VKontakte group header
It includes the community name, URL, status, description. These blocks play an important role because they influence ranking (internal search of the social network + search engines). They are also the hallmark of any community. This is exactly what the user pays attention to when first visiting the group. The header must contain key information about the company's activities. The page guest should immediately understand what you do and what services/products you offer.
VK group name
The system limit is 48 characters. The name is the keyword with which you promote your community online. Along with the key phrase, you can write the name of the brand/shop/workshop.
It is forbidden to use Caps Lock when writing the name. This will not work in your favor when promoting your community, but will only anger your subscribers and clients. It is also necessary to follow the basic rules of the Russian language. Don't try to be smarter than the system.
Community Status
This is a special field that is located under the group name. You can write something enticing, interesting or important in it. For example:
- Notify the audience about new promotions and discounts;
- Leave contact information for feedback with the manager.
The system limit is 140 characters (including spaces). Yes, it's a small space, but it can be filled intelligently. You can also place a keyword in the status (if necessary). As already mentioned, this will have a positive effect on rankings.
In the statuses of many communities you can find wise and beautiful quotes from writers, philosophers and successful people. This is one of the most common mistakes when promoting a VKontakte group. Tip: keep quotes for personal accounts.
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.
Group Description
You have entered the name of the group. Now it’s time to tell what/who it’s dedicated to. What do you do? Who do you collaborate with? How many years on the market? Many community owners or administrators ignore these very logical questions, the answers to which can provide the perfect description. Instead they create something like this:
Example No. 1
Example No. 2
Example No. 3
Each of these examples is missing key information. Somewhere they forgot to indicate the name of the company. Somewhere they didn’t consider it necessary to talk about the services offered. And somewhere they got away with a set of words similar to key queries on the Internet. No matter how sad it may sound, such groups are created every day in droves.
And even if the keywords work in ranking, this is a risky tactic. You should always keep in mind the comfort of your subscribers and clients. Do you think they will like this kind of text in the description?
Will they bestow trust on a company that can’t even clearly talk about itself?
It's time to talk about how to create a competent and beautiful description of the community. Please adhere to the following recommendations when filling out information:
- A neutral greeting or a smooth introduction. It must be directly related to the company's activities. Don't be afraid to start with keywords;
- Brief list of main services. To make it easier for users to read, format it as a list;
- Features of your company. Briefly describe the key benefits of the brand. What sets you apart from your competitors? (in fact, and not in your wildest fantasies). If you engage in self-praise, always add supporting arguments;
- Provide contact information (preferably several options).
Try to create a compact description. You still have time to tell us more about yourself. And it would be good if the audience had enough patience to fully get acquainted with the group’s header. Experienced users of the social network VKontakte indicated their recommended length for describing a group - 500-1000 characters without spaces.
You have already had the opportunity to familiarize yourself with unsuccessful description options. Now study a good example:
Formation of a VK group
Are you puzzled over what is better to choose – an avatar or a cover? Now you will understand why the cover is the most successful option. There are reasons for this:
- The cover is beautifully positioned around the entire perimeter of the header. This adds aesthetics and appeal to the community. Of course, if the cover is made well.
- You can indicate a lot of different information on it, and this text will not dazzle your eyes, as usually happens with an avatar (when an entire dissertation is written on a small image).
- The avatar will remain in the group and will appear in the thumbnail. By clicking on the avatar, the user will be able to look at it up close.
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:
VKontakte group content
Everything is more or less clear with the community sections. Now we move on to the key block, which will have to be dealt with on an ongoing basis. This is a variety of content.
In fact, all previous actions were taken to post this information. It's time to go on a long voyage! Ideal content in the VK community is 80% useful/educational/important information and 20% advertising.
You've started creating content. Consider the following nuances:
Language availability
It's not a sin if you know how to write in beautiful literary language. But try not to complicate it with abstruse phrases and narrow-profile terminology. Write easily, sincerely, unobtrusively.
The audience does not always want to strain their brains, because social networks are created more for relaxation and entertainment.
Clinging parts
The news feed of active users is overflowing with content for every taste. You must stand out from the crowd and be well recognized. When scrolling the feed, the user pays attention to post elements such as the title and image.
Publish original, unique and original content. Look for or create something rare, special. If you use pictures from the Internet, make sure they are up to date. Want to add a meme? Do it! But he must be at the peak of his popularity. Seals? No problem! Choose a good photo.
Content Formats
There is only one rule here: DIVERSITY. Combine photos, videos, audio files, infographics and more. Interact with the public, answer questions, hold competitions and online broadcasts.
Text decoration
Recently, the fashion for longreads has returned on social networks. But they need to be designed correctly, otherwise it will be difficult for users to perceive such a flow of information. Be sure to break the text into paragraphs. Use lists, subheadings, emoticons.
Correct links
It often happens that a VKontakte community is created to attract traffic to the site. Therefore, the group content contains links to go to various pages. For a link to be valid, it must have a URL tag. It is also recommended to use link shorteners. Tags are created for you (to track traffic), and shortened addresses are for the convenience of community members.
Optimal time to post content
There is no time of day when content explodes in all social network groups. Everything is individual. It all depends on your target audience. Try to understand one simple truth: schoolchildren, students, young mothers, pensioners and business people visit social networks at different times. And you must identify it yourself.
Conclusion
- Create a competent and attractive hat;
- Take care of the original and stylish design of the group;
- Optimize all key sections in the community;
- Post the right content.
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Today I will continue my “Immersion in VK groups”. In the third part of the “series”, I told and showed. Today, let's talk about designing the VKontakte group menu!
In the first article about creating a menu, there were a lot of questions in the comments, so before starting a new topic, I will answer frequently asked questions.
Question 1: The first and most common: “Where is the code in the menu?” or “if there is no bookmark when editing “Source Code”, how to add an internal page?” or “I still don’t understand what to do if the code doesn’t appear!”
Answer 1: VK has changed the editor, now you can switch between the visual editor and the code with just one click (upper right corner of the editor):
To check which editor you are in: move your mouse over this button, write some text and highlight it in bold - if unusual characters appear, then this is code
Question 2: The second, really problematic: “ how to remove spaces between pictures?»
Answer 2: I admit, I was scared myself when the client’s menu started working for the first time. Now I quickly edit it, but then it was not fun. See:
Add the nopadding tag; and everything will fall into place!
Space creeps in between the pictures and the menu looks broken. For the ignorant, this may not be normal, but for the ignorant, this is at least unprofessional. So what's the big deal? Ah, it's very simple! In VK there are constantly some updates, new algorithms are introduced... and even the editor is crooked... sometimes, for no apparent reason, important tags drop out of the code and then we see this picture. To fix this, you need to look into the code and make the necessary adjustments. The code format should be like this:
Template: [] Example: []
Usually menu pictures are expanded because the code leaves out nopadding; — we put it in place and everything is aligned. Before saving the result, click on the “Preview” button to make sure that everything is smooth.
Question 3: News. In October 2012, VKontakte forcibly cut off the avatars of groups and public pages. Now their size has a common standard of 200x500 pixels. So, if you had a larger avatar in your group, then make an update (update the avatar).
By the way, along with cropping, VK introduced another innovation regarding group photos: now by clicking on the avatar, we, just like in the account, will be able to see all the albums of the community. It's comfortable! And from this, new functionality is drawn in the group’s communications.
Soooo, we're done with the questions... now let's move on to creating the menu itself!
Step 1. How to create a menu in contact and make nested pages:
First of all, let’s make sure that you know how to create a group menu in contact and go through a few instructions:
What do you think of my cheat sheet?
This is the cheat sheet I came up with! For greater clarity, I will describe each number:
Do this operation with all subpages and your menu will be ready.
Eat! We created the menu, created the internal pages, filled them in, now let's move on to creating a beautiful graphic menu.
Step 2. How to create a beautiful graphic menu in Contact and install it:
I won’t give you the whole theory of how wiki markup works in contact, we have other goals now. To create a visual menu in a VK group, you don’t need to know all the wiki markup. Let's move on to creating a visual menu!
First, I’ll show you the code and result of my menu:
I admit, I made it specifically to write this article. Everyone “didn’t get around to it,” you know, like “a shoemaker without boots.” But now I have a visual menu in the VK group!
I won’t tell you how to draw a picture for the menu, that’s up to the designers, I draw it myself, but not so professionally. , at the end of the article, I gave a video on how to draw a simple menu in Photoshop, check it out, maybe you can do it on your own. If not, order the menu picture from .
I'll show you a moderately complex menu installation option. The difference is in the number of elements. A menu that is simply cut into strips is the simplest implementation. The more clickable buttons in a line, the more complex its execution. Although, knowing the peculiarity, everything is simple! It's just a matter of time. So, the width of the image should be:
370 px – if you have two or more objects in a line, like I have social media buttons
And max 388 px – if we cut the picture in a simple way, only into lines, without dividing it into small objects. This is the feature you need to know when cutting a menu into buttons. My image size for the entire menu turned out to be 370x456 px.
After the picture is cut into the required number of objects and saved in a separate album, we upload this album to VK. We upload to the account profile, not to the group! Since group albums no longer have the option to hide albums. A technical album in a corporate (for example) group is not needed at all, so we hide the menu items in the account album:
Technical album VK
Once you have set up the "Only Me" privacy. Let's move on to installing the menu itself. I’ll give you a code example that would be a template for you and let’s look at what it consists of:
[]
Where, photo7632142_296911699– this is the address of the picture! We look at it in the address bar of the picture:
From the first picture, let's start inserting a menu into the VKontakte group
You need a short address of the image, to do this go to the album itself:
Go to the album itself to get the desired image address!
...and starting from the first picture, move them to the group menu.
Adding image size to the menu code!
So, the address of the picture has been added, the size has been indicated, now we put the tag nopadding;- it is needed so that our pictures fit tightly to each other. And the last step is to put a link to the page where the visitor will go after clicking on the picture.
A little clarification here! We write external links, links to VK albums and discussions in full, and links to internal pages in the format page-32734125_44298120. At the beginning and end of the line, do not forget to put two square quotes and no spaces.
Clarification 2: when we link to internal pages without pictures, we use single square quotes for discussions, albums and external links.
Lines in which you have two or more elements are inserted into the code without spaces. Insert each line of the picture one after the other. Because if you press Enter after the line with the picture, the picture will jump to a new line and the menu will move. We need the menu to be displayed as a whole, so we don’t need any extra spaces or “interters”!
After you have transferred all the pictures to the menu and designed them (size, link), save the result and admire your work! All! Ready!
Hello friends!
Today in the article we will talk about the design of VKontakte groups. This is a very important part that significantly affects the sales and promotion of your communities, so I highly recommend reading it.
What is included in the design?
Let's start from the beginning. Many people wonder what is included in the design and how to create a VKontakte group yourself without outside help.
What is included: usually the group design includes an avatar, a menu (a special image, by clicking on which a person goes to the so-called navigation menu, which indicates the main elements of the community, so-called quick links and answers to questions). Also, optionally, the design may include special design (branding of posts).
Avatar
Let's look at each community design element separately. Let's start with the avatar. Often this element is neglected by many and this affects other elements.
An avatar is essentially the first thing a person sees in a search and when he comes to your community. On your avatar you must definitely depict what you do (if you sell goods), if you are a brand, then you will be recognized that way, but in most cases you need to depict your services or products.
I often notice that people just make some beautiful images that do not reflect the essence of the community. In addition, it is advisable to indicate contact information and a call to join the group on the community avatar.
As for the design. In fact, you can easily learn this on your own, although to do this you will need to learn Photoshop using free lessons and test everything yourself.
Therefore, I suggest you spend money and get trained by professionals. Firstly, you will gain practical skills (students usually perform work for customers), and secondly, you will be able to create communities not only for yourself, but also for customers. On average, the price for avatar and menu design starts from 1,500 rubles and above. In some cases, they charge 5-6 thousand for registration.
On average, it can take a day or two to complete both elements. I take this with reserve. You can calculate how much you can earn from this yourself. So I'll get back to learning. Here's the actual course we're talking about: http://www.1day1step.ru/design.php. The prices there are quite reasonable for training, and you can repay after 2 clients.
Community menu
Now let's talk about the community menu. The menu is based on design and the so-called wiki markup. This can also be taught and learned.
Menus are usually made for the convenience of the online shopping community (and not only in general). The menu contains links to customer reviews, product catalog and other elements. Essentially, a menu is navigation through a public page using a few mouse clicks.
The menu and avatar are immediately visible to users and new clients. And if it is designed correctly, it encourages people to join the group and subsequently place an order.
Branded posts
Not all public pages do this type of design, but those that do differ favorably from others. All posts in this case are designed in the same style and look very harmonious when a person scrolls through the community wall.
The cost of designing branded posts varies, so you need to check with the designers, but again, you can do the branding yourself.
By the way, with the help of branded posts you can be very well remembered by customers in the news feed. You will stand out from your competitors and other public sites, which again means additional interest and an influx of customers.
This is where I will end the article. I hope it was useful to you. If yes, then share the link to it on social networks and subscribe to blog updates.
Administrators of VKontakte communities will find useful tips on how to design a group to attract more subscribers. When registering, do not forget that the administrator has at his disposal not only design elements (an avatar or a banner), but also many functional parameters that together form the appearance of the group.
Important! Try to set aside at least a few hours and explore all the settings available to the community administrator. A thorough knowledge of the functionality will definitely bear fruit, and in the future you will be able to skillfully adapt to new trends.
A few effective tips will help you decorate the group beautifully and harmoniously. Try to use these tips wisely, and strive to make users want to subscribe to the group.
The advice will be useful for those who have not even created a group yet and are coming up with a name. Although, created groups with a small number of subscribers can change their name at any time in the community control panel in the “Basic information” section.
When a community founder is faced with choosing a name, it’s best not to rush. There are cases when the name is obvious (the name of the company, the name of the event, etc.), but for others, the scope of imagination can open up an endless number of options. When creating a name, consider the following important points:
Do not leave out filling out your contact information and, if possible, enter as much data as possible into it. Contact information can be divided into “Contacts” and “Links”.
“Contacts” contains quick links to the group administration. In the description for each contact, a brief description of the administration member is usually written, so do not ignore it - the appearance of “Contacts” also affects the overall design of the group.
Take note! You can create a special work page for the user and add him to your group's contact list. Name him the same as the group, then he will become the branded mascot of the group, which users can write to to find out more information about the group or the products sold in it.
This advice is suitable for those who have created not a group, but a public page selling some goods. On VKontakte, it is possible to create three types of communities: a group, a public page and an event.
Three types of communities - group, public page and event
The public page has an important design feature - there is a large banner on top that replaces the group’s avatar.
Consider creating an updated transforming banner. Place pictures of fresh products on such a banner, then change them in the image editor after each delivery. This is the first thing that will catch the visitors' eyes and potentially increase sales.
Develop a template for your group's posts. Communities look more beautiful in which all posts are designed in the same style, which will be remembered by participants when scrolling through the news feed.
On a note! Attach images with your group’s logo to posts and create an ornate grid of tags. You can even create permanent columns in the style of “News of the week” or “Minute of humor”.
Don’t deviate from the developed style and don’t be lazy to devote time to designing each post.
This idea permeates the entire article, and to achieve success, you can only remember it! Try to stick to the same design throughout. This may concern the style of writing texts, the design of images, and the creation of a block with products in a group.
Here are some more little tips for creating beauty in the VKontakte group:
Video – VKontakte group design
The social network Vkontakte is able to please its users with a huge number of beautifully designed groups. Some groups look no worse than a full-fledged website. All this is thanks to the competent design of the group’s avatar and menu. For experienced users, setting up a VKontakte group is a simple task, but if you are a beginner, our article will help you.
How to create a group in contact
Creating a beautiful banner
The first thing a user pays attention to when viewing a VKontakte group is the avatar and menu. Below we will figure out how to create two pictures in Photoshop, properly cut one of them and write a special code with external links.
Stage 1
Open the photoshop program and create a new document in it, which should have a size of 630x725 pixels. Then fill this document with white. After that, cut out two windows in the layer. The graphic design of our group will be visible through these windows. To begin, select a rectangle measuring 200x710 pixels and press the Del button. Select the next rectangle measuring 382x442, combine both rectangles at the bottom and press the Del button.
Stage 2
Under the created layer we place the graphic design of our group. The most convenient way would be to write the required text in advance on the picture with the main background and create several menu items.
Stage 3
Now we save the right rectangle measuring 200x710 pixels as a separate image. We received a completely finished image for the design of our group. It should be uploaded to the block located in the upper right corner of the group, where you will find the “Upload photo” button.
What do we do with the left picture? We cut the left picture into several parts depending on the number of menu items. For example, if we have 5 menu items, then in the end we get 5 images with a width of 382 pixels and a height of at least 50 pixels.
Stage 4
We upload the resulting 5 pictures to the group album: My photos - My albums - Add photos. After this, go to the group page and select the special “News” block, which can be renamed “Group Menu”. Click the “edit” button.
Stage 5
Go to the “Source Code” tab. The code located in the lower window should be copied and pasted into the “source code”. In the code, we change photo to file names and indicate the height of the file (width 382 pixels). Then paste the url of the menu links. We take the name for the file from the album. The open picture looks something like this http://vkontakte.ru/photo7236095_23453800. Everything that comes after photo is the name of the picture.
Stage 6
In order for the pictures to fit perfectly, the name of the group should be in one line, the description in ten lines, and the website url in one line.
Wiki markup VKontakte
How to create a VKontakte group using wiki markup
What is wiki markup?
Wiki markup is a page editing system similar to HTML. In addition to the VKontakte social network, wiki markup is used to edit articles on Wikipedia. Wiki markup is much simpler than html and is easy to understand even for a beginner.
Before you get ready to design your VKontakte group, decide on the type of design. The design can be text or graphic.
How to create a VKontakte group, menu design
Text menu with icons
The code for this menu will look like this:
The code begins and ends with tags. Each icon has the form [] and description text.
Graphic menu
The code for this menu looks like this:
! !! !!
We have superficially figured out what wiki markup consists of and what it is intended for. If you want to learn more detailed information about wiki markup, visit the official group on the VKontakte social network
