VK recommendations: what do you need to know to get there?

The social network VKontakte has personal recommendations. This is content selected taking into account the interests of each specific user - posts, public pages, friends and music tracks. Getting into recommendations is a free way to promote on VK using social network algorithms.

In this article we will tell you how VK recommendations work and give some tips on how to get there.

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What are recommendations in VK

The VKontakte recommendations feed is formed based on several conditions:

1. The most popular posts from other groups.
2. Posts from groups that your friends follow and like or comment on.
3. The algorithm calculates the news you spent more time watching and selects similar ones.
4. If you sent information to someone in correspondence or it was sent to you, then it will also end up in the recommendations section.

What’s especially interesting is that the system analyzes the Internet signal level on your device. This means that if you currently have a weak connection, you will not receive “heavy” materials. For example, instead of a video in 1080p resolution, you will be offered a resolution of 720p or 480p. The same goes for images and audio recordings.

At the same time, you do not need to worry about the safety of your personal data. The algorithm analyzes only your interest in posts and news. It does not use information about you in any way and does not track the topics of correspondence.

Where is the VKontakte recommendations feed?

So, if you can’t wait to see what news the artificial intelligence has picked up for you, here’s how to find out:

• Log in to your VK account.
• Go to the news tab - the button for this is in the menu on the left.

• Now pay attention to the menu on the right. There, among others, there is a “Recommendations” section.

• Click on it to go to the feed.

Here you can see both interesting posts from other groups and recommendations from friends on VK.

Wondering how to access VKontakte recommendations from your phone? At the moment, this feature is only available for the music section. After all, VK also selects musical compositions for you. But more on that later. If you want to see posts and possible friends, you will have to use the full version of the site.

How to customize your feed

We have found out where to find recommendations in VK, how they are formed and what they depend on. Is it possible to somehow influence the news offered? Certainly! The developers took care of this and left us with several tools for customizing the ribbon.

To find them, do the following:

1. Sign in to your account.
2. Open your news feed and go to the “Recommendations” section (in the menu on the right).
3. Now hover your cursor over the arrow in the upper right corner of any post.

You will see a drop-down menu from which you can select a specific item. Here's what each of them means when setting up recommendations in VK:

• It is not interesting. By selecting this item, you let the system know that you do not want to see posts of similar content. Yes, you may have once liked a similar post, perhaps you even commented on it. But this doesn’t mean that you always want to see something like this.

• Save to bookmarks. This setting, on the contrary, indicates your interest. If you don’t want to subscribe to the source group, but you liked the post, then feel free to bookmark it. Although you can easily subscribe to the community, while still maintaining quick access to the post.

• Complain. You probably know this point. With its help, you can do more than just exclude news from your recommendations feed. You can report illegal content to the site administration. When you click on this setting, you will see a list of possible violations. These will include spam, abuse, fraud and much more. In general, you will have plenty to choose from. Well, of course, such content will no longer appear in your VK recommendations.

• Notify about posts. In this case, you will receive notifications about news from the group without subscribing to it. Agree, it’s also a pretty convenient option. Moreover, you can turn off sound alerts if they distract you. The main thing is that your phone and social network settings allow you to use them. Otherwise, notifications will not arrive on your smartphone.

Now you can open recommendations in VK at any time and customize them to your preferences.

How the smart feed and the recommendations section of VKontakte work

1. How do your algorithms understand that a post is interesting to a specific user? Can you list the factors that most influence the reach of a post? The quality of the content, the response from the audience - this is clear. Anything less obvious?

We analyze the user's activity in the feed and raise higher those posts with which he is more likely to interact: like, write a comment, stick, open a photo, read an article, watch a video. These actions are very different, we predict them separately. Next, all this is taken into account by a general algorithm, which, based on all factors, performs ranking.

2. At your speech at “ MEN2 ” you said that even little things such as the weather and the user’s mood affect the reach of a post. How does the tape understand this?

Behind any post there is a huge number of ranking indicators. Each component is a certain value that describes the post itself, its author, the time of day at the time of viewing the recommendations, the speed of the reader’s Internet connection and many other criteria.

If a user visited the news feed or recommendations section while in a deep forest and with a poor Internet connection, we will not show him a bulky video at the beginning of the feed. The algorithm also takes into account the day of the week and time of day. This way, the morning recommendations feed will contain more news and information content, and in the evening - media and entertainment content.

3. Do you have a document that lists all the factors that the algorithm takes into account? Or has he already become so trained that even you don’t know by what parameters he provides coverage for a particular record?

We know the list of factors, but everything is unique for each user-record pair. Therefore, just by looking at a post, it is impossible to say how good it is, it’s subjective. A post about local news from Moscow in St. Petersburg is absolutely irrelevant to me, and you may not be interested in my news feed about machine learning and social networks.

4. Is it possible to artificially increase the reach of a post by purchasing likes and shares on promotion services?

Not worth it. In the long run, this will definitely lead to lower coverage. In addition to the fact that likes and shares do not play a central role in the ranking of a post, such cheats are highly likely to be detected by us.

However, traffic to a post from references on other social networks can indeed improve the organic reach of a post, and there is no penalty for this.

5. Is there an optimal text length for maximum reach in the smart feed? For example, in the announcement of an article - no more than 500 characters. And in a longread created in the editor, there are no more than 10,000?

There is no optimal length apart from the reader's focus. Everything is based on involvement; if you have an informational message, try to write succinctly, in an information style. If you are trying to attract a person to click on a snippet, the same principle is succinct and engaging. Just don’t fall into clickbait, it will negatively affect your reach.

If you're telling a story, captivate the person. All large forms, typically more than 1,000 characters, are best typed in the article editor, breaking up the text with multimedia inserts.

6. Smart Feed favors high-quality videos (over low-quality ones). What is “high-quality video” for VKontakte? What characteristics does it have?

Videos 720–1080 rub.

7. Does VK try to detect fake news? Is the veracity and reliability of the data important, or only the audience's interest in the recording?

On VKontakte there is no pre-moderation of content - as on other platforms, users can freely publish and discuss topics that interest them. At the same time, anyone can report illegal, offensive or inaccurate content in their opinion using the “Complain” button. We consider all complaints without exception. VKontakte has one of the largest moderation services and we respond as quickly as possible.

8. How do you feel about competitions for the most active subscribers and competitions for subscription + repost? They are allowed by the VK rules, but does this somehow affect the coverage of posts (positively or negatively)? Do you recommend using competitions for promotion in VK?

This is a legal way of promotion, but you need to keep in mind that in this way you are attracting an irrelevant audience to your subscribers. This can have a negative side effect—followers who don't engage with your group's main content can have a negative impact on the reach and virality of your posts.

Promoting a community on social networks: from creating a concept to making a profit

9. Articles created in the editor receive more coverage than articles leading to a third-party site. What should commercial sites and blogs do in such conditions? How can they attract VKontakte users to their site?

A business group on any social network is first and foremost a community. If you treat it exactly like a media asset, you will succeed. Forcing a user to another site, without providing an alternative, in communication can upset a person. As they say: you want to sell me your product, but you do it without respect.

On the VK platform you can communicate with clients/readers, sell goods, receive money transfers and much more. We are developing our ecosystem and making it as convenient as possible for users. And in this regard, it is also beneficial for a business to develop its site within VK. The article editor is another tool for communication and community building.

10. Will wiki articles now receive less coverage than editor-based articles?

It's not the format that decides, but the user's interaction with your content. An interesting story told with a lot of interaction from readers will receive coverage regardless of the presentation format. Another thing is that it is more convenient to hold the audience’s attention with the tools available in the article editor.

Specifically about wiki pages, they do not fall into the “Recommendations” section on mobile devices, they are basically a desktop tool, so yes, their reach is lower than that of other delivery formats.

11. Some users complain that they do not see interesting and necessary posts. Why is this happening? And do you have any thoughts about following the Facebook path - making sure that users’ feeds contain more personal content rather than commercial ones?

We are constantly experimenting with different ranking models, and the main metric is user engagement. You can always send clear signals to the neuron by hiding a couple of posts from unwanted public pages.

12. You say that you cannot purchase bots at all. How then can the community gain its first audience? If you sign up relatives and friends, it turns out that the audience is still not the target one. And if you buy advertising, no one will subscribe to an empty community. How to find a way out?

People come to you for content. Therefore, your community will not be empty if you tell things there that are interesting to the target audience. Advertising for the target audience is an ideal option to start with. This will give you a core audience that will help you grow organically.

13. How do you understand that a penalty has been imposed on the community? How to remove it?

Looking at the statistics, this can be seen in the decreased coverage. Analyze what you have been doing in recent days, which can be regarded by the platform as unwanted actions: clickbait, aggressive audience withdrawal, unoriginal content, too frequent posting. Stop doing this. And it will go away on its own in two days

14. Are there filters based on topic? (For example, “adult content” is downgraded). If yes, what topics have reduction coefficients?

Everything that is not prohibited by the legislation of the Russian Federation and the rules of the site is possible. Everything that is prohibited is prohibited.

15. A case from our practice. We publish unique articles on the blog every day, and they are immediately parsed by several VKontakte public pages. It turns out that they announce this content first, and we announce it 5-10 minutes later. Does this negatively impact the coverage of our posts?

Yes, ideally, you should be the first to upload content to the social network, then we will identify you as the primary source and your content will be promoted in the “Recommendations” section to new users.

16. That is, the one who first shares the link is considered the original source? If this is the case, we cannot compete with autoparsers, since they do this automatically, but with us manually, we write a unique announcement. What should we do in this case?

I didn’t share the link, but downloaded the content natively. Embeds and links, in principle, do not make you the original source of content. We don’t know what’s on someone else’s video hosting or website, and we don’t parse or analyze this content. That’s why it’s important to upload your materials to the platform’s native submission tools.

17. How will search engines index articles created using the editor? Wiki articles were well found in searches, but what will happen now?

Articles are perfectly indexed by Yandex from the very start, and by Google already too.

18. the LIVE public hosted by a VKontakte employee? Is it possible to refer to it as an official source of information?

At one's own risk. This is an unofficial community.

Recommendations from friends

As you remember, in this section you are also invited to familiarize yourself with the list of possible friends. It can also be customized. But first, let’s talk about the principle by which this list is formed:

1. People with whom you have mutual acquaintances. Moreover, the more of these acquaintances, the higher they will be on the list.
2. General educational institutions. At the same time, the program also takes into account the year you graduated from a university or school in order to be more likely to find your acquaintances.
3. Place of residence - city, county, district.
4. Subscription to the same groups. In this case, you will see people with whom you may not know personally, but have common interests. Friends can also recommend communities to you.
5. Correspondence. If you have once exchanged a couple of messages with any user, then there is a very high probability that the system will sooner or later remind you of this person.

This is what recommendations from friends on VK are; you can easily make new acquaintances and useful connections based on your feed. You can also customize this part of the section.

How to setup

What settings are there for recommending friends on VK and how do they work? To find out, do this:

• Log in to your VK account.
• Go to the news page.

• Open the “Recommendations” section by clicking on the corresponding entry in the menu on the right.

• Scroll down the page a little, there you will see users with whom you may be familiar.
• If this information is not displayed in this section, then go to the “Friends” section. The button for this is in the menu on the left.

• Now look at the column on the right. A list of “Possible Friends” will appear there.

• Expand it for a better look by clicking “Show All.”

• If you don't like a person and don't want to see him anymore, click on the cross that appears when you hover over his avatar.

• And if, on the contrary, you want to add the user as a friend, then just click on the symbol of a little man with a little button. It is located to the right of the person's name.

Now you know why this or that person appears in VKontakte recommendations. Even if you have no idea who he is, it’s not difficult to guess that you have something in common with him - acquaintances or interests.

Unfortunately, it will not be possible to completely hide this section. Perhaps this function will appear in the future. But now you know how to change recommendations in VK and manage their relevance for your account.

The benefits of a smart VKontakte feed

According to the official statement from representatives of the social network VKontakte, most users independently switched to the smart feed. Among the users there are those who simply did not turn it off. Also, according to the statistics provided, the coverage of posts on average increased by more than 20%, and the number of targeted actions increased by 50%.

The old style ribbon is still available to users. As before, it contains publications from friends and subscriptions in chronological order. When creating a VKontakte account, the smart feed is enabled by default. You can disable it in the “News” section by deactivating the “Interesting first” button.

The VK smart feed algorithm is of interest, first of all, to those users who are subscribed to a large number of groups and pages. Now they don’t need to look through the entire chronology of publications to find the news and posts that are most interesting to them - just turn on the “Interesting first” button, and the algorithm will display the information that matches the user’s interests. By the way, this fact is the reason why the o ratio has increased by 50% since the activation of the smart tape.

It is worth noting that the algorithm constantly collects and analyzes the behavior of users of the social network: it takes into account not only comments and comments, but also hundreds of other factors, most of which are not disclosed by the VKontakte administration. Among the well-known ones are:

Because each person's interests vary, the Smart Feed curates content individually and improves over time thanks to a self-learning algorithm. In this regard, owners of VKontakte groups and communities need to know how the VK smart feed works and how it can be used to maximize reach of the target audience and increase loyalty to content.

Musical compositions

You can also visit the section with new musical releases and recommendations for music (and more) from VK. The principle of selecting songs here is the same as for recommending friends and news on VKontakte.

This can be done either using a computer or using a phone.

From computer

Follow this sequence:

• Log in to your VK account.
• In the menu on the left, click on the “Music” section.

• At the top of the page you will see several tabs.
• Select Recommendations.

Here you can listen to a specially selected playlist, view individual compositions and entire albums. The system has found all this interesting for you. Unless you can change the cover of the playlist.

From a smartphone

And here is where the music recommendations are located in VK in the mobile version:

• Open the app and log in to your account.
• Click on the three horizontal lines in the lower right corner.

• Now open the "Music" section.
• There are also two tabs at the top of the display.
• Open the Recommendations tab.

As with PC, here you will see various selections prepared especially for you.

How to hide communities in a mobile application

The actions are similar to what we did in the full version of the site. Let's go to settings.

Select "Privacy".

Find the item “Who sees the list of my groups”. We choose the appropriate option.

Here you can deny certain people access to information. To leave the public page, go to subscriptions.

Let's go into the community. Click on the ellipsis in the upper right corner, select “Notify about new posts” and “Save to bookmarks”. Click on the button below and unsubscribe.

How to get into recommendations on VK

This section will be of interest to you if you are a community administrator and are trying to bring it to the top. The fact is that you can end up in the recommendations of friends and strangers.

VKontakte has developed another artificial intelligence that helps talented authors, bloggers and admins promote their groups and blogs. It's called Prometheus and works on the principle of searching for unique content.

This algorithm tirelessly travels through the expanses of the social network, analyzes the content of various groups and identifies the worthy ones. How to get into the recommendations of a VKontakte group or community? Just follow these conditions:

1. Create original content. Do not copy or rewrite from other sources.
2. The length of each entry should not be limited to a couple of sentences. The more detailed and interesting the information is, the greater the likelihood of falling into the attention zone of Prometheus.
3. This also applies to audio, video, and graphic content.
4. Post every day.

If you conscientiously fulfill all these conditions, you will be noticed very soon. At the same time, it doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have or how long the public has existed.

Deserving communities receive a special badge - a light. It is issued for 7 days and during this period miracles happen. Your posts are shown in the recommendations section of tens of thousands of users, and the community ends up in a special group. And most importantly, all this is absolutely free. By the way, you can receive this light an unlimited number of times.

We have told you everything you need to know about this section. Now you know how to change recommendations in VK so that they better suit your taste. And if you wish, you yourself can get to your friends and acquaintances in this section by promoting your group.

The main factors for getting into the VK smart feed

The factors that allow you to display group entries in the smart feed were described above. However, fulfilling these conditions does not provide a 100% guarantee of success. The behavior of the target audience also plays an important role here. In particular, this includes the following parameters:

1. Number of comments.
2. User clicks on the “Share” and “Like” buttons.
3. The number of people who took part in the survey.
4. Format of published entries.
5. Quality of material in other similar thematic groups.

It is worth noting that these factors operate for a limited amount of time: the more reactions a post receives from users within 24 hours after publication, the more likely it is that it will end up in the smart feed. In other words, a post from a month or even three days ago, even if it suddenly begins to gain popularity, will not be able to qualify for ranking by the algorithm.

Among the typical posts that, according to statistics, are most often found in the smart feed, one can note posts with text and attached video material (one or more), text with a poll or voting, a selection of pictures and photographs in high resolution, etc.

Recently, VKontakte has become able to write articles using an internal editor. According to popular belief, text materials intended for long reading have priority in the ranking of the smart feed. This assumption is due to the fact that large articles are most often included in recommendations, increasing the natural increase not only in the reach of the target audience, but also in the group’s subscribers.