How to work in VKontakte and Telegram

If your content was interesting to your target audience in social networks banned in Russia, then it will be interesting to them in other social networks. A social network is just a tool that connects you and your target audience. Fashion brands were sold not because some network sells them better, but because your customers spent more time in it because of bloggers, publics and a variety of quality content. What will happen next? Why shouldn't you panic? SR digital expert Katerina Diveeva talks about how to work in other social networks - VKontakte and Telegram.

Ekaterina Diveeva -

digital expert of Fashion Consulting Group. Professional experience: Director of Development and Promotion Department of SELA Corporation, Head of Department in the Russian office of H&M, Marketing Director of Baby Sensory Russia, specialist in visual merchandising and window dressing in various companies and at the CPM exhibition. Since 2018, he has been promoting businesses, companies, brands and individuals on social media.

www.fashionconsulting.ru

High-quality content, along with authors and brands, will gradually migrate to new social networks for the fashion business, this process began in March. You just need to adapt to the new conditions and calmly continue to do what you already did great. VKontakte and Telegram have a number of features, but the promotion and sale algorithm is the same. Therefore, everything will be fine!

What to do to stay in touch with subscribers?

Publish in all possible formats (posts, Stories, Reels) a link to your VK and Telegram accounts. Do this not for one day, but rather for a week or two, so that as many subscribers as possible see you.

What steps to take to transfer data?

1. You can download an archive from social networks banned in Russia, but recently these functions no longer work. Nevertheless, archives gradually come to someone, albeit belatedly.

2. Yandex created its own service that creates a website with posts from banned Instagram* (this social network, like Facebook, is controlled by Meta Platforms Inc., which is recognized as an extremist organization in the Russian Federation, its activities are banned in Russia). The downside is that you will not be able to upload long videos, live broadcasts, stories and Reels there, only posts. In addition, the service periodically "lies", but it's worth a try.

3. Parsing services. There is no way to get the entire base of ID-subscribers from social networks banned in Russia. You can make a mass mailing to subscribers, for example, using Leadfeed, but, firstly, it goes away very slowly, and now, with blocking, it has completely stopped working. And doing it manually is a very long time, besides, due to the blocking, not everyone will see your messages without a VPN.

4. But what can be done? Pepper.ninja allows you to convert part of an ID from a banned network to the VKontakte advertising account.

5. You can download the database through parsing services: Segmento Target and Pepper.ninja.

6. Download to disk all the data from your account in a social network banned in Russia, the 4KStogram service will allow you to do this just for saving.

7. If you need to save some individual posts, Reels, Stories, use Igram.io or IG Downloader services.

8. The VKontakte social network also offered users of social networks banned in Russia to transfer all their content to the site through a special service - Instagram * (this social network, like Facebook, is controlled by Meta Platforms Inc., which is recognized as an extremist organization in the Russian Federation, its activities are prohibited in Russia) Manager. With it, all photos and videos can be uploaded to special closed albums and sections of your VKontakte profile. When uploading from an account, only pictures will be saved, from the archive - also videos. The content will only be visible to you. Unfortunately, this service does not work for everyone due to blocking, but it's worth a try. Such a tool is suitable if you start the VKontakte page from scratch.

What steps to take next?

If you want to sell, then in most cases you should go to VKontakte. He has the most suitable and manageable toolkit, as close as possible to the prohibited area.

Now many bloggers are “overtaking” the audience to Telegram, but this will stop working quite quickly. Because soon all new Telegram users will simply have their messenger filled with new channels.

YouTube and TikTok are at high risk of blocking. Odnoklassniki, Yandex Zen are interesting tools, but they are unlikely to be the main ones. Not the size of the audience.

Recently appeared Tenchat, the Russian analogue of Linkedin, but it is only gaining momentum. You should definitely look at it, but later. First you need to put the business on a new footing.

New networks Yappy, Rossgram are still developing, but about them in the following publications.

Now I would focus on VKontakte and Telegram.

If you already had a page on VKontakte, from where you left a hundred years ago to other social networks, and now you have returned here, just update the basic information and duplicate the latest, most important posts for the audience.

For a new community - everything is the same plus add a welcome post.

As always, start with planning!

When switching to a new social network or messenger, always define the goal and objectives of the project. 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. In other words, create a community strategy.

Advertising

Advertising of Business Global Expo LLC, Taxpayer Identification Number (INN) 7710961530, erid: 2W5zFJRB7Va

Be sure to record the planning results.

At the same time, it is IMPORTANT to remember that the logic and structure of the promotion and sales strategy in social networks do not depend on the social network, as I said. Therefore, the principles that worked on prohibited sites will continue to work on VKontakte, Telegram, and Odnoklassniki.

We build a strategy for promotion and sale by frame:

•  VISUAL: photo, video posts, carousel, animation, stories, reels, live broadcasts;
• CONTENT: USP, offer, selling posts, diverse content, brand voice;
• COMMUNICATION: comments, mailings, chat-bots;
• PROMOTION: influencers, creators, targeted advertising, user-generated content;
• SALE: website, landing page, cash desk, current account, delivery, return, warehouse;
• LOYALTY: bonuses, discounts, communities, brand's social idea.   

There are two main channels: targeted advertising, which is set up on social networks, and influencer marketing: when advertising placements are made by bloggers.

VKontakte and Telegram have a number of features:

1. Targeted advertising is well developed on VKontakte, and there are more customization options than on Instagram* (this social network, like Facebook, is controlled by Meta Platforms Inc., which is recognized as an extremist organization in the Russian Federation, its activities are banned in Russia).

2. Authors have been “killed” on VKontakte today. In fact, there are no usual influencers here, and crops are made in impersonal entertainment and thematic communities, which is ineffective and has less trust among the target audience.

3. Everything is exactly the opposite with Telegram. Author channels are well developed here, and they often work better than in other social networks - there are more responsible authors and a more demanding and expensive audience.

4. At the same time, Telegram has very strange targeting, in fact it doesn’t exist. There are great difficulties in gaining access to the office. But even after receiving it, you won’t be particularly happy - there are very wide settings and there are no normal targeting options. In general, Telegram is still not a native platform at all.

Therefore, if you create two channels - on VKontakte and Telegram - use VKontakte ads and Telegram authors today to increase traffic to your website and other sales channels.

How to attract subscribers who do not just go from your announcements to stories and reels in blocked networks?

1. Competitive mechanics of the “subscribe for something” format: for example: “Subscribe to our VKontakte page and get a discount coupon in our online store!” Or offer some useful master class, or a loyalty card, etc.

2. Promotions and special offers in the community. Post in blocked networks not just an invitation to go to your new social network, but talk about “tasty” promotions and special offers with an appeal to learn about them through a new communication channel.

3. Quality content. In the same way as in the previous paragraph - throw short announcements or pictures with a new collection, for example, and a link to a new social network.

What influences the growth of coverage:

• the volume of published content - more good quality content;
• reactions to content - no one canceled work with subscribers: voting, polls, game mechanics continue to work;

In fact, everything is the same as in the blocked social network.

How much and where to publish content

The success of social networks now banned in Russia was that businesses could almost constantly keep in touch with the target audience through constantly published stories and Reels.

What to do on VKontakte?

Publish to feed. In VKontakte, the feed is, in fact, the main tool for communicating with the audience.

VKontakte also has stories, clips and VK videos. And, most likely, these tools will develop faster and faster. At the end of March, VKontakte launched Shoppable Ads. Now advertisers can show up to 20 products in videos with links to their pages for quick checkout and at the same time solve brand image problems!

VKontakte also has a cool tool - mailing lists. But here you need to act as carefully as possible so as not to lose a subscriber - publish only the most important, no more than 5-10 times a month.

What to do in Telegram?

There is no tape, as such, only auto scrolling to the next channel. Therefore, a person enters the channel on his own and can immediately look at all the publications that were previously published. And even if there are 10 of them per day, this will not cause rejection.

Telegram has the ability to make live broadcasts, post reports, podcasts, pictures, videos, gifs. And most importantly - a large number of very convenient chat bots.