Alena Grigorieva

Small brands get PR on Instagram anyhow. They register an account and post product photos with monotonous calls to purchase. Subscribers get bored, they don't pay attention to brand posts, and the same friends of the entrepreneur comment on them. This is how the conviction appears that Instagram does not sell.

There are no friends among my acquaintances who come to Instagram for shopping. They go for inspiration, benefit and relaxation: they open the application, have a good time, close it. In order for the social network to help the business develop, communicate with the audience, maintain an account with soul and be useful.

Today you will learn how to engage subscribers, connect with them and receive comments on posts. Read if it seems to you that you are talking to yourself on your account.

I. Hardware

In June, the algorithm for forming the tape has changed. Now the user more often sees publications, with the author of which he is long and strongly associated with likes and comments. The more the photo is commented on and liked, the more people will see the post. The higher the engagement, the higher the likelihood that the next post will attract more attention. More coverage means more potential customers.

Analyze your account and think about why you need to communicate with your audience and bring it into dialogue. For example, to form an image of an open and friendly company or to study the audience more deeply, or to gather information to improve a product. List one specific goal.

II. What to talk about

Post topics should be directly or indirectly related to the product and interesting to the audience. To get subscribers to talk to you, show your expertise and understanding of the subject.

The stylist will write about the color combination, wardrobe examples for each season, mistakes in combining top and bottom, and the rules of effective shopping.
The creator of the author's diaries will publish tips on time management and goal setting, describe the techniques for maintaining a diary, and provide an overview of the accompanying office.
The psychologist will talk about relationships with family and friends, about self-help methods in a difficult situation, and will advise on how to deal with depression.

An interesting post does not guarantee that the audience will actively engage in the discussion. Before writing a post, ask yourself questions:

What message do I want to convey to the audience?
How is the post useful?
What action do I expect from the audience after reading?

This approach will exclude posts that are written for the sake of publishing anything. Each publication will have a purpose and benefit.

Start your search for topics by examining competitors' profiles. Find out which topics are getting the most engagement in their accounts and collecting a lot of comments.

Search forums in your area and write down the most common questions. Explore what worries potential customers and causes confusion.

Add to the list topics about which you are ready to talk a lot and for a long time, because you understand them best.

In practice, you will quickly understand which topics are really interesting to your audience. In the future, add to the list, get rid of non-working themes and test those that were abandoned earlier.

III. How to say

Now that you have an understanding of the goal and a list of topics, move on to getting involved. I have brought out five techniques that are used in popular and small accounts.

Questions
The most common technique. Open questions - for detailed answers and closed - for short, simple - for a quick answer and more difficult - for reasoning. Test each type of question. This will tell you if your audience is ready to answer deep questions and engage in discussions.

Formulas for audience questions:

history + question on the topic;
personal opinion on a certain topic + a question about the audience's opinion on the same topic;
constant heading of questions + the same or a new question within this heading.

Audience questions and reactions

Seeking advice
People like to feel useful, so they are willing to give advice. Some subscribers always respond to calls for help. The rest either do not read the texts and do not see the request, or do not understand the issue, or have already seen their thought in someone else's comment.

Formula for asking subscribers for help:
description of the situation + specific problem + interrogative request for advice.

Seeking advice and audience reaction

Games
Remember the main goal of regular Instagram users? Open the application, have a good time, close the application. Games help make the second stage of the chain easy and relaxing.

Formula for the game:
theme suitable for the account + easy conditions for inclusion in the game.

Game approach and audience reaction

Marathons
Instagram marathons became popular a year ago. Experts and bloggers run marathons on style, weight loss, mindfulness, writing, relationships, Instagram promotion, and telecommuting.

Terms - A theme appropriate for the account, free helpful content, and a clear path to participate. It's good if there are prizes: they motivate subscribers to join the marathon.

Contests
Now they cause less excitement than a year and a half ago, but they still work and attract interested participants.

The terms of the competition must be clear and simple. Here you cannot do without a prize: reward the winner with your product, a discount or gifts from partners.

Questions, requests and games work even on small accounts. Begin to gradually engage in dialogue with your audience. Be not a product, but a person who talks about the product. People communicate with people, not abstractions.

Marathons and contests work when there is an active commenting and interested audience. Conduct them alone or find partners and sponsors for informational support, joint organization and prizes.

Assignment: Come up with one activity for each technique.
1 question.
2. Seeking advice.
3. The game.
4. Marathon.
5. Competition.
Conditions: appropriate topic, usefulness or entertainment for the audience, understandable expected action from the audience.
Depending on how active your followers are on your account, try one of the engagement techniques this week.

IV. What to remember

They won't talk to you the first time. This is normal. Ask easier questions, engage in dialogues in subscriber accounts and popular bloggers. Over time, the number of comments will grow if you are proactive and consistent.

People want attention. Respond to comments from your followers after you have called them into a dialogue. Otherwise, a question comes out for the sake of a question where it does not matter what others will answer. Others also want attention and communication.

Honesty attracts. Be honest: do not ask your followers for their opinion because of Instagram's algorithm, but because you are genuinely interested in knowing who your audience is and what they think.

Likes, comments, sales and simple pleasant communication to you!

Alena Grigorieva leads a "talking" Instagram, develops a community "

The VK community greeting is a convenient tool created for the most efficient work of the VK group. With its help, the administrator can expand the functionality of the group and collect contacts of the target audience interested in the proposed product or service.

This tool is called SpyCat and is an information block. Once installed, it is placed between the cover and the community goods, and can be used for several purposes:

Greet a subscriber by calling them by name and displaying their photo. Entering the group, a person will see a welcome text before going to viewing news and posts.
Display printed text, with a call to target action, describing the promotion, giveaway, etc. (at the discretion of the group administrator).
Create a button by adding a corresponding link to one of the sections of the group, be it a photo album, audio and video recordings, discussions or notes. Links to third-party resources cannot be placed, since the widget still does not support such a function.

The automatic greeting of members of the VKontakte group can be configured in accordance with marketing goals. For example, advertising offers can be segmented based on the difference in audience. In other words, you can apply settings in which the title, message text, images and the buttons themselves will have a different look for people entering the group and differing in geographic location, age category, gender, subscription, etc. This approach to organizing a community allows you to significantly improve conversion.

Why do I need an automatic greeting of members of the VKontakte group

Welcome widgets on the VK social network are intended primarily for owners and administrators of commercial groups who promote goods or services. Their purpose is to nudge a subscriber or casual visitor to the community to take the targeted action indicated in the greeting. This can be one of the marketing calls: order a product, subscribe to the mailing list, go to any section within the group, read the community guidelines and answers to frequently asked questions, etc.

How to make a personal greeting in a VK group

One of the main advantages of a widget is the ability to greet a group visitor by name. This creates the illusion of personal communication and contributes to the fact that the person who first entered the community will subscribe to the news or perform the action that the button calls for. Other advantages of using the VK welcome button include:

Now you can contact the subscriber directly. However, he is unlikely to miss a message that can detail the benefits and benefits that can be obtained by subscribing to a group or performing a specific action. Unfortunately, the functionality of the widget is imperfect and does not allow you to customize the button as efficiently as possible. One of these disadvantages is that the button is configured not on the intro page, but on the main news feed. As a result, administrators have to solve this problem through a dedicated wiki page.
To call the audience of the community to a dialogue or force them to subscribe to the newsletter, you can put a corresponding link and motivating text in the button.
The administrator can write an instruction in which section of the community there is this or that information that may be useful to the subscriber by attaching a link to the main menu. This will help achieve several goals at once: first, to popularize the hidden menu; secondly, to increase views of all (and even not very popular) sections of the group.

To connect the widget, you need to do the following:
In the group administrator menu, select the "Community Management" section.

Go to the "Applications" section;

Find the community widget in the Approved Apps Directory and click the Add button.

Next, you need to open the application, familiarize yourself with the proposed information, namely: with general information, recommendations for use and detailed instructions for use. By pressing the "Install widget" button, the greeting version will appear on the screen as a preview. The widget is ready to use.

The next step is to customize it in accordance with the tasks of the group. To do this, go to the "Applications" section again and fill in the proposed fields:

Button name.
Customize visibility (all users, admin only, nobody, subscribers only).

App widget visibility.
Snippet, that is, a task that a subscriber must complete: buy, sign up, go, etc.
Application Name.

The rules for using the automatic greeting button for members of the VKontakte group are quite simple. A complete list can be found when installing the application. In particular, links here can be set only to internal sections of the community, and the number of widgets per group is strictly limited - one widget per group.

Widgets may not work for some users. This problem may be related to: first, with the presence of the LastPass extension installed in the browser; secondly, an incorrectly set link; thirdly, when using smartphones.

Setting up an original greeting in VK

After the welcome widget for the VK group has been installed and configured, it is necessary to write an appeal with the target audience in order to call for some action.

Text content should consist of the following required elements:

Primary title, up to 10 characters (this is what users will see when visiting the group).
A link that will open the required section (it is also set in the header).
The title of the card (it has the same requirements as the primary title, including the link).
Welcome text (this can be a call to action or description), up to 100 characters.
Button text and link.

In practice, an appeal to a subscriber looks like this: when visiting a group, a person sees a text addressed to him and starting with a greeting by his first and last name, and his avatar is displayed next to it. The main text follows. For example: order a product today with a 50% discount; subscribe and get a free concert ticket, etc.

The welcome widget can be used in a variety of ways. However, before installing the application itself, you need to decide for what purpose it is needed. In particular, it is important to address the following issues:

What practical purpose will the page to which the link lead to play.
Write competent button and call text.
Make the widget useful not only for administrators, but also for subscribers in some way (for example, it helps to understand the navigation of the community or provides comprehensive information about the group itself).

With the help of a greeting in the VK group, it became much easier for administrators to call subscribers to subscribe to the mailing list. In addition, you can provide a link to the section of frequently asked questions and rules of conduct in the community so that users know what actions are allowed and what are prohibited by the administration of the group, as well as what punishment will follow for ignoring these rules.

For commercial groups on VKontakte, you can organize special promotions using personal widgets. For example, if a subscriber performs a targeted action, he will receive a discount coupon (when purchasing a product or service). For example, the administrator of a group in which a certain product is sold, for example, perfume, can specify a number when setting up a greeting, and specify the address of the store's CRM system as a link. As soon as the user makes a purchase of a bottle of perfume, this number will decrease by one unit. In other words, you can apply the countdown method. In the same way, you can keep track of people who subscribed to the newsletter, ordered a service, etc.

In order for subscribers to be active, you can create a creative competition in the greeting of the VK group, where users will directly participate in the drawing of prizes.

The basics of communicating with your customers

To subscribe to a user, usually two lines need to be filled in - name and email or phone number. Questions arise with the second field, but very rarely, only if the client in a hurry confused the symbols. But what a surprise awaits the sender when he looks at the usernames. What you can not find here: nicknames, nicknames, a set of numbers and letters, spaces or even obscenity. Of course, it is best to refer to subscribers by name, but this does not always work out, and for various reasons.

What to do, if:

No names and segmentation

I don't think it's worth talking about the importance of personalization again, but let's get down to business right away.

Own base, but no one has worked with it for a long time

Try to resurrect your followers. Write an email of remorse with a proposal to update your details and subscribe to the newsletter, indicate the reason for your long absence and what good the subscriber will now receive.

Effective email marketing with eSputnik

registration

I had to work with someone else's base

Think about who you are in the first place: a spammer or a company that cares about their customers. We are categorically AGAINST email newsletters on purchased databases, but there are cases (with the same managers or copywriters) when there is no choice and you have to work with such contacts:

1. If this is an affiliate base, it is better to ask the partners to make an email campaign on behalf of the company, asking customers to subscribe to your news and updates.

2. If this is a "left" base, you need to send invitation letters for registration in small portions (~ 50 per day), with a link to where the contacts were obtained from... After the results obtained, it will be seen how it is better to work with this database and whether it is worth it at all.

A foreign base is a rather dubious experience. With this, you can get so tired that it's easier to assemble your base. It may be slow and unhurried, but it will be much more effective.

As for the contact base, everything seems to have cleared up a little. And another fair question arises:

What is the best way to address in letters: "you", "you" or "you"?

Let's turn to school and generally accepted spelling rules. The pronoun "you" in a sentence is written with a capital letter:

if this is a specific and respectful appeal to a person you know: Congratulations ...,

in texts with a personal appeal to a stranger: questionnaires, questionnaires, etc.

in phrases: Your Majesty, Your Highness ...

The last option, I think, is better not to apply to clients - this is too much;) But the use of the first two forms of contact depends on a number of reasons, and primarily on the type of letter. In official letters from a lawyer, bank or commercial proposal, "you" will be inappropriate, just as if clients indicated their first name and patronymic in their contacts. But for a website, blog or any appeal to a circle of readers, a generalizing "you" sounds good.

Reaching out to subscribers shouldn't create a sense of inappropriateness. If you still have any doubts about the appeal:

Add the optional "Patronymic" field to the registration form. If it is filled out, it is obvious that the person wants to be contacted by you.

View the age of your followers.

Suggest in the first letter, a questionnaire, how best to contact the client

Add, as on Ozon, the ability to select an address to yourself in your personal account:

Write right away in your welcome letter: "Let's go to you". Communicating on "you" you can quickly get closer to a person.

And don't forget to check your contacts before submitting.

An example from my post from a popular company:

Agniya Elagina

It's hard to remember that I registered somewhere under that name. Nevertheless, such letters came and were unspeakably annoying. Perhaps this was a deliberate move so that the reader entered the system and left their real data, or maybe they just made a mistake.

That seems to be all for today.

Develop one style of address throughout the series of letters. Treat your customers with respect and they themselves will let you know how best to communicate with them;)

But for a group to be interesting to users and attract the attention of new subscribers, it must be active. And for this purpose, take on board a dozen simple but effective ways to stir up your subscribers.

Ask

The easiest way to increase group engagement is to constantly ask your followers for their opinion. This does not always work right away, but over time, users will get used to communicating, and they will easily make contact themselves.

Publish polls

These can be comic polls on the topic of your project, or trending opinions on the topic of the day. The main thing is that they are understandable to everyone, and do not take much time to choose an answer.

Arrange "battles"

Find any pair of antagonists: Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, Mercedes and BMW, and find out who has the most supporters among your followers. Just do not start confronting the iPhone with Android - this is as old as the world, and everyone knows that a fight cannot be avoided))

Run express contests

For example, a competition for the best title for an article, or a comment on a photo. Gifts can be purely symbolic, for example, place a photo of the winner on the group's avatar for a couple of days.

Play associations

Post part of the photo, and ask to guess the whole frame. Then show people the original and choose the winner.

Announce all results

Always write a separate post based on the results of any activity - polls, battles, riddles, etc. Let it be beautifully decorated, then the persons mentioned there will most likely want to repost about their, albeit small, but victory.

Ask questions when posting photos

Find out in what city, or what time of year this photo was taken, ask to determine the age of the photo.

Ask to directly repost, or like

If you do not take it into a habit, and use such a move only occasionally, then it will work. Don't forget to add a colorful image, or a trendy meme.

Write lists together

Lists and Collections are a very effective type of content that users love. They carry a lot of information in a compressed form, they are often re-posted. Publish your intention to make a list: the best actors, the most beautiful cars, status parties, etc. And ask subscribers to throw in options. If the list is negative, there will likely be more comments.

Create intrigue

Write that you have a cool idea, and you are ready to implement it. Describe it in a nutshell. For example, "it will be useful to all subscribers and will make access to the service even easier." Let subscribers guess what it is about. This will not only increase the activity in the group, but also give you some thought, making it clear what the audience really wants.

Celebrate round dates

1000 subscribers, 150 reposts of one post, etc. Give gifts, write beautiful posts. Let subscribers feel the atmosphere of celebration and joy in your public.

Create traditions

It sounds a little pretentious, but traditions that will only be associated with your public will increase user loyalty. It can be something simple but delicious. For example, congratulate the winners with a certain set of emoticons, and each time with a new cheerful song. Or do "musical subbotniks" and invite users to send in their favorite music to compile new collections.

The main thing is to turn on the imagination, and drop the strict framework. Be friends with your followers and they will certainly reciprocate you.