website, write by email, call, etc. Depending on the selected type of action, you will need to provide additional information: the name of the button (what will be written on it), enter the site URL, phone number, etc.
Translation Features
It is important to remember that changing the type of community entails certain consequences. As stated in the instructions above, the consequences of the transfer will be described to you in detail.
We will not describe all the points in detail, since all the necessary information is described in the screenshots above (see translation instructions). It is possible that at the time of reading the article, some points will differ.
As you can see, changes can sometimes be significant. Therefore, you should think several times whether this is really necessary.
Source
Don't rush to conclusions
At first, it really seems like a very important question to create a group or community. Over time, this issue fades into the background, and you just do your thing. All why? Because the difference between these two types of pages is not so significant.
The group is intended for communication, and the public is for creating the right image. It is, so to speak, more respectable: users can only recommend posts, but not invite them to the group using spam methods; the discussion block, news and documents disappear; invitations are not available. Now subscribers and random guests will not be able to simply recommend the group to their friends, but will be able to tell about the page.
Those who have been leading a group for a long time know that few living people use this method. Mostly they share interesting information, rather than just throwing out invitations. Nobody believes in them anymore, this way you can only collect a bunch of fakes and working accounts that do not benefit either the business or the person.
All this is not as scary as it might seem at first glance. Spam doesn't do any good anyway. Reposts give much more. In addition, interesting pages, that is, the public pages to which a person is subscribed, are reflected under the avatar on the main page of any VK profile.
In my opinion, the basis for your choice can be a simple choice from two obvious options.
Is your community for people or a brand to connect? This can be not only the sale of fur coats or kefir, you yourself can be a brand.
What you need to know additionally
You already know what will happen if you transfer a group to a page on VK, and you even know how to do it, but there are a few more nuances that you need to become familiar with:
- You will not be able to translate the community format from your phone - the option is only available on the desktop version of the site;
- Reverse manipulation is possible once every 30 days;
- Only the owner (creator) of the community can translate;
- The “Event” type cannot be transferred to either a group or a public page.
Perhaps that’s all, now you know exactly how to convert one type of site to another and what the consequences will be after that. We recommend not chasing fashion trends, but carefully weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each type. This is the only way you will get exactly what you expected and be able to conduct your activities as efficiently as possible.
