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The VKontakte website has long ago gone beyond the usual social network, in which the main emphasis is on user communication. Now on this site you can listen to music, watch videos, share with friends and play. But, as it turned out, this was not enough for users; they came up with entertainment in chats. The article will discuss the game Smileys in VK with answers. This is a pretty fun activity that allows you not only to brighten up communication with friends and acquaintances, but to get to know each other better.
VK, Unicode and emoticons
Using the universal international encoding Unicode allows you to ensure the same display of web pages on any device. The first emoji were included in the general table in 2010. On VKontakte they are included as a separate block on the “Messages” tab.
With their help, you can create a beautiful status, enhancing the posted phrase with emotional overtones.
However, when you are about to post, you will not find emoticons in the editor. The text can be beautifully designed using different fonts and citations, but it is impossible to directly add emotions to it.
There are several options for solving the problem and the use of codes is one of the most popular.
life hacks
Coming up with a cool idea on how to run a competition on VK is not enough. It is important to take into account a few more points that will help increase the effectiveness of the draw, so below I have collected for you the main life hacks for conducting it:
- Requirements
First, read the requirements from the administration of the social network. This will save your competition and the community from a sudden ban for non-compliance with the general rules.
- Conditions
Clearly and in detail describe the conditions of participation, indicate the prizes and the dates of the drawing. This can be done in community discussions, a separate post, or a wiki page. This will ensure your safety in case of complaints from participants.
- Decor
Take care of the design of the competition post. Write a catchy headline and selling text. Half of the result depends on how vividly you described the audience’s benefits from participation.
– Announcements
Post reminders about the competition in the group and the drawing of cool prizes after publication. This will increase the likelihood that the competition will be noticed by more of your subscribers.
– Secured
Pin the competition post on the community wall for the duration of the draw. This way, not a single random guest of the group will pass by.
– Promotion
Use paid methods to promote your competition post, such as targeted advertising. This will help increase reach and engagement.
– Comments
Monitor the comments under the giveaway regularly. There may appear both organizational issues and negative statements from distrustful users or haters. Try to resolve all emerging issues in a timely manner.
– Winner
Show your subscribers how you chose the winner so that they can be confident in the integrity of the result. For example, publish a video showing how you randomly selected the lucky winner.
– Results
Publish a separate post with the results of the drawing, tag the winners, and tell them how they can receive their prize. This technique has a positive effect on audience loyalty, because people will be convinced that the competition was really real.
Adding Emotions
The easiest option is to use ready-made emoticons. Both a general Unicode character table and one specially created for VK are suitable.
Unicode summary table
Unicode documentation is freely available and anyone can use it by opening the appropriate page.
The table shows options for displaying emoticons on different devices. To insert into VK you need to use only the “Browser” column. The selected symbol must be copied and pasted into the desired place in the post. In other columns they may look more beautiful, but they will be inserted like pictures.
Ready-made emoticons for VK
The K94 project offers a ready-made set of emoji for VK. The description of each symbol contains a code that is accepted by the social network and recognized as an emoticon.
The usage is different from the Unicode table. If you simply copy a symbol, it will be inserted onto the page as a picture. Click on the one you need to call up its description.
Copy the icon indicated by the arrow or the code taken in the frame. A digital designation inserted onto a VK page is immediately converted into an emoticon. Some of them, which were used in the initial Unicode sets, become black.
TOP 20 ideas for the competition
My advice right away is don’t do competitions for show. Any game in a group should not only result in a prize, but also bring specific benefits to the business. For example, increase activity in the community, increase the number of followers, increase sales, etc.
Photo with product
Ask your subscribers to take a photo with your product and post it on your personal page with a branded hashtag. People are always willing to post pictures of themselves with their favorite brands, which will ensure your competition gets a high response. As a nice bonus, you will receive a large number of live photos from users of your product, which you can use as content for social networks.
Brand photo
Repost of new products
Invite users to be the first to try your company's new products and give away a product from the new line among reposts. A loyal audience will react and spread the news about the replenishment of your products.
New item raffle
Review on the page
Ask followers to write reviews about your products in the official group, on websites, maps or review sites for cool prizes or discounts. This helps to improve the company’s ratings and increase the trust of potential clients.
Product review
On the subject: How to collect customer reviews: 2 life hacks
Comment on the post
This could be choosing the best comment or asking you to write a word or emoji to participate in a drawing. Both options perfectly increase reach and activity.
A word in the comment
Communication with a chatbot
Develop a bot to communicate with subscribers. The virtual assistant can give out secret codes, accept answers to competition riddles, or even determine the winner among likes or comments. It all depends on the settings and your imagination. Don’t forget that a chatbot can also greatly increase the level of sales in a group.
Question to the bot
On topic: VK chatbot: 11 services + how to create (7 functions)
Product history
Ask users to write an entertaining story related to your brand in the comments or on their personal page. The first option will increase activity in the community, and the second will increase brand awareness and bring in new customers.
Product Stories
Important. Don't forget to track your performance and keep abreast of your progress. To do this, I recommend the TOP analytics service – livedune (using the promotional code “INSCALE” 30% discount + 7 days of access).
Gift certificates
Raffle one or more gift certificates to your store in a small denomination. Such competitions are held to increase sales and increase the average purchase price.
Firstly, the small amount of the winning card cannot buy almost anything; the client will have to pay extra out of his own pocket. And secondly, most users will find out that you have gift certificates for sale and will purchase them as a present for their loved ones. And then everything follows the first scheme.
Certificate drawing
Competition in honor of the news feed
Time it to coincide with some significant event or calendar holiday. Usually in such cases the audience is asked to write congratulations or wishes for the company in the comments. The general goal of such a competition is, again, coverage and activity.
Giveaway for newswire
Puzzles
Launch a game for the smartest people, arrange an interesting quiz with themed puzzles or puzzles. Please post your answer options in the comments. On the appointed day, choose one or more winners from the correct answers.
Game of draw
Contest with likes
Make it a condition of the draw not only to comment under the post, but also to like the last 3-5 posts. It’s not difficult for subscribers, but it’s nice for you; your coverage will immediately increase several times.
Likes on publications
By the way . If you are engaged in complex promotion, then I will tell you a secret. Through a special service, you can see which posts (and competitions too) are “popping” with your competitors (this way you can collect ideas for content). Click -> AdSpoiler (promo code INSCALE, 15% discount).
Drawing on cash receipts
Increase store sales with a check contest. To do this, participants must make a purchase for a certain amount and attach a photo or screenshot of the receipt in the comment. Next, give away one or more prizes among customer comments.
Raffle for purchase receipts
Competition for the best selfie
Ask followers to take a selfie with your product or in the fitting room of your store, and post the photo with the hashtag on their personal page or in a special community album. This is one of the simplest types of photo competition, which contributes to the growth of user content and growth of audience loyalty.
Selfie with product
Video competition
Give your subscribers the task of making a short video on a given topic, and give a gift for the most original story. In this format it is easy to conduct casting or look for ideas for video advertising.
Video on a given topic
By the way. If you have a lot of activity in your group and need to quickly respond to all comments, then I recommend a mention monitoring service for this. Notifications of new comments will be sent to any convenient messenger, and you can respond there. Click and test -> Chotam
Answers on questions
Motivate users to follow the release of your posts and subscribe to community updates. To do this, draw a prize among answers to questions about the content of publications. Such giveaways are guaranteed to increase engagement.
Answers on the content of publications
Attentiveness competition
Ask subscribers to find the necessary information on the company’s official website or mobile application and write about the search results in the comments under the competition post. Firstly, it will increase resource traffic. Secondly, it will increase community engagement. And thirdly, it will increase sales from the site or application, because while users are looking for answers there, they will probably find interesting products for themselves.
Finding the information you need
Contest with voting
Make participation in the survey one of the conditions of the draw. Polls are a type of content that increases engagement in the group, which will have a positive impact on the promotion of the community. Ask what users think about your product or which brand of similar products they prefer. The result for you will be not only an increase in activity, but also obtaining information about your target audience.
Subscribers' opinion
Intuition competition
Invite your subscribers to guess which box in the photo contains the prize. Randomly select a winner from the correct answers. Users can suggest options in a standard poll or in a comment under the post. Both options will increase community engagement.
Intuitive choice
Interesting. A chatbot will help automate the work of VK. He himself will answer all the clients’ questions and help with choosing the right product, and you will only have to count the profit received. Click and test -> bot-vk.
Draw for subscription
Use the simplest type of competition - a prize for signing up. VK users are lazy creatures; the simpler the conditions, the more participants. To increase the number of followers, you can ask them to tag friends in the comments under the post.
Subscription Prize
Spell the word
Ask followers to spell the word in the comments without anyone interrupting. This is very difficult to do, so one participant will try to complete the task repeatedly, which will increase the number of comments under your post and the overall activity of the group tenfold.
Writing a word in the comments
Tag a friend
Tagging friends in the comments is more typical for competitions on Instagram, but on VKontakte they are also appropriate. This is done to increase the number of comments, as well as the number of subscribers.
Tag in comments
Emoticon code
If desired, any emoticon that is not included in the ready-made sets, but contained in Unicode, can be added independently.
- We go to a page containing a code table in which all the official emoji are presented. The marked field contains standard hexadecimal emoji values that represent hyperlinks. Click on any one to open full information about the selected symbol.
Move the switch to the position indicated by the arrow. In the “Code” field, the hexadecimal value will change to decimal, which is a familiar set of numbers. This is the designation used on VKontakte. Copy it and go to your page.
As we saw in the previous section, numbers are limited to the characters in front and behind. The ampersand “&” and the hash “#” are placed at the beginning. Then comes the value we extracted, and everything ends with a semicolon. We insert the digital code and add the necessary characters in front without spaces. In most cases, after entering a hash mark, the test block will immediately transform into the selected emoji, which has a heart instead of eyes, and closes it with a “;” no need to.
Thus, new emoticons can be added to your page as soon as they are approved by the Unicode Consortium. This means that you will be the first to place some “tricky” fakyu symbol.
"Make a wish"
In total, the article presents two games, and you should start with the more trivial, but no less exciting. It's called “Make a Wish.” The name fully conveys the principle of the game. It's fun for a girl to play, so if you're a guy, then be sure to try it out with a friend or companion.
The rules couldn’t be simpler: send a message with the first image containing emoticons, be it flags, hearts or other emotions. The interlocutor must choose the one he likes and promise to perform a certain action implied by the selected emoji. Then send a second image to the chat, in which the emoticons are replaced directly with actions.
To complete the picture, it is worth giving an example. Let's say you send the following image:
The interlocutor sends back, for example, a comment with the symbol “3”. Then send a second image, which will show what action needs to be performed:
The example shows that the interlocutor is obliged to make a sign (write your name on something and take a photo).
Thus, for example, you can talk someone you like into going on a date or finding out their phone number. Or you can come up with answers that will simply be fun.
Answers
As you might guess, you can make the answers yourself by entering whatever you want. But to simplify the process of making preparations, below are some templates that can be downloaded directly from the site:
Now all you have to do is choose the one you like and send it to the person you want to play with.