SMM promotion in social networks. Promotion in a social network: how to promote a VKontakte group Promotion of a group in social networks

A successful business on the Internet can be built on almost everything, from creating your own website to using social networks. Each user of the social networks In contact with, Facebook or Odnoklassniki can absolutely create a community for free that can be used as a platform for earning.

Promoting a group is not so easy, so novice community owners are looking for useful information on promoting their site. In this article, we have collected 16 chips for promoting groups in social networks. networks, using which you can promote your community much more effectively.

How to promote groups in social. networks?

• Highlight the most active users among the community subscribers and reward them by placing their photo on the group avatar.
• Ask questions to subscribers, try to understand what exactly worries them and, if possible, solve their problem.
• Conduct your own research, according to the topics of your community and share the results in the group.
• Give subscribers the opportunity to leave their posts in the group.
• Encourage group members to take action, such as helping run an experiment.
• Be sure to ask users to put likes and reposts (motivational pictures).
• Post up-to-date information (news) that will be of interest to subscribers.
• To attract subscribers from other groups, distribute guest posts.
• Hold interesting contests, even if the prize fund is not significant, it will attract attention.
• Find a few admins for the group who will add content to the community.
• Create albums to add pictures of your members.
• Start raising money for charity, this can increase the level of trust of subscribers.
• Try to be stable and add a certain number of new posts every day.
• Communicate with subscribers, support dialogues in comments and discussions.
• In parallel with accompanying the group, launch interesting events and advertise the community.
• On holidays, you can treat your subscribers with gifts, even a small gift will be nice to receive just like that.

Many owners of popular communities in social networks started from scratch and gradually came to higher and higher results. Despite the fact that now there are already many groups, there is a chance to succeed in this area and it depends on you whether you take advantage of it.

I recommend visiting the following pages:

—

Everyone makes mistakes when promoting in social networks. But then what is the difference between a good specialist and a bad one? The fact that the first learns both from his own and from the mistakes of others. We have collected the most common shortcomings in the promotion of communities.

Mistake 1: promotion of groups is a quick business

One of the most common mistakes when promoting communities is to expect quick results. Sometimes groups "take off" very quickly, but this is an exception to the rule. Moreover, no one will tell you the exact terms for which the promotion of the community will give the desired result. For one topic, a month is enough, and for another, it may take six months. Of course, you can promote the group by winding up subscribers. But will these people benefit your business?

To recruit the right subscribers, who will be your actual target audience, you need to promote the group only by "white" methods. But even in this case, you should not count on an instant increase in sales. The connection between group promotion and sales may not be obvious due to its length in time. The fact is that often the client needs a lot of contacts with advertising to make his choice. He watches ads, reads reviews, follows publications on social networks, and only then makes a choice in your favor. If you do not have a group on the social network, the choice will most likely be made in favor of those brands that are there.

Mistake 2: Everyone can promote communities

From the outside it may seem that running a group on a social network is very simple. It is enough to entrust this to one of the employees of the marketing department, and in addition to the main activity, and the job is done. Such an employee can start active promotion activities (as he himself understands this process).

However, it will likely cool down quickly. As a result, the group will become "dead", and this can seriously damage your reputation. Judge for yourself: a potential client enters the community hoping to get information and sees that the information in it has not been updated for several months. Most likely, he will conclude that the company is not working and will go looking for competitors.

Another mistake of "amateur" is the temptation to take a successful case of promoting a group on a social network and try to transfer it to your company. Promotion is an individual process. If a technique worked for some, then it is not at all a fact that it will work for others. You need to promote your group according to a strategy designed specifically for it.

Community management involves a deep dive into the interests of the target audience. You must understand what she likes and what, on the contrary, annoys. To feel this, logging into the social network once a day for 10 minutes is not enough. The result of such a "promotion of the group" will tend to zero. The conclusion is simple: you need a separate specialist who will promote the group all his working time.

Mistake 3: silent promotion of the group

It's not uncommon for a company executive to think that the community is just an addition to the site. In this case, the entire promotion of the group turns into posting news posts that have closed comments. As a result, you lose the main advantage of social networks - the possibility of direct communication with the target audience.

It is also very important to answer any questions and do it as quickly as possible, in extreme cases - during the day. All your community promotion efforts will be useless if people don't get answers. But the answers must also be "live". If your employees give out formulaic formalized remarks without reference to the situation, you are unlikely to win the love of subscribers.

Here it is necessary to say about the work with the negative. In any community, not only in social networks, but in general on the Internet, you will meet with negativity. Such comments in a group cannot be ignored or, even worse, deleted. By doing so, you will only make things worse. You need to work with the negative, that is, talk with those who are dissatisfied, but do not dismiss it, but really try to solve their problems. If you can help a dissatisfied customer, then turn the negative into a positive and improve your reputation.

Mistake 4: the group just like that

It would be a big mistake to create a community without any specific goals, simply because the group, for example, was started by a competing company. From such a "promotion" will do more harm than good. Activity in such a group will be haphazard, which will lead potential customers to think about the mess in your company. Without a specific goal and strategy, the promotion will quickly come to naught, and there will be one more “dead” group on the social network. We have already written above about the harm that an abandoned community will bring to your company.

If you create a group and decide to promote it, then first answer yourself the question why do this. Do you want to build a channel for interacting with customers, or do you need a new way to sell? Do you need to test a new service, or are you determined to increase the average bill? Would you like to strengthen your brand reputation or establish a channel for upselling? Depending on the goals of promotion in the social network, you will need to choose your group promotion strategy. Agree, you can achieve a result only if you understand what you need.

Mistake 5: no time to think, you need to promote

It would be a serious mistake to invest a lot of money in the first communication channel you like without testing it. For example, for the entire budget, purchase advertising in thematic groups. Of course, you may be lucky and a large number of subscribers will come to the group, but most likely the money will be wasted. It would be wiser to test several channels first, and choose the one that will bring the most return.

Another mistake is to start promotion without analyzing the experience of promoting groups of competitors. Not only positive but also negative examples are important here. See how big players in your niche behave, how they communicate with customers, what materials they post and how users react to them. This way you will not only "peep" good ideas, but you will also be able to stand out from your competitors in order to better position yourself. Just borrow wisely too. Do not copy, but take a good idea and adapt it for yourself.

It is important to analyze not only other companies, but also your potential audience. You need to try to deeply understand her in order to post in the group what she really likes. Otherwise, it may happen that you spend money on creating expensive content that will not be interesting for subscribers.

Mistake 6: The group is the second site

It would be a big mistake to confuse the community on the social network with the site and publish the same content in the group. Groups have different rules. Posts with a lot of text or monotonous publications do not work here. The topics of messages should be alternated according to their direction, for example: news, a comic test, a survey about a product, a contest. Remember that there should be much more entertaining and informational posts than promotional ones. All people come to the group not to read one advertisement.

Also pay attention to the design of the images. It is highly desirable that all of them are not just taken from the Internet, but are designed in the same style, for example, with the same frame made in corporate colors.

There are many more mistakes

We have listed only the main mistakes that can be made when promoting a group on a social network. Everyone involved in promotion probably has their own list, but that's not the point. Using this knowledge, you will be able to organize your social group effectively. And if all this seemed too complicated for you, you can always find a company that will do this work for you.

Useful 0

Dmitry Dementy

The site of the social network "VKontakte" is one of the most visited in Runet. With the help of the most popular platform among Russian-speaking users, people solve various problems: from personal communication and finding friends to building a network of business contacts and finding employees, from self-expression and entertainment to business promotion and online trading.

This guide is dedicated to promoting the VKontakte business. In it you will find a step-by-step plan: from creating a community or a page to life hacks and tools for advanced users.

1. Start with planning

Determine the purpose and objectives of the project activity in the VKontakte social network. Remember, a goal is a planned result. Objectives are steps that help you achieve a goal.

Decide how you will interact with the audience, what information to offer to potential and existing customers, what user problems you can solve. Ilya Rabchenok calls this the community concept.

Be sure to record the results of planning in a form convenient for you.

2. Determine the type of community you need

To promote a business on the VKontakte network, you can create a group or a public page. Use a group if you plan to encourage members to post and start discussions on their own. The group is an informal discussion platform with which you can find out the mood of the audience, manage the reputation of the brand.

Choose a public page if you plan to publish official information, branded content and manage discussions yourself. In most cases, a public page is more suitable for business promotion.

To promote conferences, trainings, webinars, use the "Event" type of community.

3. Choose the right page type

Select the appropriate type and click Create Page.

4. Create a page description

Public pages are indexed by search engines. Therefore, publish an informative description that will help potential customers find the public.

If necessary, select a Snapster room and set up export to Twitter.

5. Choose the best settings

In the "Sections" settings menu, check the boxes for the options you want. In the "Comments" menu, enable or disable the ability to comment and, if necessary, enable the filter for obscene expressions and keywords. In the "Links" block, link to resources useful for the audience, and in the "Working with API" block, if necessary, connect the API.

6. Design a group

We have an amazingly useful and detailed guide on our blog "Designing a VKontakte group". Use it to select and implement the right community look and feel. After registration, you can continue to promote the group.

If at the moment you cannot devote time to the appearance of the public, return to it later. Don't forget that a visually appealing design helps the user form a positive first impression of a group or page. So don't put off working on community design.

In the meantime, at least select and upload a suitable page avatar. Try to find or create a unique image. It must meet the following requirements:

• Avatar size - 200 by 500 pixels.
• Thumbnail size - 200 by 200 pixels.
• jpeg format, maximum quality, baseline (standard).
• The image should grab the attention of users and encourage them to click through to the page.
• The semantic content of the avatar should correspond to the theme of the page.
• The image must be of high quality.

Please note that when uploading to the VKontakte website, the quality of images drops. To avoid this, use the life hack from the VKontakte support team:

• Open the image in Photoshop.
• Increase the size to 2560 by 2048.
• Press the keyboard shortcut Alt + Shift + Ctrl + S. In the window that opens, set the maximum quality and convert the image to sRGB format.
• Drag the image to the upload area instead of using the upload button.

7. Tell your friends about the page

Use the "Tell Friends" feature to invite your followers to follow your page. Follow this recommendation when you post multiple posts to a group or page.

8. Invite friends to subscribe to the page

Invite your friends to subscribe to the page using private messages (this tactic really works, proven in practice). Also ask your followers to tell their friends about the page.

9. Enter the URL of the page in the contact details on the personal page

This will help attract followers who are interested in your personal profile.

10. Indicate your place of work in your personal profile

When you hover over the name of the company in the "Place of work" section of your personal profile, a preview of the group or page pops up. And in the "Career" section, a clickable public avatar is displayed.

In order for a link to a company group to appear in the "Place of work" section, select the "Career" section in the settings of your personal page. In the "Place of work" item, use the drop-down menu to select the desired page.

11. Post interesting and useful content

The publication of useful and interesting content is a key factor in the successful promotion of a business on the VKontakte network. Therefore, it needs to be decrypted.

You will have to compete for views and subscriptions in the face of excess content. In order for VKontakte users to pay attention to your publications, the information must be really valuable.

The following ideas will help you offer customers really worthwhile information:

• Be sure to start with planning. Create a content plan in a form convenient for you. Plan for the long term. Our articles “SMM plan in 30 minutes” and “How to create an editorial plan for social media posts” will help.
• When planning content, consider the features of VKontakte and the preferences of the audience of this network. Look for information in our article "Working with content in different social networks".
• Even if you produce and sell very solid and super-serious products, learn how to get an emotional response from the audience. This is a condition for survival in a content environment filled with memes. Read insanely helpful articles about emotional content and the intellectualization of sex drive.
• Write specifically for the VKontakte audience. Post unique information, not reposts of blog posts. To design a publication, use the article editor.
• Post videos with subtitles. As a rule, they get much more coverage than regular posts. We talked about how to make such a video for free in the following video:

12. Style posts with wiki markup

This is a handy tool with which you can beautifully draw up notes in groups and publics. If you manage a group, to create a wiki page, you just need to open the materials in the section settings. After that, the "Edit" button will appear on the "Latest News" tab, which will activate the note editor.

To create a publication on a public page, copy the following link into your browser: https://vk.com/pages?oid=-***&p=page_name. Replace the characters *** with the public id, and instead of page_name, specify the name of the publication. On the page that opens, click on the "Fill with content" link.

The community ID can be found in the URL. If you've changed the page's URL to something user friendly, go to the Community Posts section. Find the numbers in the link. This is the identifier.

13. Design publications using the article editor

In 2018, VKontakte presented a full-fledged article editor. To go to the editor, click on the icon with the letter "T" in the creation panel of the publication.

The editor is intuitive. He himself places indents between elements and aligns the content. Clicking on the "+" sign allows you to add visual content or an audio track.

14. Share stories with your followers

16. Use Scheduled Posts

Use the "Timer" function to prepare content in advance and publish it at a selected time. To do this, in the publication field, select the options "Attach - other - timer". Select a posting time and click the "Queue" button.

25. Post ads in communities

26. Use Retargeting

With this tool, you can show ads to users who have visited your site. Create a retargeting pixel in your ad account. Paste it into the code of the site pages. The system will add visitors to the site or individual sections to the audience.

Life hack: add a retargeting pixel to your site right now, even if you don’t plan to advertise your business on VKontakte yet. This does not affect resource efficiency or page loading speed. The system will add potential customers to the audience. You will be able to show them ads in a month or a year.

27. Improve Targeting Accuracy with Pepper

29. Post a relevant video

Please note that this paragraph describes a prohibited reception. A couple of years ago, with his help, a colleague and I increased the number of group members from a few hundred to 5,000 in a few weeks. You can use it at your own risk. Think about what kind of video your target audience is interested in. For example, subscribers to cooking groups watch related TV shows.

Users often search for the latest episodes of their favorite TV programs on social media. You can download pirated recordings from file sharing services or video hosting sites and publish them on the VKontakte page. Audience representatives will find the video they are interested in, watch it and subscribe to your page. This tactic brings several dozen subscribers on the day the video is published.

Be sure to delete the video a few hours after posting. Firstly, it will protect you from the problems associated with publishing someone else's content. Secondly, within a few hours, your competitors will also publish a popular video, so the flow of visitors and subscribers will stop.

30. Analyze statistical data

In the “Page Statistics” section, the public administrator has access to the “Attendance”, “Reach” and “Activity” tabs. On the Attendance tab, pay attention to the views and unique visitors data.

Keep track of the age characteristics of the audience and the geography of visits. Consider the types of devices your audience prefers.

You also need data about referrers and subscribers/unsubscribers. Data on the number of users who joined and left the group is available in the standard statistical report (see the illustration below). And you will receive a list of names of people who have joined and unsubscribed using Applications "Deserter".

Screencast showing how to use the Deserter app:

The Reach tab will help you estimate how many people are viewing your posts. The Activity tab will help you analyze user behavior.

If you are not satisfied with standard statistical reports, use the free SocialStats service. It provides access to advanced audience data as well as user behavior analysis. Service Group Comparison will help to compare audiences of communities. And the Repost Tree app will help you identify users who share your posts.

Additional useful services for collecting statistics and solving other problems are described in our article "Overview of 45 services and applications for VKontakte administrators".

31. Monitor Community Activity with the Moderator App

32. Promote a page on a corporate website

33. Promote the page in the mailing list

Mention the page "VKontakte" in the mailing list. Also include a link to the public in the letter template.

34. Post links to your pages and groups on social networks in the header of the site

The illustration shows how it looks in practice.

35. Post a link to the page in your email signature

To change the signature in Gmail, use the "Settings - Signature" menu. In the Mail.ru box, use the "Settings - name and signature" menu. In the Yandex mail service, use the menu "Settings - Personal data, name and signature - Add signature".

36. Conduct surveys

Polls increase audience engagement. To create a poll, in the publish field, select the Add - Poll menu. Use anonymous surveys to make users more willing to take part in them.

In 2018, VKontakte introduced Polls 2.0. Now you can add a background to polls, limit the time it takes, and allow you to select multiple answers.

37. Add Useful Links to Your Page

38. Invite the audience to participate in discussions

Create multiple discussion threads that are of interest to your audience. Keep discussions going.

40. Raffle prizes among subscribers

You will attract new subscribers if you play prizes and give gifts. Question price? From a cup with a logo to infinity. Use the app "Competition Manager" to manage draws effectively. Our guide "VKontakte contests: how to get the desired results and not get banned" will help organize and hold the competition.

41. Offer Discounts to Subscribers

You won't believe what people are willing to do for discounts. And everyone will agree to subscribe to the page for the sake of a discount.

Life hack: sellers and manufacturers of thematic goods can advertise for free in the Shaving Classics group. To do this, it is enough to provide a discount to community members. This is one of the incentives for users to join the group.

42. Allow followers to upload photos, post their photos

This is another way to get user-generated content and stimulate discussion. The idea is perfectly implemented in the Shaving Classics group. Community members upload photos of razors to the main album. Almost every photo gets a lot of likes and comments. The album is displayed on the main page of the community. This is perhaps the most popular section in the group.

43. Set a Relevant Page Status

You can announce a contest, announce a sale, or invite users to join a community. You can use a slogan as a status.

44. Post entertaining content

Don't limit yourself to official content. Post funny photos, demotivators, memes, prank videos. More visual content! VKontakte users love it.

45. Ask the audience to share posts

You can limit yourself to a simple “repost is welcome”, justify the need to share the publication from the point of view of science, or use other tactics.

46. ​​Pay attention to the visual appeal of publications

Hundreds of content appear daily in your followers' feeds. In order for people to read your post, it must grab attention. This problem is solved by bright interesting photos. Cats, light erotica, photo-toads - all means are good in SMM.

47. Use provocative headlines

The headline should sell the subscriber a view of the article. So create killer headlines.

48. Advertise your page offline

Publish the page name and URL on printed products, business cards, souvenirs.

49. Steal content ideas from competitors

52. Post viral content

True virality is almost impossible to plan. But it's worth a try. Every industry has its own recipes for creating viral content. Experiment, use different tools and formats, follow the reaction of the audience. Useful information about virality can be found in our publications:

• What is viral content.

  If you want to comment on behalf of a page or group, use the drop-down menu in the comment form to select the desired account.

  
  

  55. Link to the page in publications on the site

  56. Trade your subscription for a free service

  Conduct free webinars, audit sites and pages, process photos, consult clients. As a payment, require users to subscribe to your page.

  
  

  60. (Don't) use SmoFast or Forumok

  61. Write an article "50 reasons to join our VKontakte group"

  List all the reasons why users should join your VKontakte page. Promote it on all possible platforms.

  62. Livestream

  Broadcast educational events, speeches at conferences, screencasts. Use the App or stream from desktop. To do this, go to the "Videos" section of the community and use the corresponding function.

  
  

  63. Explore the TOP 30 applications for VKontakte

  Test each of the 30 apps listed here in this list. We are sure many of them will be useful to you.

  64. Subscribe to the best SMM publics

  To be in the trend of events taking place in the field and be the first to learn about new ways to promote VKontakte. A list of such publics can be viewed.

  65. Create an article "The best publics on your topic" and include your group there

  Do you think why advertise competitors? Believe me, this makes sense. We have seen this in practice. Within a week after the publication of such an article on our blog, the number of subscribers in our VKontakte group began to grow steadily. The same effect is observed when the Texterra public is mentioned in similar lists in other thematic groups.

  66. Post Jobs

  This will help you find candidates faster, but that's not the point. Potential customers trust a business that actively hires employees.

Spring is coming, and not only snowdrops, but also grandmothers will begin to appear. Forever as they sit on a bench near the house, and let's all " wash the bones". Nothing can get them out of there. Take money from them for it! Although we don't recommend it. It’s better to make money on your “bench” in social networks. But before monetizing the "bench", you first need to start promoting it. Consider how to promote a VKontakte group:

Public Vkontakte

Do you know why there are fewer people on the streets now? Of course, TV is to blame. But the main factor that keeps people within the walls of their homes is the Internet. Or rather, the ability to communicate virtually without leaving the apartment.

And most of this real-virtual audience spend their free time in social networks. Therefore, it would be foolish not to start promoting a group in contact, in order to make money on it later.

But in addition to groups in this social network, there is another option for how to make money on communicating with people. Although this is no longer an option, but a hierarchical element of the division of the “social” space of VKontakte, standing between a personal page and a group. It's called a public

Public is understood as a public page located on the VKontakte social network. The main purpose of the public is the ability for the author to quickly and effectively inform as many users of the leading Russian social network as possible.

Such a page can be used to post entertaining, informational or educational content.

Public can be not only an author's resource, but also a commercial one. Any company can create and promote a Vkontakte public. And also use it to promote your brand, products, and inform customers about the expansion of the product range. Or post announcements of upcoming promotions, holiday discounts and other interesting information in your public.

At the same time, compared to the same group, the public page has a number of advantages:

• The public advances more easily than the group - in part, the process of promoting the public is easier due to the fact that it combines a narrower layer of acquaintances and friends;
• It is easy to find advertisers - publics are considered a more effective platform for placing advertising information than a group in the same social network. Therefore, it will not be difficult to find those who want to advertise in a successful public. In addition, with such demand, it is easy to set your own cost for placement. Although if you properly engage in the promotion of a group in contact, then its advertising effectiveness will also increase;
• The public is displayed on the personal page of the subscriber - if a user of the social network VKontakte subscribed to your public, then his name will be displayed in the section " interesting pages» on the personal page of the subscriber. And this is an additional and free promotion for your public.

But in addition to the positive aspects, the public page of VKontakte has one significant drawback. And the most unpleasant thing is that it manifests itself at the first stages of the existence of the public.

Unlike a public group, for the first time after its foundation, it is characterized by low user activity.

Although this shortcoming can be successfully overcome if you choose the right topic. Also, this should be taken into account before promoting the public in contact.

The right choice of topic and age of the audience

The success of a public largely depends on its subject matter and on the age of its target audience (subscribers). Let's start with an overview of the age component:

The least demanded by advertisers is the age audience under 18 years old. Such a contingent is not distinguished by high purchasing power. But on the other hand, the public, the theme of which is designed for teenagers, is the easiest to promote. Since teenagers are the most active part of the entire mass of social network users. They easily make contact, spend a lot of time within the social network and in every possible way contribute to the promotion of the VKontakte page.

The next most important group is young people aged 18 to 24. Although this contingent has a higher purchasing power, it is still not in great demand among advertisers. And the cost of advertising in the public, designed for this age group, will also not be too high.

The most effective on such pages is the advertising of other publics, the sale of branded items, inexpensive perfumes and stylish jewelry. Therefore, this age audience is ideal for running their small-scale business within the leading Russian social network.

And the most desirable is the age group from 25 to 40 years. These people are the most sought after among advertisers.

There are already other (higher) prices for advertising. At the same time, the author of a promoted public, the subject of which is interesting to this part of the audience, will be able to make good money and easily find those who want to buy up the advertising space of the page. And all because the age group of 25-40 years old has a high purchasing activity and most often makes expensive purchases online.

Among all the themes of publics, the most profitable and in demand both among users and advertisers are:

Public promotion methods

Now let's talk about the possible methods of promoting VKontakte and their effectiveness. The main indicator of any public is the number of subscribers: the more there are, the more significant and authoritative it looks in the eyes of visitors and potential advertisers. Therefore, consider ways to increase the number of subscribers.

Let's start with the free options:

• Mass mailing of messages - for this you need to go to a large public, the subject of which matches yours. And then send out a message with a proposal to join your public to all those who shared the news. The efficiency of this method is up to 30%. But do not be zealous with such a promotion of VKontakte subscribers, otherwise you may be banned. It is also worth considering that no more than 20 messages can be sent from one account. So, most likely, you will have to spend money on specialized software;
• Posting messages in comments - this method is based on posting messages in comments left in publics or groups with open discussion. Their subject should match the subject of your public page. It would be better if you add some cool picture to your message. Then the probability of reading your comment by other users increases. The main disadvantage of this method is a high probability of being banned:

• Placing graphic messages - this approach is in many ways similar to the first two methods, but instead of text messages, a picture (photo) is placed with a proposal to join the public. This method of promoting the VKontakte group is more laborious and not always highly efficient;
• Using a fake account - for this you will have to create a fake account of a seductive girl yourself ( if your target audience is men). Then you need to fill it in as carefully as possible. After that, we repost a large amount of material from our public on the fake wall. The advantages of this method include obtaining a specific target audience. The main disadvantage is the laboriousness of maintaining and filling a fake account;
• " Contests" - in order to implement this slightly " scam" method with your own hands, you should organize a " contest", the terms of which involve drawing an expensive gift among those who repost this material. Of course, no gift really exists. This method is characterized by low efficiency and a high probability of getting a ban if there are a large number of complaints:

• Exchange of advertising with other publics - based on the mutual exchange of posts with communities, the topics of which have much in common with your public. An effective way to promote a community, which should be used if it has more than 70 thousand subscribers.

Now consider the paid promotion methods:

• Direct advertising in large communities - this method is based on advertising your page in large publics (from 150 thousand subscribers). The cost for each new subscriber averages from 1 to 3 rubles. This method is highly effective in the shortest possible time. But not everyone can “pull” its cost;
• Placing public advertisements through third-party exchanges - such VKontakte promotion services include trendio.ru. But the cost of the service is an order of magnitude higher than if you negotiate the placement of advertising directly without intermediaries:

• Links to a public page in another community - a link to your public page will be placed in a special block. An inexpensive method, but its effectiveness depends on the popularity of the advertising platform itself (the number of subscribers). It is best to deal with large publics;
• Placing a public widget on a thematic resource is a rather expensive way to use the site to promote VKontakte groups. This will require not only a lot of funds, but also specialized software (for example, the Boom Social plugin):

• Advertising in VKontakte applications - for this you need to find a promoted game (application) that your target audience is interested in. And then agree with the owner (administrator) on the placement of public advertising in the application. An effective promotion method.

Programs for promotion

Most often, for self-promotion of the public, special parsers are required, with the help of which you can “screen out” hundreds of accounts. Here are a few such applications and information on how much such a program costs.

It is foolish to think that among 90 million users you will not find customers. However, users have already had enough of numerous communities and groups, they are much less willing to join new ones. Competition also affects, if a person is already subscribed to a couple of groups "Cargo transportation to ...", then, most likely, he will not go to another one. Of course, if he is not pushed to do it, which I will talk about in this article.

Define the goal

You need to start SMM promotion with a clear definition of the goal. Many do not understand what they need and that is why they immediately go down the wrong path. Why would a company that operates in a city of 20,000 people want to recruit 50,000 into its group? For likes and comments? But the company needs sales.

Goals can be as follows:

• Getting feedback from clients;
• Sale of goods or services;
• Informing clients;
• Brand promotion;
• Recruitment of the target audience for further work with it;
• Hiring employees (you can create a personnel reserve);
• And many more options.

Having defined the goal, you will determine your target audience, which will greatly help in further promotion, choosing a social network and presence strategy.

Choosing a social network

Today, most often they work with Facebook, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki and Instagram. You can make communities and pages on all social networks, or you can choose only one or two. In general, VKontakte has advantages in terms of audience size in almost any area. One simple example.

The most popular community on Facebook for the query "Kazan":

And Vkontakte:

But this does not mean that you need to limit yourself to only VKontakte, even if there is the largest audience.

When choosing, you should focus on the format of the social network.

In contact with- the most popular social network in Russia, demographics are represented as widely as possible. Suitable for posting any content. The competition is very strong, especially if we talk about communities in general, which are very numerous. That is, VKontakte users do not experience a lack of attention, most often a lot of new posts appear in their news feeds every day.

Classmates- the audience intersects with the audience of VKontakte, most of the users who are on Odnoklassniki are also on VKontakte. It used to be that Odnoklassniki had a more mature audience, but today there are a lot of young people there. If the user puts "Class" on your post, then he shares it with his friends, this is the main feature that you need to consider. That is, in Odnoklassniki, you can promote a page due to excellent content.

Facebook– the audience is more mature and solvent, thanks to which this network is considered one of the best platforms for B2C. There is access to an international audience, Russian social networks do not have such an opportunity. Cheap targeted advertising is also a feature of Facebook.

Instagram- well suited for the visual presentation of your products and services. The audience here is much younger than in any other social network, the number of registered users is growing. A good platform for B2C, however, Instagram is well suited for brand promotion, and not just for sales.

Twitter- suitable for informing about important events, it can be used to redirect users to other social networks, reporting new posts. The audience of Twitter is politically and socially more active offline, in this it is about two times ahead of the audience of other social networks.

YouTube– the audience is huge, but many watch videos on third-party resources. Suitable for promoting a brand (often personal), goods or services. Better than other social networks for B2B, many CEOs watch videos that are related to their field of activity.

The optimal solution is to use several social networks, using their strengths. In some social networks, you have the ability to search by specified parameters, so you can estimate the size of the audience, its interests and other information.

SMM promotion methods

SMM methods can be divided into white, gray and black. The difference lies in cost, effectiveness, and compliance with social media rules and sometimes legislation.

White Methods

Targeted advertising

Contests

A popular way that allows you to significantly increase the number of subscribers in a short time even when you use inexpensive prizes. The downside is that a large number of freebie lovers will sign up. For the entertainment community, this method of promotion is quite acceptable, but for business it is not very effective. Here it is better to offer not prizes, but discounts in limited quantities. So you increase the likelihood that those who are really interested in your products or services will subscribe.

In fact, a good and useful community will develop on its own, although you will have to spend money on the initial audience. SMM promotion for companies should not be about finding subscribers, but about finding customers, this should never be forgotten. And customers are worth much more than subscribers.

SEO

SEO should also be applied in social networks, where keywords must also be indicated in the description of communities and pages, both for searching in the social network itself and for search engines. SEO will not become the main way to promote, but it will be able to give additional subscribers. Please note that for many commercial requests in the TOP there is a Vkontakte group.

User interaction

A laborious method, but free and can be effective. It is suitable for Twitter and Instagram, where the company account has the ability to like or comment on user posts, and in this case it is very easy to search for them using hashtags. In other social networks, the method is less effective and more like crowd marketing. I classified this method as white, since in this case spam in comments or other actions that are useless for users are not supposed.

Gray methods

Cheat by bots or cheat by offers

You can catch up with the bot community quickly and relatively cheaply. Offers (people who subscribe, like, etc. for a certain fee) will cost more, but in both cases, the effectiveness of this SMM promotion method will be low, since you will not get targeted subscribers.

The good news is that in social networks, one of the ranking factors is the number of followers. For example, VKontakte will always show the groups and communities with the most members in the first places. The downside is that using this method can block your community, offers are banned less often than bots, but there are complaints about this on thematic forums. Commercial communities are more at risk.

Spam in comments or private messages

Spam is prohibited by the rules of any social network, spammers' accounts are banned quite quickly, but this method is much better than the previous one. Just because you spam links to your community, if a person subscribes, it means that they are at least interested in it. That is, some kind of audience can be obtained.

You can write in private messages, but today it is less and less effective. Firstly, private messages from strangers are increasingly closed to users, and secondly, after several complaints about spam, the account will be blocked. In some social networks, it will be possible to quickly unblock it, here study the rules of social networks.

Mass following

Mass following - following users, in the hope that they will subscribe in response. The method is relevant, first of all, for Instagram, where it is one of the main ones in promotion. It is possible to use this method in other social networks, where fake pages of people are created for this, who are massively added as friends, and then offer to subscribe to the pages.

Black methods

Black methods usually violate not only the rules of social networks, but are also a criminal offense. For example, here spam is done from hacked accounts, and links are sent by friends who, in this case, trust the sender much more.

Black methods of SMM promotion are associated with account hacking or vulnerabilities in social networks themselves. I do not recommend using them.