Many VKontakte users are annoyed by constant friend requests from strangers. Alerts about them will be displayed until the person accepts or rejects the application. Few people know that the site developers offer a solution to this problem using a single option - the “Subscribe” button.
With the help of simple manipulations, the owner of a VK account can replace the “Add as a friend” button with “Subscribe”. It will be seen by unfamiliar visitors to your page. By clicking on it, you will receive a notification that the user has been added to your subscribers. In your free time, you can decide which of them to add as friends.
A person who subscribes to your page will have access to the information that you allow all VKontakte users to see in their privacy settings.
- On your account page, click the downward arrow next to your profile photo thumbnail;
- In the drop-down list, click on the “Settings” section;
- In the menu that opens, go to the “Privacy” tab;
- Open the “Contact me” block and allow notifications about incoming requests only from friends of your friends.
You can check whether the specified actions have taken effect as follows:
And here you can see whether strangers see the basic information of your page, images and geotags, a list of communities, audio recordings, and a list of gifts.
If this information is open to all users, then changes will be available to people who are subscribers. For example, they will see a post about adding photos in their news feeds.
In Group
If you are a community administrator, you cannot install a “subscribe” button in it. Users will only be able to apply to join.
But on the official pages - you can. Therefore, if you want to expand your audience in this way, simply change the group settings, making it an official page.
Every blogger strives to effectively promote their website with the help of and uses all kinds of tools for this. How to make a VKontakte button? To add it to your blog, you need to register an account on the vk.com service (though there are only a few people left who don’t have their own page here ;)).
Why can you only subscribe to a person on VK?
If you are interested in a user’s VKontakte page, but instead of Add to others under the avatar there is a Subscribe button, then what does this mean?
This user did everything in his settings as I described in the first paragraph. And now you can only subscribe to his account.
When you subscribe to a person, he will not receive a notification about being added as a friend, but in the notifications on his page, this person will see that you have “subscribed to updates.”
If the user wants, he will add him as a friend, or you can ask him about it by sending a corresponding message.
As I wrote above, if the person you want to add as a friend has mutual friends, then the “Add to...” button will be displayed on his page.
That's it, now in your VKontakte account there is a button with which you can be subscribed, and requests to be added will come much less often.
How to make a subscribe button in a VK promo post, or any other button
Let's start by adding buttons. If you drive traffic to your VK group or to any website, then in order to create a post with a button, you need to go to the “advertising” section of VKontakte, click on the “create ad” button and select “post with a button” in the window that opens. Then you choose what exactly you are going to advertise, you can launch an existing post into advertising, to do this you need to insert a link to the post, or you can add a new promotional post. Let me tell you how to create a new promotional post with a button.
Click on “create an entry” in the window that opens, enter the address of the link where you plan to drive traffic. For example, I’ll show you how to drive traffic to a VKontakte page, but you can also enter the address of a website.
This window will open in front of you.
In which you need to enter the text of the entry, but please note that the text should not exceed 220 characters, so you won’t be able to write a long footcloth.
Next, you need to insert an image of your future post, which should be 537 pixels wide and 240 pixels high. Ideally, it is better to prepare a unique image (if you know at least the basics of Photoshop) if you cannot make a banner yourself, then you can take one -image and large sizes, and then crop it. The image must be interesting to the user in order to attract his attention, and also so that, in addition to advertising coverage, you can also get viral coverage. By the way, you can cut directly in VK when creating an entry.
The text located near the button can also be edited; to do this, just click on it and enter the text that will complement your ad.
Next, you need to select the button option in the vk promo post. You can select the “subscribe” button, in which case the user who will be scrolling through his news feed will notice your post and, when he clicks on the button, will subscribe to your page.
The “subscribe” button, on the one hand, is good, but on the other, it’s not as good as we would like. Let's say that a person did not read what kind of button we have there, clicked on it in order to simply go to the group and look at your posts and did not even plan to subscribe. On this side, the button is not as good as we would like; in this case, you will get an uninterested subscriber who, after a while, may leave your group.
When analyzing posts, you will see that such a post will convert subscriptions well (better than posts with snippets, for example), but you will not be able to see people who have left the group. Those. It is possible that a person first clicks on this button to view the page, and then immediately unsubscribes from the community. And the analytics will be clumsy. I'm not saying that this happens in 100% of cases, but such a situation does occur.
You can also choose other button options when creating promotional posts, for example: Contact, write, read more, go. This is the case if you are driving traffic to the VKontakte community, but if you are sending traffic, for example, to a website, then there is more choice, you will have options for buttons such as:
- Go
- Open
- More details
- Buy
- To buy a ticket
- To the store
- Order
- Sign up
- Install
- Contact
- Fill
And if the traffic goes to the VK group, then you can put these buttons
How to subscribe to a community
We told you how to subscribe to an individual person’s page in Contact, then we will find out how to subscribe to a group or public page:
- Go to the community you like;
- Find the “Join Group” button on the right side of the central page;
- That's all, you have managed to subscribe to updates from this community;
- If this is not a group, but a public page, instead of the “Join” button you will see “Subscribe”.
- Feel free to press and it’s done.
Well, we have found out what it means to subscribe in VKontakte - to become an observer, to show one-sided interest in a page. For you, this status means absolutely nothing, except that you are not a full-fledged friend of a person.
On the other hand, for promoting a page, the number of subscribers is very important - after all, the more there are, the more popular the profile. The sooner it will be possible to monetize it and attract advertisers. Well, that's all, the material has come to an end. Now you know how to subscribe to the page of a person or group you are interested in. Don't lose important contacts and stay up to date with all their updates!
How to make a snippet in a VK group
In my opinion, a snippet is considered an interesting option for a button; when creating advertisements, you are not required to create a banner measuring 537*240 and use only 220 characters in the description. Here you can already upload a banner with your own dimensions and use a large text canvas. Now I’ll tell you how to make a snippet for advertising on VKontakte. By the way, the snippet looks like this, very soon you will be able to make the same one.
A snippet is a button that is located under your main banner; you don’t need to try to fit small details there, they will be hard to see. I usually put a button “more details, read, find out, sign up, buy” or something similar. These images should have dimensions of 537 * 240. Below in the article I have posted ready-made snippets, if you cannot work in Photoshop, then just copy them.
Creation and size of a snippet for a VK post
And now about how to make a VK snippet. In order to make this type of post, when selecting options, you need to select “universal entry”
As I already said in the text, you are not limited by size and can, if you wish, put a lot of information there, you just need it to be interesting, otherwise they won’t read it. After you have prepared the text, you can upload your advertising banner.
After this you need to insert the snippet, to do this, click on the “button”
Select an image to be used as a snippet and upload it. Next, everything is as usual, click on “create” and create your advertising campaign. Everything is outrageously simple.
And one more important point...
Test two options (especially if you drive traffic to the site)
1) Standard, where the image is 537*240 in size, the entire image is clickable (if you don’t use the button, then you can add a lot of text and they may blur it out by clicking on the show button)
2) Option with a snippet.
Be sure to include UTM tags. Why do you need to do this? In addition to knowing which ad brings better traffic, you can track bounce rates.
If a person is on a mobile phone, then he can simply accidentally click on such an image (I’m talking about the first option now) and leave the site, in this case there may be more transitions and a lot more failures, but we preferably need targeted visitors so that Get more leads using less money.
According to the 2nd option, there will be no such error... The person here is already purposefully pressing the button.
Do you understand? those. You may mistakenly leave a more clickable ad from which there will be much less targeted visitors and disable a less clickable ad from which only targeted traffic will come. But in the end, in terms of the number of attracted leads, option 2 may win. This is such bullshit.
But I could be wrong, I’ll tell you only one thing, test and analyze.
Ready-made snippets for VK
And now, as promised, I have prepared several versions of snippets, you can download them and paste them into your post without any hassle.
How can I help you?
New functionality for VK bots - quick answer buttons or keyboard.
IMPORTANT! More recent version of the article
Our team of “bot writers” immediately became interested in this innovation and began studying the official API to tell you and show you detailed instructions for creating a bot using the keyboard. In the course of this article, you will get a bot, the work of which you can see in our GameTips group on VK. You can also join the community conversation on VK, where they can help you with your problem.
We will write using Callback api (sends each action in the community separately to the server). Therefore, it should also be configured. Go to “Community Management” → “Working with API”. For the bot to work, you need to register an access key. Click “Create a key” and select the necessary access rights; this bot only needs rights to messages. We confirm the phone number and save the access key somewhere. Now go to the Callback API tab. We put our server name and select the latest version of the API (currently it is 5.80, and the bot presented below will work 100% with it). In the “Request Types” tab, select only incoming messages.
What to do if no one signs up?
If you still haven’t found a way to get people to follow you, you can leave a request to be added as a friend in groups. To do this, select the appropriate community and write something like “I’m adding everyone as a friend,” and then wait for the application.
Only you will not add users as friends, but will receive ready-made subscribers. This method has two disadvantages. The first is that you spoil your karma by actually deceiving other users. Secondly, you shouldn’t be surprised that users will unfollow you without receiving mutual friendship.
By the way, some users try to increase subscribers through even greater deception - they promise a certain amount of money for a subscription. Of course, subscribers do not receive anything. Whether to resort to deception is worth it, everyone decides for themselves.
In this lesson I will tell you how to make a subscribe button on VKontakte.
.
She looks like this.
Instead of asking to be a friend, you can only subscribe to your page.
In order for you to have a link to subscribe to VKontakte
, go to the “My Settings” section on your page, then go to the “Privacy” tab and select “From friends of friends” under the “What friend requests are notifications about” option.
Now only friends of friends can add you as a friend. Everyone else will have a “Subscribe” link. You can check this by clicking on the link “see how other users see your page” at the very bottom of the page.
If you want to return everything back, then instead of “From friends of friends” you need to select “From all users”.
In this lesson we will look at how to set up a secure VKontakte connection.
.
In this lesson I’ll tell you about such a feature as VKontakte products
, with the help of which you can open an online store in the community. This opportunity is provided for all groups and public pages that engage in trading using the social network. You can connect to the service regardless of the number of participants, and only managers can place products in the new section.
In this lesson I will show you how to download music from VKontakte
using the browser extension from savefrom.net.
The first step is to install the “ Savefrom.net assistant
”. Follow the link and follow the instructions to install the extension for your browser. Don't pay attention to what the instructions say about YouTube. Our task is simply to install the assistant.
Progress does not stand still. Every year monitors become cooler and screen resolutions increase. Without going into details, I will say that the higher the screen resolution, the smaller the sites look and the more difficult it is to read them. In this regard, VKontakte also does not stand still. The social network has introduced a special setting that allows you to increase the font size on the site.
Many VKontakte users are annoyed by constant friend requests from strangers. Alerts about them will be displayed until the person accepts or rejects the application. Few people know that the site developers offer a solution to this problem using a single option - the “Subscribe” button.
With the help of simple manipulations, the owner of a VK account can replace the “Add as a friend” button with “Subscribe”. It will be seen by unfamiliar visitors to your page. By clicking on it, you will receive a notification that the user has been added to your subscribers. In your free time, you can decide which of them to add as friends.
A person who subscribes to your page will have access to the information that you allow all VKontakte users to see in their privacy settings.
- On your account page, click the downward arrow next to your profile photo thumbnail;
- In the drop-down list, click on the “Settings” section;
- In the menu that opens, go to the “Privacy” tab;
- Open the “Contact me” block and allow notifications about incoming requests only from friends of your friends.
You can check whether the specified actions have taken effect as follows:
And here you can see whether strangers see the basic information of your page, images and geotags, a list of communities, audio recordings, and a list of gifts.
If this information is open to all users, then changes will be available to people who are subscribers. For example, they will see a post about adding photos in their news feeds.
Server Tuning
Now you will need a server to host your bot. You can use free hosting services such as 000webhost.
If you use cheap/free hosting, then most likely cURL will be disabled on them (you will not be able to send media files with a bot, only text), and it cannot be enabled. 000webhost is fine with this, you can use it. If you have your own server or a good one purchased, then you need to connect cURL for the bot in our example to fully work.
Subscribe to a person on VKontakte
To begin with, you should immediately pay attention to the fact that the subscription process is available to absolutely any owner of a personal page. Moreover, within the VK social network, this functionality has a close connection with tools designed for friendship with other users.
In total, VK.com offers two types of subscription, each of which has advantages and disadvantages. Also, the choice of the type of subscription to another person depends on the initial reason that led to such a need.
Since you are directly interacting with another person's personal profile during the subscription process, that user can easily undo any actions you have taken.
Before proceeding with the main instructions, please note that in order to subscribe to a person on VKontakte, you do not need to meet the following requirements, depending on the type of subscription:
Be that as it may, only the first rule is mandatory, while the additional one will still be violated.
How Callback API and keyboard work
I'll give you a short tour of how everything works. The Callback API sends to your server any event that occurs in the group in the form of JSON. The full list of events can be viewed in the “Callback API” → “Event Types” tab. This is what the JSON request looks like when the user sends a message, in this case he clicked on the button:
{"type":"message_new","object":{"date":1529668584,"from_id":89846036,"id":1522,"out":1,"peer_id":89846036,"text":"Gold fish","conversation_message_id":305,"fwd_messages":,"important":false,"random_id":0,"attachments":,"payload":"{\"animals\":\"Goldfish\"}" ,"is_hidden":false},"group_id":101461081}
There are several interesting fields that can be processed: user id, message text (text), button payload (payload).
Messages are sent to the user using the messages.send method. If you send a keyboard, then after all the standard parameters you add the keyboard parameter, which contains the json of the buttons, this is what it looks like:
Keyboard: { "one_time": false, "buttons": [ [{ "action": { "type": "text", "payload": "{\"button\": \"1\"}", " label": "Red" }, "color": "negative" }, { "action": { "type": "text", "payload": "{\"button\": \"2\"}" , "label": "Green" }, "color": "positive" }]
How to create a VKontakte subscription?
The VKontakte website is very popular, which is why not only ordinary people, but also show business stars, singers and actors are registered on it. They are well-known and recognizable faces, and are not deprived of fans both in reality and on the social network. The number of their real friends on VKontakte is not so large, but what to do with the rest of the applications that offer friendship?! Most network users dream of getting star status and many friends, and therefore many would like to know how to create a VKontakte subscription?
Working with the library
To operate the bot, we use a self-written library in PHP. (If the link does not work, then here is the archive) you can find documentation for the library and download the library itself. Here is a short listing of ready-made functions for writing a bot, look for more details at the link above. If you want to learn about changes in the library, then write at least one message to our bot on VK, through which we will notify you about changes.
$vk = new vk_api(vk_key, version_api) — bot initialization. Parameters: community key (vk_key), API version (version_api).
sendMessage(id, text) - function for sending messages to the user. Parameters: user id(id), message text(text).
sendImage(id, patch) - function for sending images. Parameters: user id(id), path to image(patch).
sendButton(id, text, buttons, one_time) - function for sending a message with buttons. Parameters: user id(id), message text(cannot be empty)(text), array with buttons(buttons), optional parameter one_time, false by default, if set to true, then after pressing any button the keyboard will hide.
request(method, array_arguments) is a universal function for working with methods. Parameters: method - name of the method from the official api, array_arguments - array of parameters.
sendOK() — Beta function. Used instead of echo “ok”, it helps in cases where the script takes a long time to run and the bot starts repeating messages several times. IMPORTANT: if you use this function, you will not see error output. When debugging, replace it with echo “ok”
Who are the subscribers in Contact on the page?
Previously, in order to somehow contact an interesting person, the user could only send him a friend request. If this application was rejected, communication became impossible. As far as everyone knows, many celebrities from the world of sports, show business, cinema and other public spheres have accounts on VK. Many people are interested in following their lives, looking at photos, commenting on news, etc. At the same time, this person cannot add as friends everyone who wants to watch his content. That is why the “subscriber” status appeared in VK.
Who are VKontakte subscribers on the page of an individual or an entire public? Essentially, these are observers who see posts and photos of someone they follow in their news feeds. Let's find out what a subscriber in VKontakte means and what actions he can perform on his idol's page:
At the same time, the subscriber’s capabilities are limited by privacy settings, which, in turn, allow a person’s friends much more. To explain in simple words, even if you managed to follow a person, you are still a stranger to him. He won't even receive an add request, just a notification that you were able to subscribe. A subscriber is an outside guest of the page who sees your news in his feed. He has as many opportunities to contact you as any person from VK who is not your friend.
Top 10 best and useful widgets in VK for a group
Despite their huge number, we can highlight the most popular and necessary options. Let's look at them:
Merchandise store
For whom
: people who sell goods.
Target
: selling products directly in the group without going to other sites and online stores.
In 2015, a service was launched to provide support within the retail social network. This is more like a storefront than a full-fledged online store, but you can make sales and receive money without any problems.
To connect, you need to go to the “Community/Page Management”
.
Select the “Applications”
and add the appropriate widget. A window will automatically open in front of you in which you need to configure all the parameters. You can see an example of filling out the fields in the screenshot above.
It is necessary to configure the main points:
- Delivery region.
- Currency. You can choose the Russian ruble, Ukrainian hryvnia, Kazakh currency - tenge, dollar or euro.
- Contact. Be sure to set up this section so that you can accept orders. You can specify a group leader or arrange for orders to be accepted via messages.
All these points will be on one page. As soon as you fill out the product cards, complete the basic setup, the product block will appear on the main page of the group.
Donations
For whom
: communities that share useful information for free.
Target
: Support group owners.
Most communities post useful materials for free. At the same time, there are subscribers who are ready to support the administrator with money.
To connect the widget, you need to go to the “Community Management”
.
Go to the "Applications"
and add
"Donations"
.
Everything already works, you just need to configure the basic parameters:
- You can change the name of the button if you wish;
- indicate the category of users;
- select a snippet, it will be located next to the link to the application;
- the name of the application itself.
After this, be sure to save the changes. Enter the information in the text block and set up your e-wallet.
After installation and configuration, be sure to write in which you accept funds for the development of the community.
Spycat: lead widget designer for VK
For whom
: community owners.
Target
: improving behavioral factors, attracting customers.
Each person can set up a direct address to the visitor by name. You can write your own sales proposal to increase brand awareness.
To add an application, you must go to the group. Click on the three dots under the main photo. Select “Community Management” from the list. In the right column, click on “Applications”. Select and add the appropriate widget.
Fill out the main fields:
- button name;
- who can see her;
- snippet;
- Application Name.
Select text or personal type.
Let's move on to editing and fill in the main points. Next, save and immediately turn it on. A small window will open in front of you, if you like everything, click “Update widget in group”.
The advantage of this widget is that it does not look like a call to purchase; rather, it is like a greeting that improves the appearance and puts the user in a more positive mood. To delve into the topic of the visual component in even more detail, study the recommendations for designing a group on VKontakte
.
Message distributions
For whom
: those who want to send messages with any materials, automate the mailing.
Target
: collect a base of active subscribers to whom you can inform about new promotions or
competitions
.
If you want to enable this feature, go to the page – https://vk.com/app5748831
. Click "Connect application".
If everything was done correctly, a window will appear in front of you indicating the successful completion of the operation.
Applications
For whom
: Ideal for businesses or groups looking to build a customer base to sell products, services or invite to events.
Target
: turn users on a social network into customers.
Go to the "Applications" section on your group page. Select the appropriate application and click Add.
Customize the button title, visibility, snippet and application name. Then go to the main settings and fill out the fields as you see fit.
Tests
For whom
: all communities, ideal for online stores and companies.
Target
: Find out the opinions of subscribers without redirecting them to other sites.
Advantage in several types of tests. The administrator himself decides when the audience learns about the answers or it may not know them at all. You can assign points to each question.
The connection process is no different from others. You can see an example of filling out the main fields above. Save the changes and wait for the results of users passing your test.
Questionnaires
For whom
: Suitable for owners of any groups.
Target
: conduct a full questionnaire or survey of subscribers and visitors to the community.
You can create different types of questionnaires with questions and multi-step voting. Use this for audience research or as a brief for clients. There are detailed statistics that allow you to study your audience. Alert settings have been created to make the work of the administrator and users more comfortable.
To add, go to “Page Management” – “Applications”. Select “Profiles” and click “Add”.
We fill out the basic settings and move on to creating questionnaires. Click on the “Go to application management” button.
Let's look at an example of creating a questionnaire:
- Enter the name.
- Click on the first item (see example in the screenshot above).
- We ask a question and add answer options.
- Click “Save”.
You can significantly expand the questionnaire by adding more items, photographs, and different types of questions.
Personal account for joint ventures
For whom
: owners of online stores.
Target
: makes it easy to participate in joint purchases.
Immediately after installation you will get the following features:
- displaying the total account for purchases;
- notifications are received if changes occur in purchases;
- order history is saved;
The addition is no different from the others. After launching, you must click on the “Subscribe” button.
Attention!
In the screenshot you can see the application settings. It will only be available after other users subscribe and you create a group for purchasing and managing products.
Event Schedule
For whom
: administrators who aim to organize concerts, exhibitions or other events.
Target
: drawing attention to a certain event, notifying subscribers about it.
Adding is no different from working with previous widgets. After filling out the main fields, go to the settings.
Click on the “Create event” button.
Fill in all the required fields and save the changes. After this, event notifications will be available to users.
Order status
Target
: Buyers can see the order status.
If you sell products on VKontakte, be sure to install this application. Thanks to it, users will be able to see the status of their purchase. There are 3 statuses in total: for approval, dispatch and delivery. Capable of integrating with the virtual store we looked at before. This allows you to automatically load statuses for which templates are pre-configured.
Go to “Community Management”, select the “Applications” section. The widget is located almost at the end of the page, so we recommend using the search. Click “Add”.
You don’t have integration yet, so the system will prompt you to select CRM. Next, you need to follow the system prompts, because further settings and work with orders depend on the selected item.
Conclusion
Widgets in VK for a group make work much easier. You can not only share information with subscribers and visitors, but also give them the opportunity to buy products, attend your events, and collect a base for further mailings. Thanks to applications, an ordinary group on a social network can be turned into a tool that can replace a website in functionality!
New functionality for VK bots - quick answer buttons or keyboard.
IMPORTANT! More recent version of the article
Our team of “bot writers” immediately became interested in this innovation and began studying the official API to tell you and show you detailed instructions for creating a bot using the keyboard. In the course of this article, you will get a bot, the work of which you can see in our GameTips group on VK. You can also join the community conversation on VK, where they can help you with your problem.
- Creating and setting up a community
- Server Tuning
- How Callback API and keyboard work
- Working with the library
- Full bot code
- Go!
- FAQ
