How to create a VKontakte group and properly design it for business, communication, making money, online store

Why do you need a group on VK?

A VK group or community is an association of subscribers based on interests that allows you to conduct business, learn news, communicate, exchange information, opinions, conduct discussions or just have fun.

For businesses, this is an opportunity to communicate with their customers and receive feedback.

The community can be used as:

Representative business;
Internet media;
Association of interests for communication;
Fan club;
A platform for conducting paid courses and trainings;

The fundamental difference between a community and a personal page is that its members can also add materials to the community.

Flexible privacy settings and appointments of managers allow you to conduct almost any type of social activity in communities: from business and trade unions to fan clubs of stars or films.

Creating a group (page) in contact

Anyone who is registered there can create a page in a contact. It is enough to decide on the topic under which it will be made. The topic must be chosen so that it is of interest to the hundreds of thousands of people who want to subscribe to it.

If you decide, then create it and design it beautifully. Come up with an interesting text that should already entice people to subscribe to the page.

Pages about statements of famous people, with beautifully selected pictures, are usually very popular. Not even thousands, but millions of people join such groups. But your group should be distinguished by its zest, it should provide subscribers with something of its own.

An example of a contact page that has collected more than a million subscribers:

How to create a group on VK for dummies

Open the Groups on your personal page and click the Create a community .

Creating a group in contact

A window will open to select the type of community.

Choosing a community type

It seems that we see 6 options to choose from.

In fact, there are only 3 of them:

Interest Group;
Public page;
Event.

The top three views were created to make selection and configuration easier for users for whom the concepts of “group” and “public page” did not clearly indicate anything.

Business (cafe, store, fitness club, bank, cinema, workshop) and thematic community (news and posters, entertainment, thematic blogs and media) are all public pages. Whatever you choose, it will be a public page. The only differences are in the preliminary settings that were made at the time the community was created.

A brand or organization (product, film, company, educational institution, charitable foundation) is a group.

How not to make a mistake in choosing the type of community

Each type of community solves its own problems. I’ll tell you about all 6 types, indicating the presets. The actual type of community will be indicated in brackets.

Within one type (group, public page or event), all features of this type are available, regardless of the selected presets (business, thematic community, brand or organization, interest group, public page, event). Missing settings can be enabled later.

Public page - for doing business and selling goods and services, media and online magazines. A personal brand is also packaged into a public page.

The administrator can add the company address, days and hours of operation of the company, and button settings for communicating with clients. This type is suitable for shops, fitness clubs, workshops, pizzerias, bars, cinema halls, hairdressers, manicure salons. In general, for companies providing services and selling goods and for the media.

Group - suitable for creating a community of interests, entertainment topics, i.e. for selling advertising. You can create closed groups to conduct secret communities or closed paid trainings. Groups are also able to indicate the address and place goods. But they are still more aimed at communication between subscribers.

An event is a slightly more specific type, created more for organizing one-time or periodic events: master classes, concerts, performances, trainings. It’s easier to invite participants, but it’s already functional in terms of selling goods.

If you plan to run your business or entertainment portal permanently, then choose between a group and a public page.

Each type has its own advantages. I’ll say right away that you can effectively use the strengths of both types and transfer a community from one type to another after creation, no more than once a month.

Groups and public pages cannot be exchanged for an event, just as an event cannot be exchanged for groups and public pages.

Be careful when choosing.

To make it easier to make your choice, read the article about the differences between a group and a public VKontakte page.

Click on the desired option and proceed to setting the parameters.

How to use VK for business, what tools are there on the social network for this?

It’s not enough to just design a beautiful page or group and start running a VK business. In fact, this is a simple, but labor-intensive and multifaceted job. You need to perform several tasks simultaneously:

ensure unloading of goods or services and descriptions thereof;
publish quality content;
provide as complete information as possible;
promote your business and expand your target audience;
provide feedback and much more.

VKontakte has special tools that simplify the process of doing business. These include:

statistics – allows you to track user activity, interest in a certain topic, determine the coverage of users for a selected period;
“Products” function – allows you to conveniently present your products to users in the form of a convenient card with an image, description, price indication and a feedback button with the seller;
targeted advertising, which is represented by more than 20 types from demographics to behavior;

advertising tools include advertising in communities, getting into the news feed, viral marketing;
conducting surveys, competitions, prize draws;
creating groups and public pages where you can set up auto-posting and increase subscribers;
advertising on external resources, promotion in search engines.

How to properly set up a group, public page, event

The settings when creating a group, public page, and event are different.

What all three types of settings have in common is the name and theme.

How to name a group on VK

In order for a group to be popular, promote well and people can easily find it, the name must be approached responsibly.

Namely: the group should be called as people are looking for similar topics in search.

For example, if you deliver flowers in Podolsk and are called “Garden of Eden,” then you don’t need to call the group “Garden of Eden.” Call yourself “Flower delivery in Podolsk” or, as a last resort, “Flower delivery in Podolsk | Garden of Eden".

How to select such popular words by which people search for groups, read the article “How can you name a group on VK so that it becomes popular.”

Subjects

Topics help VKontakte determine what your group is doing in order to recommend you to users with similar interests and advertisers.

Currently there are 114 topics available for groups and 235 for public pages. Choose something that characterizes your group.

The topic of the community can be changed, but only at the initial stage of the group’s life, until there are more than several thousand subscribers. Large groups are blocked for changing topics, because... Previously, the practice was to sell groups and change the topic by the next owner. It turned out that people subscribed to one information, but in the end they began to receive something completely different.

Group

If you selected “Interest Group” or “Brand or Organization”, the following window will open:

Group settings in VK

A group has its own specific settings: group type, website address and physical address.

Group type

3 types of groups:

Open - anyone can join;
Closed - entry by invitation or application;
Private - you can join only by invitation of managers.

If you are not going to do paid courses, a closed club or some other secret society, then choose an open type of group so that everyone can join.

Web site

If you have a website, write its address here.

VKontakte has ample opportunities for integration with the site.

There is a Community Messages widget that can be placed on the site and displays the group itself with a join button, which can be placed on the sidebar of the site or in the footer (bottom of the site).

Address

If your company has an office, a store, in general, a place where clients can come, you must indicate it here. So that clients don’t look in other sources for where you are located.

Public page

If you selected “Business”, “Thematic community” or “Public page”, the following window will open:

Settings for a public page in VK

A public page, unlike a group, cannot be made private.

The public page has its own list of topics, different from the group.

Event

Event settings window:

Event Settings

The events have 20 different themes to choose from.

Meeting type:

Open - everyone can take part;
Closed – participation is by invitation only;

Start Time and End Time - This setting is only available for events.

Organizer

The organizer can be either an individual or a group (public page).

If the organizer is a group or public page, then they can invite all their participants to the event. The invitation limit is 500 people per day.

Phone, e-mail, address - for a meeting you are asked to indicate contact information immediately when creating it.

We have filled in the minimum required settings. Now you need to click on the Create community button.

The community has been created.

conclusions

The development of a small VK business can be carried out by a person who is truly interested and has at least a little understanding of this, who spends all his free time on such an undertaking at first. And if necessary, he invests certain amounts.

VK supports and helps beginning businessmen. It offers paid and free tools. And ideas from third-party resources give them inspiration and new directions for development.

Read further:

Free is not necessarily bad: how to properly advertise a group on VKontakte

Free group promotion on VK: what you need to know to avoid paying twice

What you need to know about advertising on VK in order to use it successfully

How to promote a product on Instagram and increase your income?

Promotion on social networks, or Why businesses choose Instagram

Author of the publication

offline 3 years

How to properly form a group

The appearance of the group, public page and event is absolutely identical, so the design tips are suitable for all three types of communities.

If 5 years ago it was possible not to register a community at all, to call it “a community of those who like to lose their left sock” and people would pour out, but now, due to too much competition, every little thing is important.

First scroll

The first scroll is what a person sees when he first joins your group; everything he manages to view in 5 seconds.

This is also called the Dory fish rule. Remember, in The Adventures of Nemo there was a fish that forgot everything after 5 seconds.

If during this time the visitor does not understand how your group can be useful and interesting to him, he will leave and forget about your group, after the same 5 seconds.

And if you attracted him through paid advertising, then consider that you wasted your money.

Therefore, the first scroll should be designed perfectly.

What design elements are included in the first scroll:

Avatar and cover;
Community name;
Status;
Pinned post (banner);
Section information about the community: description, address + map, phone, e-mail, website.

First scroll

Name

About the title, I hope you read the article above.

Status

In the community status, you need to put the essence into one or two lines so that the visitor immediately understands what your group does. Status is a line that is located under the name of the community, in smaller font.

In the status, place one of the following meanings, if you can, then formulate everything in one or two sentences:

The essence of the group's activities;
How to achieve the goal for which the user came to the community;
USP - unique selling proposition;
Benefits of your community;
Contact details of your business;
Information for the user about your group.

Lifehack #1: Use emojis in your status. This attracts extra attention and will make your group stand out from others. If you have a public page, then emoji will be displayed on interesting pages of subscribers.

Emoji in the status This is how Emoji look in the block of interesting pages

Community Information

The information section is located immediately after the name and status of the group.

This block contains a description of the group, as well as contact information.

What should be in the block:

Description of the community: what is it about;
USP is a unique selling proposition: how you differ from others. Why should they buy from you or subscribe to you?
Briefly and succinctly tell us in a few words what your group does and how it can be useful;
Opening hours, telephone, address. Be sure to include all possible contact information. If there is an address, then place a map. It looks nice and makes it easy for people to find you. Opening hours must be filled. Read more in the article “How to add an address and working hours in a VKontakte group”;
How to place an order, delivery information.

Life hack #2: Add a call to subscribe to notifications in the first line of the information block. This will increase the number of subscriptions. This way we can bypass the smart feed: subscribers will see notifications about your new articles, even if the smart feed does not show the articles.

Life hack No. 3: Even if you have a menu and there is information on how to place an order, do not hesitate to duplicate it in the information block. A visitor should be able to find out how to buy from you from anywhere in your community. Don't make him look.

Visual design

From the visual component, the very first thing you need to do is:

Avatar;
Cover;
Pinned post (wiki menu or banner)
Banner template for regular publications.

For dimensions of all group design elements, see the article “All dimensions of VKontakte group design.”

Make your design recognizable and unique

Groups on different topics should have different designs and take into account the characteristics of your subscribers. If your hands are growing in the wrong place, then it’s better to hire a designer at the same Quorka (an inexpensive service exchange), where they will make you a beautiful design for 500-1000 rubles. The expression “one meets people by their clothes” is exactly about this.

If you design each post differently and change your avatar often, your subscribers will simply skip your new posts because they will not recognize you. And in the feed there are a lot of irritants that distract attention.

Agree that the same Layz chips and Tide laundry detergent are so ingrained in the subconscious that you can unmistakably recognize them on store shelves even from a distance.

In the same way, your group should be recognizable as Tide even in passing.

Avatar or cover?

To design a group, you can use both an avatar and a cover image.

The cover is a horizontal banner in the group header.

An avatar is a vertical banner in the group at the top right.

What should be in the avatar or cover:

Community name;
Description of the community, its USP (maximum 3-5 words);
Contact details;
Arrow for subscription.

If a group has a cover image, the avatar is hidden and displayed only as a small icon. This is the circle to the left of the group name and status. It can also be seen when you write on behalf of the group in messages, comments, or posts.

Cover benefits:

Larger size 1590x400 - more information can be placed;
Horizontal position - the text is easier to read, it does not break into words;
Audience activation: the cover page can display active subscribers, donors, and competition winners;
Increases conversion: if you place instructions on the subscribe and message buttons on the cover;
You can place additional information and promotional offers: for example, on the right side, set aside a place for the promotion of the day and change the promotional product in the cover daily.

Advantages of an avatar:

Arbitrary height: you can make a square, medium rectangle, long;
The proportions of height to width are less than 2 to 5;
Contains information about the community;
Can be integrated with a pinned post - this is perhaps the most significant advantage. Valid on the condition that you completely remove all information from the information block so that it is not displayed. Otherwise, a single whole will not work, since the banner will go too far.

Based on your preferences, but I would recommend the cover. It is used by the vast majority of communities and there are many more opportunities to use it for self-promotion of a group.

Banner

A banner is a pinned post that comes immediately after a block of information about the community.

Banner options:

Just a picture;
Animated banner - GIF;
Picture + text;

When you click on the banner, the group menu should open.

What should be in the banner:

Community name;
Description of services, USP, benefits or other information about the community;
Menu;
Visual identification of the menu: from the banner, the visitor should understand what awaits him in the menu, what sections or content are there;
Menu button with cursor.

Banner purpose:

Convey information about community goods or services: categories of goods or services;
Show that clicking will open a menu. For example, write on it: “Open me” or “Menu”;
Form a unified group style along with other design elements.
If there is an avatar instead of a cover, then form a single whole block with it.

Shadow Guard in VK - who are they and how much do they earn?

As we have seen, you can earn a decent income on social networks. One of the methods of making a profit is maintaining a group on VKontakte, but here the amount of earnings will vary significantly depending on the level of the hierarchy of positions occupied. I think everyone will be interested in getting to know the main ones:

Copy-pasters. Their task is to find and fill a given group with interesting content. Most often, in this type of income you can find schoolchildren and students who want to earn extra money for pocket money. They receive, on average, 2 rubles per post. If you reach the level of an experienced poster, you can upload more than 5,000 posts per month;
Lead poster. This is the next step in development, usually people here already have a higher education. The difference from the previous ones is in the pursuit not of quantity, but of quality. Accordingly, his pay is higher. The average monthly salary can be about 20-25 thousand rubles;

An author is a person who can combine borrowed materials with his own. His earnings depend on his qualifications and the number of projects in work, and can reach 50 thousand rubles;
Support managers - in other words, this is a secretary who must accept the order and control it. If there is not much work, then managers collaborate with colleagues from other groups to exchange advertising;
The sales manager is engaged in searching and drawing up commercial proposals for advertisers. The goal is to increase the profitability of the group, or at least not to reduce it. Their salary can be about 50 thousand rubles;
Leading sales managers are mainly people who have experience in the advertising field and the necessary connections at work. They can increase the group’s income level significantly and maintain it due to their knowledge and talent. They have a high chance of receiving not just a salary, but a percentage of sales;
Administrators are people who perform all work related to the group independently. Income depends on the topic of the group and its focus, on average this figure is 60-80 thousand rubles;
Networkers are the elite of the VKontakte world. There are not many of them, these are those who have created a whole enterprise out of the community. They absolutely have posters, managers, and some even administrators on their staff. These are mainly legal entities, and their income reaches 300 thousand rubles. The main thing is well-organized activity. And of course, the profit figures will be influenced by the topic and statistics.

I think that you have fully received the answer to the question - do groups make money in VK? It is quite possible and easy to earn income on the Internet. It is much more difficult to create a group that will attract an audience and be interesting to them. If you manage to do this, then there will be no problems with receiving money for your work.

What to remember

Consider what type of community is right for you before creating a group, as the ability to change it later is very limited. The event cannot be changed at all. Group to public and back no more than once a month;
Remember the 5 second rule: it is in 5 seconds that the user decides whether to subscribe to your community or move on, whether it has hooked him or not;
Design the group in the same style so that it is recognized as Lay's chips or Lego. Become memorable;
Give the user information on how to buy from you wherever possible. Do not be shy.
Leave calls to action: a sign in the cover to subscribe to the group, in information about the community a call to subscribe to notifications, in the banner an arrow calling to go to the menu;
First of all, design the first scroll: avatar or cover, title, status, information block, banner.

After creating and registering a group, the next stage is promotion, which lasts as long as the community exists.

Subscribe to new articles on the site so as not to miss useful information about the promotion and promotion of groups.

Designing a personal VKontakte page

Almost 75% of success depends on how to design a VKontakte page for business. It makes it possible to immediately understand who its owner is and what he does.

When registering or maintaining a page, the following recommendations will help you achieve results:

Use your real name. The analysis shows a negative reaction of people to rare, unusual names. A name that is easy to remember and common is what grabs attention.
Avatar. A profile photo will help you get people’s attention. If you install cartoon characters, film stars, and musical figures. You should choose a high-quality photo for your avatar. In case of dissemination of information about goods and services, install a photo where the product itself or the inscription of the service is displayed. There is also an option to use a personal photo in your account.
Status. This is a place that is ideal for a short introduction, description. Here we use understandable words that are accessible to all VKontakte participants. The status immediately makes it possible to understand that a person has found a specialist.
Personal information. This part provides current phone numbers, place of work, and official website. The place of work is VKontakte communities. Remove privacy in the settings so that the information is visible to all users of the social network. People will also be attracted by well-written factors that distinguish the product or service from its competitors.
Fast. The information is communicated in the style of a selling story. Their goal is to work on an emotional level and call for action, purchase a product or use a service. This is where it is cost-effective to include details of successful work. It is recommended to use strong words for emotions (for example, joy, worry). Such a story increases the opportunity to sell. As practice shows, people even share on pages or forward the post to friends. In order to write posts yourself, you need time to learn and gain experience.
Friends. Having designed the page, you should proceed to adding friends. People who will bring profit are selected. Orientation is determined depending on the field of work. When clients should be entrepreneurs or businessmen, the application is sent to the owners of such pages. In addition, you can find friends in public pages. In them, people communicate and, based on their comments, assume that the proposed product or service will be of interest to them. When the number of friends grows, the chance to expand the circle of consumers increases.
Wall. There should be no boring entries here. All unnecessary information, reposts of other pages, communities are deleted. Posts are written only on one’s own behalf. You can add customer recommendations or information from the created community. Truthful information is written about the owner of the page, work, experience.

The result is noticeable after getting practice in writing articles and posts.

How to create and set up a business account on Twitter

Twitter does not differentiate between personal and commercial accounts. Therefore, let's consider standard registration. On the account creation page, provide a profile name and phone number or email address.

The first stage of registration on Twitter

At the next stage, the system will offer to activate the settings for selecting personalized advertising and content. Whether to include them or not is up to you.

At the third stage, you will see the data that you entered at first: the profile name and the selected contact information option. Check everything and click “Register”.

The system will send a verification code to the specified contact. Enter it to complete registration.

The final stage is creating an account password. You can use the suggested password or enter your own. Registration is now complete.

Main settings for a business account on Twitter

It’s convenient that immediately after registration, the social network prompts you to enter standard profile settings.

Image . First, you will be asked to upload a profile image: the recommended size is 400x400 pixels. For a commercial account, the ideal solution would be a photo with a large logo in the center.

Profile description . The system gives 160 characters for this. The description should indicate what the page is about and what content will be on it. For example: “Cafe for vegetarians “Friend of the Stomach”.” News, secrets of our menu, global culinary trends.”

Setting up a Twitter profile

Next, Twitter will offer to download the contacts that are stored in your Google profile in order to automatically send them a notification about the registration of your page. Don't rush - you can do this once you've finished all the settings and published your first few posts.

Note : All of the above settings can be entered later: in the “Profile” menu - “Edit profile”. Here you can also add a photo for the profile header measuring 1500x500 pixels. So you can click "Skip" on all dialog boxes and come back to this later.

Basic Twitter profile settings

Profile settings . A full list of Twitter account settings is available by clicking “More” in the menu item on the left. In the window that opens, select “Settings and privacy.”

Twitter account settings menu

The section is convenient and understandable, so it does not require any special explanation. What we recommend doing for a commercial account:

Set up your username in the “Account” tab: write a word in Latin letters that will be easy to read. In our example, this is drug jeludka.
“Privacy and Security” tab: set up access to your tweets, disable location information if you post from outside the office, add the ability to receive personal messages, allow your profile to be found by contacts. Configure the characteristics of Push, SMS, email notifications from users and the system.
“Display” - here you can adjust the font size, select the background, and color. Select the color scheme in accordance with your corporate colors.

Design your channel correctly: use corporate colors and symbols, individual design. Add contacts for quick communication: hotline number, email. Or indicate that you are ready to communicate via direct message.

Example of a brand account design

Tools for promoting a business account on Twitter

Hashtags . Needed to increase the reach of each publication. Use two hashtags per tweet: a large number of hashtags can result in sanctions from the social network. As recommended by the Twitter team, posts should avoid hashtags dedicated to political events, religion and other controversial topics.

. A paid tool with a standard set of settings: budget, duration and characteristics of the target audience. Twitter has a specialized platform for setting up advertising and tracking results. In the advertising account, you can customize ads according to goals: to increase brand awareness, increase traffic to the site, and so on.

Features of the Twitter advertising platform

The first stages of promoting a business account on Twitter

Maintain a consistent business Twitter account to keep up with trends and keep your readers on their toes. Post regularly to increase your visibility rate. This is what, for example, administrators of a Tinkoff Bank business account do:

Post multiple tweets per day for greater reach

Respond to user requests . To do this, you need to click on the reply icon in the tweet. Your tweet will appear in your profile feed with the additional note “In reply...”.

Follow the trends . They are fleeting, so have time to post a publication that relates to the most discussed topic. Accompany it with popular hashtags.

Use relevant hashtags . They attract twice as many users. Hashtags can be placed in any area of the tweet. To do this, just put the “#” symbol in front of the keyword.

Accompany your tweets with images . They will attract more attention. Recommended tweet image size: 1024x512 pixels. Supported formats: JPG, GIF or PNG;

Provide a link to your business account in other social networks and marketing materials. This will encourage users who are comfortable following you on Twitter to subscribe.

Subscribe to other accounts. The practice of “mutual subscription” is common on this social network. There's no data on percentages, but in general, most account admins you follow will do the same.