How to change the design of a group in contact. How to create a group in contact with a pinned top menu for the new VK design
Read also
Do you want to know how to create a group on VKontakte in 2018? And not just design it, but do it yourself correctly and beautifully! If your answer is “Yes,” then this article is especially for you!
The social network “VKontakte” is one of the most popular. Accordingly, here you can find more communication, like-minded people and just friends, as well as promote your services and products. Thanks to the created communities, you can quickly find everything about an event, product, service, etc. that interests you.
On the management page, click “Upload” and select an image. It looks like this: group name, then avatar thumbnail, status.
Unfortunately, mobile doesn't support it yet this function. But since this innovation happened not so long ago, it will be just as relevant for promotion as everything else.
For more easy access You can create a menu for the materials offered. And we’ll tell you how to make it yourself next time.
Pinned post
Secrets of creating a VK group
As a bonus, we share the secrets of designing a VK group and our personal experience, which will allow you to complete the design immediately at an advanced level yourself. For example, you can set up such a beautiful block from various applications, which increases engagement several times!
Free apps. Go to community management and go to "Applications" to edit settings.
Here you can choose to add an application that will be an excellent addition to the functionality of the group. For example, in our group, which creates useful content for free, there is a “Support the Community” button, by clicking which you can donate for the benefit of the community any amount from 100 rubles. It could also be a product store, a questionnaire, tests, online chat, a newsletter subscription, etc.
Other useful widgets and applications:
- questionnaires;
- tests;
- registration for services;
- sending messages;
- goods store;
- and so on.
Discussions. Make several topics at once on the main issues that will be of interest to clients or subscribers. If this is a commercial community, then these are reviews, frequently asked questions, information about payment, guarantees and delivery. If the community is informational, then the main discussion threads should be devoted to topics that the group addresses.
Conclusion
If you want to succeed, then be sure to take the time to do it correctly and beautiful design. The more thoroughly you approach this issue and think through all the scenarios of user behavior after going to the group page, the higher the conversion to subscription, and subsequently to purchase, will be.
If so, then you have come to the right article. Here we will discuss how to create a group [um, I’ll correct you, community] on the VK social network and users will have a good impression of you. Times change, and people become smarter and can immediately solve
As you probably already know, VK provides 3 options for creating groups [communities]:
- Group
- Public page
- Event
Based on your goals and objectives, determine for yourself which option suits you best. Naturally, events are created for certain events. Let's figure it out - what to choose - a group or a public?
In fact, the capabilities of a VKontakte group and public are not too different.
Create a public page, not a group.
There are a number of advantages to a public instead of a group. The public is easier to design and use, it is also included in the block interesting pages users. Based on this, you can find out the user's interests. In this case, it is photography and everything connected with it.
As for the group, potential clients can ask questions on its wall. At first, this looks like an advantage, but only if you don’t have a content plan and your goal is only that people will start asking. But in such groups, engagement is very weak.
Also in groups there is an opportunity to invite friends. In the public this function has been reduced. But it’s unlikely that your friends are your target audience to whom you are going to sell services or goods. Therefore, focusing on inviting doesn’t make much sense either.
Another advantage of the group is the ability to add an online store application using the secure https protocol via an iframe application, which will allow the user to place an order without leaving the social network.
Community Header
Now let's touch on the topic of the title of our community. How to make a headline correctly so that it works for our business and starts generating traffic. For example, your type of activity is selling women's clothing in Nizhny Novgorod.
By logging into Yandex you can see that...
The group got to the top of the search results for this request and is somehow ranked for this request. Accordingly, it would be reasonable to name your group this way in order to get into the search results of both Yandex and VKontakte search.
Occupation - keyword, by which users could potentially search for you - if your occupation is tied to a city, then in the group itself you can also indicate the city where you are located, search engines will identify your group by geolocation.
Ideally, the title format looks like this:
Online women's clothing store | Lovandzzoo
where, “Online women’s clothing store” is the key query
Lovandzzoo is the name of your brand
Avatar and cover
Design is not an important cog in the mechanism of an online business, but a nicely designed group without suspicious or cheap design inspires more trust. And the design of the community begins with a well-designed avatar and community cover.
A community avatar is the face of your company and it should reflect both the company’s positioning and contact information. You must indicate:
- occupation
- logo and brand name
- telephone
- call to action - for example, “Subscribe to take care of your health and appearance.”
- arrow indicating subscribe.
- also indicate the address and external resource - website.
An example of a good ava:
Now let's talk about the cover design, which has now gained popularity after the innovations on VKontakte. In principle, the approach is the same as for designing an avatar, only now we translate everything into horizontal position. Here are some examples of good covers with different design styles. One thing they have in common is that it is clear where a person has ended up and what he sees. The cover should answer questions "What is this?".
Please note the back cover and the arrows pointing to:
- logo
- brand
- what is the public about
- how content is useful for subscribers
- and what the user will receive if he subscribes
You can do the same - this is a standard working structure for competently designing the cover of communities.
Wiki menu
You can implement popular wiki menus into your community design. The main thing is to think about the menu structure, because in a sense, by creating a menu using wiki markup, you are creating a mini-site on a social network and the user should not get lost in it. Look at this wiki menu and understand what a competent wiki menu structure means.
An example of a good and attractive menu.
Depending on the niche, the wiki menu may contain the following sections
- if this is a sale of individuals. goods and services - delivery conditions, product categories, price lists, how to order, description, etc.
- if the sale of information products
is a structured content base, such as
Another example of a good menu:
Links
In the links, indicate all your external resources - lead magnets, main sites, channels on other social networks where the audience will go. This will help increase traffic to your resource from social networks.
Read also>>>>
Content is King
Content is King
Bill Gates once said and he was right. Social networks exist and are popularized due to the presence of constantly generated content on them. Without him, the group is burned out and forgotten about. Therefore, you need to post regularly to remind yourself.
But how to properly format posts so that they are liked and shared?
Everything is very simple here - you don’t need to use pictures with cheap design and dull copywriting in posts - not only do users not like them, the social network itself ignores this content format. This is roughly what the picture should look like.
Nobody demands design work from you, but only a design that is pleasant and not irritating to the eye. If the content is visually perceived well, then the likelihood of it being shared is high.
CHPS (Humanly Understandable Links) in posts
Try not to indicate original links or links with UTM tags, but shorten them using the service vk.com/cc in the title, under the post title. VK users ignore posts with long links (especially at the beginning). They are interested in content. Compress links in posts using vk. com/ cc
Here on specific example you can see how this link looks in the post:
Also try not to use obvious and trivial headings. The purpose of headlines is to attract the attention of community subscribers in news feed. For example, title “16+1 Effective and Healing Properties of Pumpkin Seed Oil That 95% of People on the Planet Don’t Know About” will work better to attract the attention of the audience than the nondescript “Properties of Pumpkin Seed Oil.” Try to add numbers and specifics to the title. Then the post will attract attention.
Are you ready to challenge your dream and realize your ideas and ideas on the Internet, and start earning serious money online?
Diversify your content
Identify at least 30 topics (needs) that may be closely related to your direction and use a timer to start posting.
Create interesting content about your niche. For example, in the topic of sports, you can write motivational content, educational and expert content. The list of needs can be made endless and the problem is choosing a format so that posting by itself will disappear. In each post, use different calls to action with justification for the reason - “Like it if it was useful”, “Repost if you think all your friends should know about it.”
Add emoji to your posts to make them more colorful and attractive. But don't overspam.
Find out,
Video
In all videos uploaded to YouTube, insert a cover so that there is packaging and wrapping that will catch the user’s attention. Videos without a wrapper look very crude, in which it is already clear that there will be no interest in downloading them.
Here's an example of what a video cover should look like:
The click-through rate of a video with a cover is many times higher, because there is packaging - a wrapper that attracts the audience. The picture should play its role – arousing interest in what’s inside.
Implement!
Goods
Products section - prices are indicated in ascending order - the lowest prices should be on the display.
Detailed description in the product card itself. And if there is a website, add a link to the product card. The “Write to the seller” button is linked to personal messages from the person who leads the group, or the manager who monitors the group
We're reaching out to the community
We fill out the discussion section and create subsections in it - “Your questions”, “How to order”, “Vacancies”. You can also create a questionnaire for variety.
Don’t forget to fill out your contact details too. So that a person understands who to contact - regarding ordering goods, advertising or your services.
To understand who to ask a question, write down the position - manager and the person’s responsibilities. This way you will quickly let the user know who he should contact with his question.
The most important thing, I almost forgot :) - we fill the group description with the necessary information with all outgoing links. Be sure to separate the description into blocks of text of 3-4 lines so that the text is readable - no one has yet canceled the copywriting rules for text readability.
Here is an example of how well a description in a community should be:
P.S.
Well, what do you say? Was the content helpful?
Do you understand how to create a group on VKontakte?
If yes, then I'm waiting feedback in the comments - I answer instantly. You won't have time to blink. I like to discuss the topic of promotion in in social networks. If I don’t have time, then write
Some tips on how to make VKontakte group design effective. Learn the principles of properly designing the elements of a commercial community so that it becomes a stable source of profit for your business.
You will learn how to correctly set tasks for developing the design of a VKontakte group for your employees or freelancers. You will be able to control the work process and evaluate the final result not only from an aesthetic point of view, but also taking into account the ability of the created design to convert visitors into clients.
Where to start working on design?
Start developing a VKontakte group design from definition target audience , identifying their wants and needs. You must have clear ideas about who and how you will sell a certain product or service.
Study your competitors. It is logical that competitors have already passed the stage of searching for the target audience. You need to analyze their websites and social media groups. This will help determine the audience that the texts on your competitors' websites are aimed at.
Identify weaknesses and strengths your proposal compared to those on the market. Write down 3-5 advantages that your business has. It can be: free shipping, 5-year warranty, experienced specialists, wide range, etc.
Make your trade proposal, based on research of the target audience and competitors’ sites. This is the title of the avatar or cover of the VKontakte group. It plays a huge role in deciding whether to further explore community content. Your proposal should clearly define the topic, be simple and understandable to any visitor. When drafting it, think about the customer's benefit, not the product.
People don't want to buy a product/service - they want a solution to their problems.
All these are preparatory stages that must be completed before starting work on the design of the VKontakte group. They are the ones who determine the content that needs to be placed on the design layout.
Important elements in the design of VKontakte groups
We’ve decided on the content, now it’s time to find out recommendations for the design of group elements. We will analyze only the most necessary: an avatar and a thumbnail, a cover, a banner for a pinned post and a menu.
Avatar
Place your sales offer on it to provoke visitors to take a targeted action. In addition, the avatar must have Contact Information, where you can be contacted, an image of a product or a thematic illustration for services.
Use only high-quality images and forget about clipart from free stock photos. The search for images for effective VKontakte group design should be done on the sites pinterest.com, freepik.com, flaticon.com or in as a last resort google.ru. But it’s better to select images from paid photo stocks. Search queries enter only on English language. If you have difficulties with English, then feel free to use Google translator.
And to make it easier for you to accept the right decision, We We’re giving away 500 rudds for menu design to everyone who follows the specified link. To receive a discount, simply enter the code HWC1817-500-menu when submitting an application.
In this article we will look step by step at how to properly create, configure and properly design the VKontakte community.
Community creation
You can create a VKontakte community by going to the “groups”, “management”, “create community” tab.
Type of community and topic
First, you will need to decide on the type of community, depending on your goals, and choose the topic of the community.
Group registration
After choosing the type of community, you can move on to the most important thing, this is the design. The design of your community is a kind of business card of the company; depending on how high-quality the design is, your potential subscribers will draw conclusions about your work.
You can download the cover by going to “settings”, then clicking “download”.
On the cover you can place:
- Name
- logo
- motto
- contact information
- promotions or call to action
Important point: the cover is the first thing a client will see when they go to your group, so the cover should be bright and attract attention.
Cover in the MTS community
Cover in the Tinkoff Bank community
Cover in the HeadShot community
Image sizes for designing the VKontakte community.
Cover size for VKontakte group 1590x400px
Avatar thumbnail size is a circle with a diameter of 200px
Also, VKontakte recently introduced dynamic covers for communities.
Dynamic covers have very rich functionality, with which you can display the last subscriber, the best commentator on the cover, set the background to change at your request, add a weather widget, time and much more.
Community Description
In the description, the main thing is to describe as briefly as possible the main advantages of the company.
Important point: there is no need to describe everything that your company has done, is doing or will do. No one will read a long description. You have a few seconds to attract attention before the client starts looking at posts on the community wall. Therefore, the description should contain only key points that reflect the essence of the community/company.
Lifehack: In order to make a description of the community in more detail (with photos, links and beautiful layout), you need to put a wiki post in the pinned post, in which there will be bright picture and a call to action.
Examples of wiki posts:
Group avatar
The community avatar is an important detail in general construction quality design, in this article we have highlighted several very important points, which need to be taken into account when creating a community avatar.
Taking into account the fact that now they mainly use community covers, the avatar itself in the group is displayed as a miniature. Therefore, here we will talk about how important it is to design the avatar miniature. As mentioned above, the avatar thumbnail size is a circle with a diameter of 200px.
- Text
If you place text on an avatar thumbnail, it is important that it is large and does not extend beyond the avatar. - Understanding
It is necessary to place an image on the avatar that will make it clear what is depicted. - Minimalism
To make your avatar look relevant, you can make it in a minimalist style: fewer words and unnecessary elements that carry virtually no semantic meaning. The avatar thumbnail must be as simple and readable as possible. - Attract attention
So that the avatar miniature attracts attention. You need to design it so that it is not too white and boring, otherwise it will get lost against the background of the more colorful avatars of competitors.
- Text
What should I put on my avatar thumbnail?
Let's consider options for using an avatar thumbnail to attract subscribers to the community.
Community Settings
By going to the “community management” tab, you can come up with a short page address and indicate Additional information.
Next, in the “links” tab, provide links to your page on other social networks and a link to your website. 
In the “sections” tab, enable the necessary ones. It is more convenient to set up a limited community wall, so as not to rake it in the future from posts by spam bots.
Include products if your community is for selling products or services. 
You can also add applications to the community and customize them for your purposes. For example, the Applications application is the most convenient for working with leads. This is online registration and acceptance of orders. Or, for example, the “Maps” application, with the addresses of your stores, offices, events. Using the Buy Ticket application, you can sell tickets to events directly on the community page, i.e. subscribers/customers will be able to buy a ticket without going to your website. 
Wiki menu - beautiful and informative
This is another way to show the uniqueness of your community, attract the attention of customers, and also structure services, products and all information about the page. Plus, using the wiki menu, you can set up direct links to go directly to the company’s website.
Wiki menu examples: 
You can see a detailed guide to creating a wiki menu here -
Hello everyone, dear readers of the blog site. I continue my topic about - in fact, not everything is as complicated as it seems, and there is nothing special to study here. Your professionalism depends entirely on practice. Well, okay, today we will talk about the beauty of your groups, the beauty of the menu in your groups and how to beautifully design the menu and the groups themselves, and with your own hands, i.e. for free!
Speaking of the simplicity of the SMM industry - even in there are more branches and tricks that you need to know in theory in order to achieve results. Well, okay, I also admit the fact that I may still be too weak in these areas, although I have clients in both.
Well then, Let's go create a menu for VKontakte groups?
How to design a menu in a VKontakte group yourself
Yes, exactly on your own, because after reading this article, you will not need the services of freelancers. Although this is not an expensive business, for 1500 they can make you a menu on workzila (I wrote a detailed experience about working with this exchange).
So this is what we need to create a group on VK:
1. Layout (graphical arrangement of elements) - we must know where everything should be.
2. Basic knowledge of wiki markup. (we’ll talk about the most standard things below, but for a detailed study I recommend this group ).
3. Basic skills in working with Photoshop. You will need to cut out pieces of the layout to the required size.
Where can I get menu layouts?
Layouts for VKontakte menu design can be taken different ways, For example:
1. Freelancing or also Workzilla.
2. You can create it yourself if you have Photoshop skills. If not, I recommend Evgeniy Popov’s courses, here is one of them, just for Photoshop - click.
3. You can google and download ready-made ones. Believe me, there are quite a few of them.
Well, on the other hand... Why Google? Just subscribe to my site updates. And click on the buttons social networks below.
I have prepared an archive especially for you, in which more than 100 different designs for VKontakte groups!. When unpacked, the archive takes up about 2.5 gigabytes.
The main condition is to be a subscriber and follow the social buttons!
Thank you. Now you can download the archive from this link.
Don't forget to go through the rest of the social buttons.
Sizes of avatars and menus that are useful for designing VK groups
In order to properly design a group or public page, you need to know about the size of the pictures that need to be used. Please pay attention to this picture.
As you can see, in the group the avatar needs a size of 200 in width and 500 pixels in height. And for the main menu image - 395 pixels wide and 289 pixels high.
That's basically all you need. There are layouts, there is an understanding of sizes.
The creative part is over - only a little work remains. We begin the technical part of the entire process of creating a menu for groups.
How to create a VKontakte group yourself, having layouts in hand
So we have the group design mockups. Now you need to cut out the necessary parts.
Of course, nothing is needed for the group avatar. We cut out the required part from the layout or picture and paste it into the group. I think you can insert it yourself? Well, I hope so. If not, write comments, I will add this section to the article.
Now the menu, it needs to be cut out. Not the menu itself, of course, but every part for the menu (buttons) definitely needs to be cut out.
First, a little education.
How is the group menu different from the public menu?
They differ in that the group menu is essentially a set of buttons. But this menu is always hidden! Always! And the public menu is always open and in fact is a pinned post link leading to a page with sections of the menu itself (buttons).
So, again: in a group - to see the menu, you need to click on the “Group Menu” button, by default this button is called “Latest News”.
And in the public (in a group, by the way, you can also) the menu is always open.
But this picture is one big and beautiful link that leads to a larger separate menu. Here:
This picture-button on the menu is created through a pinned post. This is just a post in the group that we pin forever! This post link goes to separate page, which we will gently, pre-create.
How to create a separate page for the VKontakte menu
To create a page for the future menu (navigation) you need to send the following request to VK:
where XXX is the group number, YYY is the page name (here all question marks and dashes are required).
Moreover, I recommend making the name normal, attractive and meaningful, because it will shine and people will form a certain impression about you and your group based on this name. For example, “Navigation” or “Group Menu” are normal names, but they seem banal. Use your imagination.
I entered the following query
And I immediately opened a created page with the ability to edit it.
This is where you will need to insert your code for the menu itself using wiki markup. But more on that later.
By the way, I’ll tell you a secret, if you have a group (and not a public one) - a standard menu that already exists by default - it is already a page in itself. So you can use it if you have problems creating additional pages.
How to make a pinned post in a group or public
Yes, and in any type of community, a pinned post is created the same way! Everything is done very simply.
And in the window that appears, click the “Pin” button - it’s simple!
Many groups, by the way, use pinned posts as announcements. If the relevance of this ad has passed, you simply click again on the publication date and the “Unpin” button.
In fact, everyone now uses this particular menu method.
Guess why?
So, we already know how to create pages and pin posts. Cool. Let's return to our ram layouts.
Cutting a layout for group or public design
So, for the avatar everything is clear, we are not cutting anything here. We created a picture of the required size and uploaded it to VK. All. We're done with the group avatar!
Now the menu.
For example, I took the menu from this group. I made it myself, and I still have access to it, so I can even show the code of the pages.
So, you already know how to make the main image for the menu - it’s just a pinned post.
Click on the menu and see the picture.
We need to highlight “clickable” zones.
those. select the buttons themselves. Let me highlight these areas for you with red lines.
How much do we get? 5 pictures. And not every picture will be a button!! As you can see, the top large picture is not a button, but itself...
So, we cut out pictures along these lines. Now you need to “upload” it to VK.
If you created a separate page for the menu, then click on the “Fill with content” button on the newly created page.
If you have not created this page, but have already used ready page for the menu - then you have the page editor in front of you and you can immediately upload photos:
Filled in and you should see the following:
You may just have a code like the one in the picture below. If not, click the " Source", I highlighted this button in the top picture. And you will see the following:
Here we need to line up all the pictures so as not to get confused (well, that's what I do).
And so that there is no padding between the pictures, enter the “nopadding” tag, it should look like this:
this is page-58190479_45419120 - this is the address of the VKontakte page itself, you will find this identifier in the address bar of your browser.
That's all :) Isn't it difficult?
This is what I ended up with in my code. If you have something similar, then everything is in order.
If you have any problems with any of the points, please contact us. I'll be glad to help.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to remind you that there are wonderful services for any promotion and cheating, these are:
prospero | associate | socialtools
I may not have told all the secrets that needed to be told. I admit that I missed something, after all, the article was not short - write to me if you notice any obvious omissions. Thanks in advance.