Contests "Vkontakte": how to get the desired results and not "catch" a ban. The main subtleties when promoting VKontakte communities
Nowadays, social networks have tightly entered the life of almost everyone. modern man. First of all, it's cheap. alternative source entertainment. A huge amount of time is spent on the Internet for communication, reading news, watching movies and, of course, playing games. Playing an unpretentious toy is a great way to relax, cheer yourself up, distract yourself from problems and abstract from the outside world.
Social media games are among the world's most popular games, with tens of millions of players from different countries. Russia is no exception in this respect. In the applications section, you can find games for every taste, but it also happens that you want to play something new, but you don’t want to surf the Internet. What to do in such a case. The answer is simple - add the application yourself. Surely, many had such a desire, but the necessary skills for this were absent.
In fact, everything is much simpler than it seems. This is very interesting and fascinating process that does not require high computer literacy. This video explains in detail how to add your favorite game in the most popular social network- In contact with.
Video tutorial "How to create a game on VKontakte"
Creating a game on VKontakte - detailed instructions:
- Open your page in Vkontakte.
- Go to the My Settings menu.
- There will be clickable buttons at the bottom of the page. Click on the "Developers" button.
- On the right side of the page that opens, there will be a big blue "Create Application" button. Click on her.
- In the menu that opens for creating an application, select the third item: IFrame / Flash application. A description field opens, where you should specify what the meaning of the created game is. Enter a name in the "Name" field future game. Click on the "Proceed to download application" button.
- In the confirmation window that opens, enter your phone number and click on the "Get Code" button. In the field that opens, enter the confirmation code received in the SMS message and send.
- In the "Information" tab, select the application group, if any.
- In the "Settings" tab in the "Status" line, select the item "The application is enabled and visible to everyone."
- Go to the site http://games.online.ua. Select any game, click on it. Under the window that opens with a demonstration of the game, there will be a button "Download game". Hover over it and press Ctrl+U. A window with text will open.
- Press the combination Ctrl + F; the search bar will open. Enter the following into it: .swf.
- Download Master must be installed on your computer. You can download it from the site:
http://www.softportal.com/get-1519-do... 12. Copy the found address without quotes. Open Download Master. The copied address appears in the link window. Press the "Start Upload" button. The file has downloaded.
- Go to the application in VKontakte. In the "Download SWF Application" section, click on "Download Application". In the window that opens, click on "Choose file" and select the downloaded file.
- Repeat the steps outlined in paragraph 6.
- If everything is done correctly, the inscription appears: "The application was successfully loaded."
- Go to the "Information" tab. Fill in the name field, description (if any), insert an icon (saving its image from the site where the game was taken from). Save changes.
- Check application performance. To do this, go to "My Applications" and start the game. If it starts up and works, then everything is done correctly.
Now, after watching the video, each user on VKontakte will be able to easily create any applications and play independently added games. Everything is easy and simple!
Community promotion in social media VKontakte networks are quite thin and hard work, which requires both the availability of material resources and the ability to notice all sorts of subtleties, thanks to which you can prevail over competing communities. Even the smallest detail, which may seem unimportant, can lead to quite positive results in terms of promotion and promotion of your community.
In this article, we will focus on whole line important and useful nuances that you should take into account not only when promoting a community, but also at the initial stage - when creating a community.
The very first question that confronts most users who decide to create their first own project on VKontakte is the question of the type of community, namely, what to create: a group or a public page (public). The main advantages and disadvantages of each type of community will be described next.
Obvious advantages and disadvantages various types Communities VKontakte:
A public page (public) is a type of community that is best suited for entertainment projects. Its purpose is to convey information to the participants in a simple and quick way. In addition to the topics already mentioned, publics are also great for informative projects - for official pages enterprises and companies, educational pages and more. However, if your goal is to earn money, then given type communities are just what you need.Benefits of public pages:
- ease of promotion;
- profitable advertising platform;
- display in the block " interesting pages", That is positive quality when promoting.
Disadvantages of public pages:
- reduced features compared to groups - for example, the inability to create a menu;
- the difficulty to interest the user so that he returns in the future. Although, however, it depends on the subject of the community and the quality of its content.
Group benefits:
- the activity of participants is an order of magnitude higher than in public pages;
- the ability to set the menu and the availability of tools for its creation;
- the presence of a discussion section for communication and assistance to participants;
- the ability to use wiki markup (wiki);
- the function of inviting friends to the group.
Group Disadvantages:
- groups do not monetize well, because ads in groups are bought less often than in public pages.
Some important aspects when choosing a topic for a new community, as well as its monetization:
When creating a new community, first of all, take the choice of topics seriously, because the difficulty of promotion will depend on this stage. Topics must be chosen in such a way as to interest not only the younger generation, but also older people. Some studies have shown that most often advertising is bought in communities with an audience over 18 years old. Why? But because schoolchildren, according to advertisers, do not own material resources, which means they are not able to make purchases on the Internet. When promoting, try to achieve such indicators that the school audience in the community does not exceed 70%.How to choose a topic? Everything is simple. The main thing here is to understand which topics are well monetized. An obvious example is business topics (marathons, CPA, banks, loans, information products, etc.). Also, pretty good topics are women's pages, educational or something on the topic of humor.
The subsequent income from the project will depend solely on you, on how you approach the promotion of your community. So, even a community with an active audience of 10,000 people will be much more profitable than a community with 500,000 members, but with less activity, say, 1,000 people a day.
Earning methods:
- sale of advertising spaces;
- participation in affiliate programs;
- sale of own information products;
- opening an online store.
Promotion ˜ is not only about filling the community with all sorts of content, it is also about increasing the number of subscribers and motivating subscribers to be as active as possible. The most active audience is female. Girls are the most active, they constantly buy something, discuss, evaluate and tell their friends on their wall. In addition to girls, the younger generation, that is, schoolchildren, is also highly active; however, this particular audience is not suitable for us for the reasons described above.
Women-themed communities have a lot of competition, but don't worry. Since communities of this kind are more difficult to promote, in the future, having reached certain heights, you can earn good money. A huge selection of sites reduces the price of advertising space, but increases the number of orders.
About filling communities and types of published content:
Content plays an important role in promotion. High-quality, unique and informative posts are what will set you apart from other communities. Try not to abuse hackneyed materials. Focus on creating your own content, come up with something new. Users will not want to read your feed if it contains overused posts collected from all popular communities.The most relevant types of information:
- bright, colorful and informative images;
- humorous materials; but again, try to look for something rare that others do not have;
- some Interesting Facts;
- tests and puzzles;
- beautiful pictures, landscapes, quotes, collections of audio and video recordings.
For communities, the least relevant:
- long sheets - records containing voluminous texts (since they are only suitable for educational communities with highly specialized topics);
- non-unique and hackneyed content;
- stupid and uninteresting jokes;
- images from lost quality;
- misuse of advertising materials;
- records prompting the user to go to external resources to access detailed information;
- posts that have nothing to do with the topic of your community.
Free methods of promotion in the social network VKontakte:
This is probably the most relevant part of this article, which will be useful for both beginners and experienced PR people.Don't be too zealous with these methods, because they can lead to blocking the community. It is especially important not to put free promotion methods above the rest. Use them, but don't overdo it. So the methods are:
- Spam on walls, private messages and comments. Try to spam communities with the same topic as yours, or the one closest to yours. Spam messages should be adequate and reasonable, and also contain not only a link to your project, but also some kind of intelligible description, so that after reading it, the user himself would want to visit your community. Do not limit yourself to one account, get yourself a few pieces (5-10 are possible). And again, do not overdo it - no one has canceled complaints about communities. Complain - get a ban.
- Fraud contests. This method widespread, and therefore relevant. The most obvious example that everyone has probably come across is “repost, get likes and get an iPhone 5”.
- Exchange of promotional messages with partner groups. This method the most adequate and unobtrusive when moving forward. You will get a lot of interested participants who will show good activity in the future.
As a rule, customers of "social" games have one of the following motives. Try on for yourself:
- Create a game with very simple, but such ingenious mechanics. Be the first to think of it, open your own Klondike, quickly earn money, fame and universal love.
As examples, quotes about " stuffing houses" and other folk creatives are excellent. Such projects simply do not get into production. Which is expected. The second motive is a little closer to reality:Developer comment: Surprisingly, all Tetris, pacmen and arkanoid games have long been invented. Invent, and then also offer the market for real original idea- complicated. No one will give you guarantees that if Tetris were made today, and not 30 years ago, then it would also become a craze. Competition, anyway.
- Create a game with already known gameplay, not to reinvent the wheel, but to implement it in such a way that you want to play it. Attract users. Add monetization and earn.
Developer comment: Already better, but another problem pops up: why will people play your new farming simulator, and not the one that occupies the first line in the "Popular" directory? And attracting players is generally a separate item (and a separate budget, by the way), which is often forgotten about.
We will not go far for examples - and look into the VK catalog. We pull out several million-dollar games at random. We get:
The right side - the original progenitors, the left - "socialized" versions of popular games.
As you can see, there are few innovations in the projects, but the work on running interfaces, graphics, sound and calculation of monetization systems is colossal.
A very small percentage of customers decide to invest in such complex projects. The rest prefer to limit themselves to the banal transfer of familiar and simple gameplay to a social network. This is how they are born:
- Games familiar from childhood: tic-tac-toe, "spot the differences", "bald" and so on.
- all sorts of card games: from poker to "Magic: the Gathering".
- Casual arcade games: like the well-known Lines and Tetris.
- Games "ported" to VK from consoles twenty years ago.
Examples of “simple” games in terms of gameplay and mechanics are in the VKontakte catalog.
Finally, the third motive of the customer, which leads him to the developer:
- Develop a branded game for a social network. Its meaning is brand advertising inside the game, receiving intangible profit in the form of communication (brand-consumer communication) and lead generation (creating a community of loyal users through the game).
Developer comment: A branded game performs slightly different, non-mercantile functions. Its purpose is to increase brand trust and attract traffic to groups. And then, for example, if you have an online store, you can provide it with an additional flow of visitors.
If you set out to create a branded game, you have two scenarios:
Temporary branding of an already running game. If you should ask the administration of VKontakte properly (conditions). Of course, the more players, the more expensive the accommodation will be.
Development of your own game for your brand. Here you take on a double responsibility: to make interesting project and introduce a brand into it so that it does not irritate the players.
From current experience:
A great way to brand the game and win the loyalty of the players is to introduce the brand gradually. For example, in Happy Farmer (2009), at a certain stage of the game, users were given the opportunity to purchase a Lay's chips factory, in a similar project, Farmandia (2011), a Bystrov brand factory, and in Favorite Farm, a Calve restaurant.
The branded element solved two problems at once:
- Transitions to the group: 1 665 172.
- Users who joined the community: 150,000 people.
- Churn from the group after the end of the branding period: less than 3%.
Branded apps and games on social networks are becoming more suitable for advertising. Moreover, this is a “new level” advertisement - not causing negative, unobtrusive and even pleasant. And a brand that has chosen such a “humane” way to the consumer as its tactics will always win.
It's no secret that the Vkontakte social network is very popular, both among ordinary users and among those who are trying to make money with it (companies, programmers, designers, game developers, etc.). Today we will look at how to create a VKontakte game.
How to create a VKontakte game: Step by step guide
Stage I
Concept creation
This stage is needed in order to visually see the target audience and positioning of the game.
Gameplay Creation
This point mostly applies when small games are created, because the question becomes what genre the game belongs to.
Game mechanics
Stage II
Game Prototype Development
Programmers must develop a prototype "engine".
Stage III
alpha version
On the this stage the concept of characters and graphics in general is being developed.
Stage IV
Beta Development
At this stage, almost the entire game and 70% of the content should be ready, at which point the game becomes available to users. The team is recruiting testers. And time to start PR.
Stage V
Release
Now the game can be opened to the general public, and of course, many problems will arise here, many edits will appear.
So, we have considered the stages of creating a game, but before proceeding to these stages, you must understand that all games work on flash, which means that you either need to know the program yourself or hire a specialist. Also, before creating a game, you need to study the Vkontakte API help, which can be found directly on the social network.
In addition, to create VKontakte applications, you need to know the Action Script programming language.
Why do we need a Vkontakte game?
It's very simple, many people make money on such games, because most games force their users to replenish their account, buy attributes. This is how the creators get their money, but it is important to remember that 50% of the money received is taken by the social network Vkontakte. Therefore, at the first stages, you can not even think about the profit, because it will be minimal.
If you found this article helpful or enjoyable, don't forget to put your like, this will help other users find it faster. And I can find out what interests you the most in order to prepare and write even more interesting and useful articles! Sincerely, Vyacheslav.
A huge number of contests are held daily on Vkontakte. Some communities benefit from this tool great results, and some - due to wrong actions, end up in an eternal bath. How not to fall into the second group and make sure that the competition helps you attract a new audience and leads? Let's figure it out.
Official contest rules
The social network "Vkontakte" has clear rules about which contests can be held and which cannot. Here you can take a look at them. If you violate at least one of the listed requirements, your community may be banned. Forever and ever. No way to restore it. Usually this happens as follows: a dissatisfied user leaves a complaint against you through technical support, and they begin to check you. If the contest really does not comply with the rules, the community is blocked.
What are the contests
The most common types of Vkontakte contests include:
1. Subscribe + repost
The participant must subscribe to the community, make a repost and wait for the results of the contest. The winner is chosen randomly using a special application.
2. Subscribe + repost + additional condition
The same as in the previous paragraph, but with the addition of an additional condition: joining another community, subscribing to an email newsletter, a Youtube channel, a Facebook page, registering on a website, installing an application, etc.
3. Contests for the most activity
- Who will give the most likes
- Who will repost the most
- Who will leave the most comments
These competitions are usually held monthly. There may be three winners (one in each category), or there may be one. If there is one, then a points system is used to sum up the results: one point is assigned for one like, two points for a comment, three points for a repost (numbers can be changed). The user with the most points wins.
4. Creative contests
To enter such a contest, the user must complete creative task. For example:
- Take a photo
- Film a video
- Write a review
- Come up with an original comment
- Other tasks (draw a picture, comics, write a poem, song, slogan, etc.)
The winner in such contests is usually selected by an independent jury, but there may be exceptions (for example, open user voting or a random selection application). Which method to use is up to you - depending on the type of task and the goals you are pursuing.
5. Competition-lottery
Subscribers need to solve your riddle or use their intuition to guess the number you have in mind. The first and last user to guess correctly receive prizes.
6. Competition "Buy and participate in the draw"
The main condition for participation in such a competition is to make a purchase for a certain amount. And then the conditions can vary: it can be a subscription + repost, a creative task or a task that stimulates activity in the community, etc.
7. Mixed type of competitions
The conditions of each of the listed competitions can be mixed with each other in order to solve exactly those tasks that are necessary specifically for your business. Example:
Determine the purpose of the competition
The type of competition is selected depending on the goal you are pursuing:
Decided on a goal? Have you chosen the right competition? Then we turn to its implementation.
In holding Vkontakte contests, there are two important rules. First, you must comply with the official requirements of the social network (I gave them at the very beginning of the article). And secondly, you must ensure complete transparency of your contest, so that users do not even have the thought of complaining to technical support about you. How to achieve this? Read on.
The most detailed description
In order to minimize the number of questions during the competition and claims after it ends, describe the conditions of the competition in as much detail as possible. Don't limit yourself to listing prizes and actions that the user must complete. Make a description that will answer all the possible questions of the participants:
What do you need to do to take part in the competition?
Here it is desirable to make a listing point by point. To make it easy for the user to navigate in your post and not make mistakes in performing actions.
What prizes are up for grabs?
According to the official rules of Vkontakte, you do not have the right to hold a contest if you have not designated a specific prize in advance. If there are several prize places, you need to indicate which prize belongs to which place. If there is only one winner, but there are several prizes (that is, he chooses the prize that he likes the most), you need to focus on this. So that later there would be no negativity and misunderstanding on the part of users.
If it is not possible to attach photos of all the prizes to the post (for example, there are more than 10 of them), give a link to the album or catalog on your site. It is very important that users can see what they will get if they win. This will help them decide whether to participate or not. And if the pictures are attractive, then there will be more desire to participate.
When will the results be summed up?
The description of the competition should indicate its exact dates - a specific date and time when the results will be summed up. Many communities don't post times, but I highly recommend that you do. For the convenience of users. This will save them from unnecessary anxiety, and you from the negativity and numerous comments like “Well, when is the prank?”.
How will the winner be chosen?
If this is a random selection app, write its name. If the winner will be determined by the jury, tell us who is on this jury and what criteria they will be guided by.
Residents of which countries and cities can participate?
A common mistake made by the organizers of Vkontakte contests is that they do not indicate which cities and countries can take part in the draw. As a result, this results in a sharp negative on the part of users: they fulfilled all the conditions of the contest, hoped to win, but it turns out that only residents of a certain city can participate in the contest, and they were not told a word about it!
Who will pay for the delivery of the prize?
Not all communities that host contests organize free shipping prize for the winner. Sometimes they give a prize, and the recipient pays for the delivery himself. Naturally, if this information is conveyed to the participant after the results are summed up, this will cause him a negative. Delivery information must be indicated in the description of the contest (it doesn’t matter if it is paid or free) - this will remove unnecessary questions and make your contest more transparent in the eyes of users.
What pages will be considered fake?
Now Vkontakte hosts a huge number of contests every day, and people deliberately create fake pages to increase their chances of winning, or use one page, but repost only contests on it (i.e. the page is essentially “dead” and of no value for the community does not bear). It is clear that the organizers do not want the prize to fall into the hands of one of these people. Therefore, they indicate in the description of the competition that fake pages and “prizes” will be excluded from the draw.
The screenshot above says that the winner page "must be real", but what does that mean? What conditions must be met so that the page is not considered fake? It needs to be written in more detail. For example, like this:
- Your page must be created no later than such and such a date.
- Your page must have at least 3 real photos and at least 30 friends.
- There should be no more than 5 contests per week on your wall.
As soon as you write down clear criteria, there will definitely be no questions for you. And it happens that the organizer excludes a person from the competition, considering his page to be fake according to his logic, and then it turns out that he is not a fake at all. And then complaints, dissatisfaction and appeals to Vkontakte technical support begin (and we don’t need this at all).
How long does it take to contact the administrator / collect the prize?
It often happens that you have determined the winner, and he does not respond to your messages and does not even appear online. As a result, sending the prize "freezes", and you cannot show your subscribers proof that the contest was fair. To prevent this from happening, indicate in the description of the competition exact time, during which the winner must contact you, and warn that if he does not meet, a new winner will be selected. Just don't set too tight limits. In my opinion, 3-5 days will be enough.
Full rules in doc or pdf format
If a Full description the competition turns out to be too large, you can divide it: insert only the most important information, a complete list write the rules in a separate doc- or pdf-file. At the same time, it is necessary to focus the attention of users on the fact that full rules are in the pdf attached to the post. So that later there would be no complaints about the fact that the organizer is self-willed and changes the rules at his own discretion.
Good post design
Use emoticons and beautiful photos to decorate your posts. Write without errors. Make indents between semantic blocks. Add bulleted and numbered lists to make your post easy to read. When a competition is beautifully designed, users have more confidence in the company that hosts it, and they are more willing to participate in it.
Valuable gifts
Many users lose all interest in a contest if the prizes are not worth enough. Judge for yourself: would you bother if shampoo or a set of stickers were at stake? The more valuable the prizes, the greater the desire to participate. That is why in some (not entirely honest) communities such prizes are often raffled off, for the monetary equivalent of which one could order high-quality SMM promotion in 5 companies. Of course, these prizes are not given to anyone. They are used only as bait - to attract a new audience. Perhaps you'll be lucky and the community won't be banned (but this is unlikely, because people don't like to be deceived).
Not too difficult contests
How more difficult conditions competition, the fewer users will take part in it. Joining a group and making a repost is easy. Taking a photo on the chosen topic is more difficult, but a loyal audience will gladly take it. But to take a photo and get 20 likes and reposts for it - in my opinion, it’s already too much. Try to run contests that don't bother users too much. Otherwise, you run the risk of not even gaining minimal amount participants, and the competition will only bring you losses.
1. Go to mobile version site (put the letter m with a dot in front of vk.com).
2. Go to the post with the contest and click on the number that displays the number of people who reposted.
3. Go to last page with people who made reposts.
4. Enter into the service for random selection of numbers (for example, random.org) total pages with reposts (in our case it is 227) and determine the page number on which the winner is located.
This method looks a little confusing due to the fact that there are a lot of points, but in fact it is very simple. Once you try it once, you will understand the mechanics and you will do it with your eyes closed.
Notifying users of results
Once you've chosen a winner, post a post on your community with their name and proof that the results were fair. Make the name a link so that the person receives a notification.
Unsubscribe in the comments to the post with the competition that the results have been summed up and you can read them at the link.
If you often run contests, create a separate topic in which you will mark the winners. All these small actions are needed to make users feel comfortable.
Transparent debriefing
So that users have no doubts that the winners were chosen honestly, provide them with evidence. Best if you are in live choose the winner (online broadcast on Youtube). If this is not possible, show them the video in which you choose the lucky one. Well, or at worst, screenshots from the service. If there is no such evidence, you may be accused of rigging the results of the competition: you chose your friend or a fake page that you yourself created.
Honest selection of the best job
If you are spending creative competition on the best photo, poem, video, etc., it is better to immediately indicate in the description of the competition that the winner will be selected by an independent jury. Open voting, most likely, will not lead to anything good, because. likes are very likely to wind up, and it will be difficult for you to determine who cheated and who did not.
Prompt delivery of a gift
You held a competition, determined the winner, but your work does not end there. Now you need to deliver the prize to the recipient. After you have requested all the necessary data from the user, it is advisable to send the prize within a few days. If you do not meet these deadlines, contact him and let him know the exact date sending, so that he does not worry. When you send a gift, send him a postal ID (if sent by mail). Such a banal concern for a person will cause him sympathy and form a loyal attitude towards your company.
Active promotion
Do you want to participate in your competition as much as possible a large number of of people? To do this, you need to engage in its active promotion. Here are a few options for how this can be done.