Media marketing is gone. SMM marketing for blogging! Opportunities available to an entrepreneur and social media marketer

Today we will answer the question of what SMM is and how it works. The abbreviation SMM stands for Social Media Marketing, which in turn translates as Social Media Marketing.

In essence, SMM is everything that is in one way or another connected with promotion and promotion on social networks. The main platforms for promotion are usually Instagram, VKontakte, Facebook and Odnoklassniki.

Why is this relevant? There are more than 65 million users of various social networks in Russia. According to surveys conducted by Statista, Russians use YouTube most actively, VKontakte comes second, and Odnoklassniki comes third. Facebook and Instagram are slightly behind.

How does SMM work?

Social media marketing includes many methods of operation. The most popular of them are the creation of groups and accounts on behalf of companies and brands, targeted advertising, working with opinion leaders (bloggers) and content creation.

The main emphasis is on creating useful content that will be shared by subscribers. It is believed that publications on social networks inspire more trust among potential clients.

When SMM appeared in Russia

Many agree that the concept appeared in the early 2000s, when the Internet became widespread. In Russia, this area of ​​marketing began to develop in 2008. First of all, this is due to the rapid growth of VKontakte and the absence of any restrictions, for example, you could invite all your friends to the group at one time.

But as a separate direction, which began to receive attention, SMM began to appear in the early 10s, and somewhere starting from 2012-13 it acquired cutting and certain canons.

Business promotion using SMM

To understand whether you need SMM, answer the question Why do you need promotion on social networks? If you don’t have a clear understanding of what tasks you can solve and what goals you can achieve, then with a high degree of probability you will not achieve the desired result. There is no point in starting social networks just for the sake of it.

Typically SMM is used to solve the following problems:

• talk about your products and services;
• collecting feedback, working with negativity;
• organizing traffic flow to the site;
• increasing brand awareness;
• and much more.

Make your list of tasks, and then decide whether you need SMM.

Agencies and SMM specialists

With the advent of a new field in marketing, people have appeared who are specialists in it. They help businesses manage social networks and attract new customers.

Also, entire agencies have appeared that specialize in social media marketing.

Pros and cons of SMM

Pros:

• Ability to communicate directly with the client. If the client has objections, you can close them in private messages or in comments.
• Huge audience - by going to social networks you get access to an audience of millions.
• Minimal start-up costs - registration and creation of a group on any social network is free.
• Targeting - using targeting or special parsing programs, you can easily find your target audience by parameters: age, gender, interests.
• Development of functionality - many updates appear every year: payment systems within the network, the ability to place goods, publish articles, etc.

Minuses:

• The result requires constant work: daily posting, content creation, and so on.
• There is no 100% guarantee of results - no serious specialist will guarantee you will achieve a certain result.
• High competition - standing out from competitors is becoming more difficult as more and more companies create accounts and launch advertising.
• Increase in cost - as a consequence of the previous point, the cost increases. The more players there are on the site, the more you have to spend fighting for the client.

We've released a new book, Social Media Content Marketing: How to Get Inside Your Followers' Heads and Make Them Fall in Love with Your Brand.

SMM (Social Media Marketing) is. An effective tool that helps bring people to your website through social networks.

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It is on these platforms that there are different target audiences, among which you can find your own and interact with it. Social networks allow you to attract traffic to your website, increase attention to a product or company, and form a loyal audience.

SMM - what is it and how does it work?

Imagine that a concert of your favorite band is taking place in the city, and you want to go there. But you are not her only fan. It makes sense that there would be an impressive crowd of people at the venue. They also want to listen to the performers and look forward to their appearance on stage.

Until X's time has come, the audience is discussing all sorts of things in anticipation. Many people are buying T-shirts, CDs, posters, mugs and other things with images of the music team.

The object of interest may be your product or company. At the same time, potential clients do not need to go anywhere - you are always a couple of clicks away.

SMM is about creating “buzz” around a brand. This generates and fuels the curiosity of the audience and helps lead them to purchase.

SMM: what do social network specialists do?

To start working with possible buyers, it is important to prepare the ground for this. You can do this yourself or entrust it to an SMM specialist. This person knows exactly how social networks work and how to get more clients from here.

The most popular platforms now are:

Companies create pages on several social networks at once to get maximum audience coverage. Over time, according to statistics, it becomes clear which of them works better than the others. On it, people are more active in subscribing, liking, commenting and reposting posts, writing messages, etc.

SMM examples

The main task of maintaining accounts and groups on social networks is to engage, warm up and retain potential clients. That is, every published post is a brick in the powerful walls of trust in your brand.

How to build them? Consider the official LEGO page. There are no children in the world who have not played with this construction set at least once in their lives. It would seem that there is no longer any need to work on recognition, because products already fly away like the wind.

Yes, the brand has many fans. This is confirmed by the number of his followers on Facebook.

But companies pay a lot of attention to working in. This is a perfect example of SMM that gives great results.

What the company does:

• He talks brightly and cheerfully about construction kits, showing funny videos.
• Congratulates the audience on the holidays by posting themed videos.
• Demonstrates that it follows trends by creating new products based on acclaimed films, for example.
• Shares news.

And no one is asking you to buy. This is important, because people come to social networks to chat and take their minds off their worries. The page seems to focus on entertaining content. Thanks to him, fans of block construction sets are aware of all the new products and are already looking forward to their release.

SMM tools: what will help you work more effectively on social networks

– a long and complex process. It is important to organize it correctly so that it does not turn into a chaotic movement in an unclear direction. There are various useful tools for this:

Of course, these are not all the tools that can be used. But everyone forms their own ideal set themselves, based on their needs and skills.

SMM promotion on social networks: where to start

Before launching a group or page on your chosen social network, you need to plan and think through everything.

Analyze your audience and competitors

This will allow you to understand what, how and for whom to post, as well as how to do it better than other companies on the market and stand out from them. Knowing this, choose the platforms where you have the most potential customers and the least active other sellers. There is no point in working where there are few possible buyers.

Create a promotion strategy

In it, write down your main goals and a plan for moving towards them. For example, like this: receive 20 applications a day from social networks. To do this, publish posts of different formats in the morning and evening. Of course, this is short and just an example. In fact, there will be several ways to achieve your goal, based on the characteristics of your niche and product.

Plan to create quality content

It is important to decide on:

• Formats – text, video, photo, quote, anecdote, meme, etc.
• Presentation – friendly, businesslike, informal, but so that it resonates with the needs of the audience.
• Regularity – it’s optimal to make 1-2 posts a day so as not to overload your subscribers’ feeds.

The main thing is that everything you post is catchy, useful and interesting to the people you need.

Have a dialogue

Pay attention not only to publications, but also to feedback, because sooner or later visitors will start commenting on your posts and writing messages to you. Try to answer as quickly as possible, be polite and friendly. With every response you give, encourage people to continue the conversation: ask questions, add calls to action, etc.

Be prepared for negativity. Use all your charm and wit to neutralize the haters and talk only on a positive wave.

Analyze your work

When performing this or that action, track how it affects the behavior of your subscribers. To do this, periodically review internal statistics: coverage, geography, activity on the page.

If you need to find out how many people come to your site and from which posts, use UTM tags. Calculate conversions, average bill and income to understand how your promotion is going.

Promoting your business on social networks is an important part of your marketing strategy. After all, it is with the help of these platforms that you can increase popularity, win the trust and loyalty of customers, warm up their interest, and also better understand their desires in order to better meet demand in the future. It turns out that these sites give you a lot of benefits that only the lazy would not take advantage of.

And advertising on the Internet today is one of the fastest growing and most effective types of advertising. This is especially demonstrated by such indicators as the cost of the target client and the possibility of conducting an advertising campaign. This is a significant advantage over such media types of advertising as mass media, television and radio broadcasting.

Audience social networks is constantly increasing, both quantitatively and qualitatively. They are used daily by both young people and adults with different levels of income. In conditions of close competition, this type of advertising will be successful, especially if it is aimed at young people. This is why advertising on social networks is becoming more and more popular.

What is SMM (SMM)?

Thus, a new business industry has emerged - SMM marketing (SMM). In other words, promotion and advertising of a product or service within social networks. Social networks, in a sense, have become a real gift for advertisers, because they do not require a lot of labor and money to find their audience. Here the audience often finds what it needs on its own.

Nowadays on the Internet you will hardly find a site that does not have its own group or page on such popular platforms as Facebook, Twitter, Vkontakte, Instagram, etc.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a set of actions whose goal is to attract attention to a brand or product through social networks.

For clarity, you can imagine a social network as a collection of people in a certain place, for example, on the beach. Some swim, some sunbathe, and some just chat with friends. The task of SMM is to find among these people those who are interested in a certain product or service. Need to unwrap your sunscreen or umbrella? We are looking for people who have been sunburned. Need to talk about a new outdoor game? We are looking for bored companies. And so on.

Now we need to imagine that these people are not relaxing at sea, but are sitting at computers or holding phones that are connected to the same server (the same social network). And for promotion we need to use the tools that this site provides us. In SMM, this is called registering on a social platform and becoming active. What instruments are we talking about?

10 SMM tools (SMM)

Creation and maintenance of pages, groups, communities;

Creation and/or selection of content for publication on pages, groups and communities;

Direct marketing directly on behalf of the company;

Creating/participating in discussions in communities, organizing thematic discussions;

Working with comments and reviews;

Increasing the audience and its involvement on the page, in groups and communities;

Participation in discussions on thematic forums/communities using hidden marketing techniques;

Optimizing the company website for social media (Social Media Optimization, SMO).

Let's look at each in more detail.

Creation and SMM maintenance of pages, groups, communities

You can create a personal page (account) on every social network. But with groups things are a little different. In most social networks, the ability to create a community is present as an additional function, with corresponding tools (statistics of joining a group and interactions with posts, the ability to manage from multiple accounts).

What you should decide before you start publishing (in other words, by drawing up a content plan):

Number of posts per day (preferably no more than 3, otherwise you will quickly become a source of irritation for the subscriber);

General style of posts (for example, the same frame for all photos or a corner with your logo);

Main audience (in what style is it better to write text and on what basis to choose images).

Direct marketing directly on behalf of the company

How to present selling content? One of the main tools of SMM promotion is a guaranteed benefit for the subscriber through his participation in the company community. The likelihood that your subscribers will buy something from you will increase tenfold if they see that it is only for members.

As mentioned above, selling content from a company should look very attractive due to the quality of the image and text. However, do not overdo it, otherwise you will be considered a cheater. Use photo editors within reason, especially if you are promoting cosmetic and medical services.

Creation/participation in discussions in communities, organization of thematic discussions

Quite often, potential customers have additional questions about products. Therefore, the brand page should have feedback methods such as discussions and.

You can also discuss abstract topics, this will help the audience of your group unite, but in addition to these topics, there must be those directly related to the brand.

Working with comments and reviews in SMM

One of the main indicators of the effectiveness of SMM promotion is the presence of feedback from the community with its participants. Subscribers usually demonstrate a keen interest in products through comments.

This is also one of the factors that the social network itself pays attention to when determining its leaders. If your posts are not reacted to in any way, they will appear less often in the user’s feed, according to the Facebook algorithm.

Comments generate something called engagement. And its percentage is significant, not only for demonstrating the success of the community, but also for the price of advertising on this page. Thus, the presence of opinions under your posts results in real material benefits.

Increasing the audience and its involvement on the page, in groups and communities

There are two different approaches to measuring audience engagement:

1. by publication coverage = (likes+reposts+comments) / number of people who saw the publication
2. by community members = (likes+reposts+comments) / number of community members or subscribers

As we can see, comments are not the only indicator of effectiveness.

The first approach still demonstrates real audience involvement, since the second ignores the fact that not 100% of the group’s audience saw a certain post.

However, the participant-by-participant approach also has its place, because it makes it easier to compare yourself with your competitors. As a rule, it is not always possible to see how much coverage a competitor’s post had. We only see interactions with the post and the number of followers the competitor has.

From this we get a logical conclusion - the community needs as many living participants as possible. Alive, because the so-called . These are accounts of fake people with real or fictitious names and personal information. As a rule, they are created to simulate a large number of participants or subscribers, and after joining they cease to be active. And in most cases, we see communities with a huge audience and posts that get 5-10 likes.

How to attract real people to the group? There are white and gray and black ways to increase your audience. The first ones are an ideal option, since they do not contradict the internal rules of social networks and do not threaten account blocking, however, they require a creative approach and often financial costs.

I will tell you about white methods, starting from the next point.

Gray methods do not directly contradict the rules of social networks, but they may arouse suspicion among the administration, which may not be available for long. These include such approaches as mass mailing of friend requests (Facebook, Vkontakt), mass subscription (Instagram), .

It works as follows.

Then you create a subscription task or friend request aimed at members or subscribers of a specific page (for example, a competitor).

After making new friends, you send them invitations to your community.

What makes this method not entirely safe is that after the first complaints from people who consider your page to be spam or unwanted advertising, it may be blocked.

To avoid this, use the account of a real person - a member of your team (with his permission, of course), who is ready to communicate with potential buyers, can provide information of interest about your products and explain the reason for adding. A kind of sales manager, but not too intrusive.

With black methods of promotion, everything is quite clear; the name speaks for itself. These include stealing accounts and groups, then replacing the name and/or category, deleting old content and adding your own. Yes, this way you can get real subscribers very quickly, but for how long?

Imagine that the art teaching community changed its focus to teaching music. How many people do you think will suspect something is wrong? :) Half will simply leave, having first complained to the social network administrators. And if the content is not changed, then the owners will complain and your account will be deleted without the possibility of recovery.

Participation in discussions on thematic forums/communities using hidden SMM marketing techniques

Today, people are already tired of advertising directly from the seller. They began to trust the recommendations of the same users more. Even if the product is truly high-quality and useful, if no one but you approves of it, then sales prospects will not be rosy.

Therefore, hidden marketing becomes a very relevant tool. The consumer should not realize that he has become the target of an advertising campaign. Most of all this sounds like rumors. The effect of hidden marketing is achieved by imitation or entering into a discussion of a product/service among users.

To create such discussions, the necessary information is repeatedly inserted into different sources and its artificial or natural discussion begins. After a while, new interlocutors join in, and this discussion attracts attention and spreads among ordinary users.

It is not at all necessary to start a discussion with an imitation; it is enough to find a community with your target audience and enter into a dialogue with them in the comments.

Explicit and native advertising on the pages of bloggers or thematic communities

As for advertising with bloggers, this is a fairly old marketing model. Suffice it to remember any advertisement for perfume or expensive watches on TV or in print - almost every one stars a famous movie star who uses her popularity and loyalty of fans to promote the company's brand. This format has a completely official name - influencer marketing.

Using the above example, it becomes clear to buy advertising from bloggers, because thanks to the Internet, they have become modern idols not only of teenagers, but also of a solvent audience.

Thematic groups can be explained by the beach example from the beginning of the article. Just imagine it not as a social network, but as a community. It is unlikely that anyone on a hot beach will be interested in a tent with hot tea or a winter goods store. It would be appropriate to sell cold drinks and diving equipment there.

Exchanges will help you quickly find and post with a blogger or community. You can read about them. Searching for a site and coordinating placement can be carried out also.

When we have decided on a blogger or placement platform, we should choose an advertising method - explicit or native. The native method is advertising in the context of the site and user interests. For example, a community dedicated to fitness, in a post, unobtrusively asks about the diet of subscribers and at the same time talks about the benefits of shakes for training.

Based on the name, it may seem that this is ordinary spam and a black method of SMM promotion, but this is not so. Each of us, especially if you are an active user of social networks, has encountered a similar phenomenon more than once. These are all kinds of prize draws in communities.

Guaranteed benefits usually attract a huge number of people who quickly catch on like a “virus,” which explains the name.

Optimizing a company website for social media (Social Media Optimization, SMO)

SMO is a whole set of actions performed not only to attract traffic to the site, but also to improve its convenience for users of social networks. The main principles of SMO are:

1. the information presented on the site should be of interest to visitors from social networks;

3. in social media it is necessary to create a group that unites people with similar interests (identifying a target audience for referral to the site);

4. community content must be presented not only from the site, it must be diluted with general posts that visitors of social networks like (preferably viral ones);

6. On the site you can add a form for comments from social networks, so that to write them you just need to log in.

Who is an SMM specialist?

After we have understood the term SMM and its tools, let's define: who is an SMM specialist?

When determining the scope of responsibilities of an SMM manager, it is necessary to take into account the scale of the business: if the company is large, then the SMM manager organizes and delegates the work to other specialists (content manager, web programmer, graphic designer, photographer, copywriter, and so on). If the company is small, then the CMM manager has to combine all of the above specialists. Accordingly, this implies the need to be:

copywriter;

proofreader;

web designer;

PR specialist;

It turns out that an SMM manager is a universal specialist whose activity is to professionally manage processes within social platform brand, as well as other specialists.

Basic skills of an SMM specialist

Based on SMM tools, a social media promotion manager needs to have the following skills:

online applications;

marketing communications;

communication with people via the Internet;

literacy and large vocabulary;

a sense of humor (a serious requirement of many employers).

In addition to the above points, an SMM specialist should also be aware of all most social networks. Especially the most popular ones.

Let's look at them in more detail.

Where to start SMM promotion on the social network VKontakte

VKontakte groups have become an integral part of the lives of many users of the social network. Every day, millions of people scroll through their news feed, like and repost.

Sometimes the information these records carry affects us more than the people around us. It shapes our needs and opinions, our style of communication and behavior in society, and sometimes even influences our worldview.

Let's go through the possibilities for SMM promotion within vk.com

The first thing you need to do is determine the type of community that best suits your SMM tasks: a public page or a group.

Main differences:

1. The group can be open, closed and private (invitations are sent by administrators); The public page is always open to any users;

1. On a Public Page, entries are posted only on behalf of this Page, but at the same time, users offer entries for posting;
2. In the Group, participants can post posts on their own (if you give them access);
3. On the Public page, the “Discussions”, “Photos” and “Audio recordings” blocks are located on the right, in the Group - in the center.
4. Events are created on behalf of the Public Page, but not on behalf of the Group;
5. There is no “Latest News” block (menu) on the Public Page, but you can create wiki pages;
6. The Group has a section for storing documents;
7. You can invite other users to the Group through the “Invite friends” button (valid for all participants), the limit is up to 40 invitations per day.
8. One of the important advantages of the Public Page is the display of the logo in the profiles of subscribers, in the “Interesting Pages” tab, this contributes to the natural growth of the audience.

If you are creating a platform to inform subscribers about company news, choose a Public page. The group is intended for active interaction between participants, discussions in “Discussions” and exchange of materials. You can transfer the Group to Public and vice versa, but you can do this no more than once every 30 days.

So, we have created a community, figured out the needs of the target audience, fill it with suitable content, advertise and get clients. What to do next? We continue to do the same, but now rely on our own statistics.

We pay attention to such parameters as:

1. subscriber data (age, gender - are we within our target audience);

2. audience coverage (increasing or not);

3. activity (which posts have the most engagement).

To do this, use special services for analyzing communities (not only your own, but also your competitors): Popsters or JagaJam. Statistics will show whether you have developed the right promotion strategy, and will also allow you to evaluate opportunities for growth and adjust your actions for the next month.

Where to start SMM promotion on the social network Facebook

This question is asked by many SMM specialists. It is increasingly difficult to answer definitively because groups and pages are becoming more and more similar.

For example, the advantage of the pages was the ability to study statistics. Groups now also have a built-in analytics tool. And advanced SMM specialists can acquire such a tool as.

Let's look at the advantages of these two types of communities.

Facebook page:

1. Built-in statistics.
2. Call to action button (for example, “More details” or “Book”).
3. Promoting your page and posts with Facebook Ads
4. Likes and comments on behalf of the page.
5. The ability to add applications and services to make it easier for customers to order goods, find out the price and contact support.

Facebook group:

1. Built-in analytics
2. Set up the group as public, private or secret.
3. The ability to post documents, create surveys, and even buy and sell in a group.
4. Group chat function.

Facebook Group Options

Choose a name for the group;

Enter the names of friends you want to add or addresses Email people you want to invite (you must add or invite at least one person);

Select your privacy settings (public, private or secret).

For example, a public or private group may be great for your customers to communicate with, while a secret group is more suitable for exclusive groups such as VIP clients or beta testers.

If your group is public, it's worth noting that even people outside the group can see posts and comments. If you want to protect the privacy of your members, it is worth creating a closed or secret community.

Once you have decided on your privacy settings, click Create.

Instagram account

The Instagram mobile app can be downloaded on iOS and Android phones and tablets, as well as Windows Phone 8 and newer versions.

Download the Instagram app for iOS at App Store, for Android - in Google Play Store, and for Windows Phone - in the Windows Phone Store. Or go to his website.

Tap Register with email. address or phone number, enter email. address or phone number (a verification code will be required) and click “Next”. You can also log in via Facebook to register with an existing account.

If you registered via email or phone number, create a username and password, then fill out your profile information and click “Done.” When registering via Facebook, you will be required to log in to your account if you are logged out at this time.

Images are already almost the main content for social networks, but on Instagram you cannot publish anything without posting a photo. And your avatar or profile product image is the first thing a potential subscriber will see. A short text is also required - personal information, description of the company or product.

For many, the design and first impression of a profile is a decisive factor. By looking at the image, people decide whether to follow you or not. If you treat your profile photo carelessly, you will scare off your target audience.

The description should be concise but informative. Indicate your location, type of activity, topic and link to the main site, if there is one. This is the only place on Instagram where you can put an active link.

Instagram is only possible through . It looks like this.

Conclusion

Modern people spend more and more time on social networks. In their spare time, people often take out their smartphone to scroll through their feed and chat with friends and strangers. Nowadays, almost everyone has an account on a social network. And this opens up enormous opportunities for advertising (in this case, SMM promotion).

A company that keeps up with the times and uses social networks and SMM is more open to its customers. Inspires more trust. And what, if not client trust, is a source of inspiration and real profit for a brand?

This article will expand over time, as every month we see new features within social networks. Follow us and stay up to date with new products. Good luck!

We've released a new book, Social Media Content Marketing: How to Get Inside Your Followers' Heads and Make Them Fall in Love with Your Brand.

An SMM marketer is a specialist who attracts traffic from social networks for companies.

Such an employee can be compared to a magician. One who skillfully juggles several objects in the air at once. All the attention of the public at this moment is concentrated on the circus performer. The same is true in social media marketing. A true professional in this field is a one-man orchestra. He uses a large number of tools to gather his target audience around the brand, expand its reach, and increase profits. There is only one difference - people look at the brand, and not at the SMMer himself.

Ideal SMM marketer for the project

It's not easy to be such a specialist. To give you an idea of ​​the scale, a few years ago an article was published about one hundred skills that he should master. We will talk about key skills. In general, such an employee is responsible for all work with content, communications and traffic.

What are the responsibilities of an SMM marketer?

• Analysis of competitors' activities.
• Research of preferences and reactions of potential buyers.
• Drawing up a content plan for the month.
• Preparation of a brand or product promotion strategy.
• Creation, content and maintenance of a group, public, account.
• Communication with users, etc.
• Attracting people to the community.
• Studying new trends and implementing them when necessary.
• Conducting competitions and quizzes.
• Setting up targeted and contextual advertising, searching for a platform for its placement.
• Tracking indicators using special services (number of subscribers, growth in coverage, number of transitions to the site, company recognition, involvement, user activity, return on money invested in promotion).

Qualities and skills of a good SMM manager

Do you like to use social networks? Do you know how to communicate with different people? Do you have analytical thinking? If you answered “yes” to all these questions, you have a good chance of becoming a... Of course, you will need a lot more skills to grow into a professional.

• Literacy. Communities run by a specialist are the face of the brand. Mistakes are unacceptable, as they can cause negative reactions from subscribers.
• Getting to know graphic editors. Most of the content you will have to deal with is visual. Resizing an image, adding a logo to it, enhancing a photo - all this should not be a problem for you.
• Knowledge. It is very important to learn at least the basics, because this position involves working with the company’s reputation, attracting clients, managing advertising and its budget.
• Ability to write texts. You need to know the nuances and formulas of writing informational and regular posts. You also need to have an instinct and understand what your target audience will like.
• Understanding psychology. The specialist’s responsibilities include communicating with subscribers, increasing visitor activity, and responding to negative reviews and messages.
• Creative thinking. You will need it in order to easily generate new promotion ideas, create competitions, promotions, and features to increase audience engagement.
• Knowledge of web analytics tools and services that help evaluate work results.

How to become an SMM specialist

There are no educational institutions where you can obtain the necessary skills, but there are numerous courses. A higher education as a marketer will be a good help. But the only guarantee of success for an SMM manager is constant self-education.

• Read books on PR, SEO, copywriting, advertising. All this will be useful in your activities.
• Watch video tutorials. There is plenty of free material on YouTube and other sites.
• Take online and regular master classes. Don't miss the chance to chat live with an expert. This way you will receive valuable advice and be inspired by his example.
• Public pages, groups, blogs, Instagrams on relevant topics. There are a lot of them: Cossa, SMMPlanner, Popartmarketing, Instashkola, vk.com/bizness_online, vk.com/cerebro_vk and more.

There are a lot of sources; you need to be able to structure the information received and immediately apply it in practice. Remember that theoretical training is important, but it will not make you a professional. How to gain invaluable experience?

To get started, create personal accounts on those sites where you want to work first. You can immediately apply all the knowledge gained in your account. In addition, it will be strange if an SMM marketer does not have his own page. This way you will kill two birds with one stone: you will begin to create a personal brand and develop skills.

There are several more ways to learn how to promote on social networks from scratch:

• Come up with a company and promote it.
• Create communities for the businesses of your acquaintances.
• Find companies that clearly need help and offer your services.
• Get a job as an intern at an agency or with a well-known specialist.

How to learn to write

You need practice. The more you write, the better you get at it. Read books about sales and informational texts, think about what interests your audience (real or fictional) and get started. You can create your own tasks or register on a content exchange. The second option is less suitable, since an interesting task is not always found. But for completing it you will receive payment (albeit small), and you will overcome fear clean slate and get an idea of ​​what commercial articles are.

An SMM specialist is a complex and in-demand profession. If you decide to become an SMM specialist, get ready for constant self-education, experiments and irregular days. Very often, such specialists are in touch most of the day, since you also need to be a community manager, which means answering subscribers’ questions in a timely manner. This can be called the main disadvantage of working on social networks. Otherwise, this is an exciting activity, during which you will gain a lot of knowledge and skills in related fields and become a sought-after employee.

Evgenia Kryukova

Dedicated to everyone who is just starting to bring their business to the expanses of social media... A selection of super useful articles on the topic of SMM. We did not include all social networks here, but concentrated on the most popular ones. It turned out very cool! Bookmark it so you don’t lose this invaluable treasure of knowledge.

"In contact with"

A detailed guide to creating VKontakte groups. The material is voluminous, but it's worth it - after studying it from cover to cover, you will be able to design any community, even if you have never done this before.

The article contains detailed instructions about how to launch communities for VKontakte business from scratch. The described work plan assumes that the main goal of the launch is to attract customers to the existing business.

Complete step by step guide on promoting the VKontakte business with a large number of screenshots, examples and useful services.

We asked representatives of the VKontakte team some burning questions about Prometheus, smart tape and their plans for the future. Answered by Sergey Paranko, former director of media ecosystem, and Andrey Zakonov, director of growth and research of the social network. Hurry up to get acquainted with unique information from the original source.

A two-hour recording of a webinar by Evgenia Kryukova, head of the Texterra marketing department and author of the book “100+ Hacks for Internet Marketers.” One of the viewers' comments: “This was extremely useful information. I didn’t know about many of the insights, and especially didn’t think about so many subtleties that running a community entails. If it weren’t for this webinar, so much time and effort could have been wasted.”

The targeting budget is being drained, but there are no results? We'll check the settings and make sure the ad is seen by the right audience. Save our instructions so as not to lose them.

A complete overview of the techniques you can use to attract subscribers to your group, promote an event, or sell products/services. Let's take a look and get inspired.

The article will be useful to those who want to promote goods, services or communities using VKontakte public pages, but do not know where to start. After reading, you will learn how to select groups with your target audience and create posts that help achieve maximum conversion.

Like, repost, get a prize - VK competitions are still a popular SMM tool. We’ll figure out how to carry it out, achieve the desired results, and what you can get banned for.

Many companies don’t bother and launch competitions on the principle that the simpler the better. The simplest are repost competitions: if you repost, you take part in the drawing. We have selected unique examples of competitions for you.

We share our experience of how we revived our community on VK with the help of a dynamic cover. The article also contains instructions for installing and using it, statistics and user reviews.

It’s better for every SMM person to repost this article on their wall or bookmark it so that the suitcase with tools is always at hand.

Pavel Molyanov wrote the most amazing instructions for using 10 VKontakte applications that can be used for business. If you run a VKontakte page, then run to read it! You will learn a lot of new things.

Native VKontakte integrations for communities are good because they do not fall under the “rule of five,” which limits the number of paid posts. Advertisers receive an unusual presentation that reduces the effect of “ad blindness.” Maxim Romadanov has collected 10 ideas for creating native integrations, use them.

In this article we tell you why you can get banned from VKontakte and how to restore the work of the community. With comments from the administration, group owners, lawyers and other knowledgeable people. We also conducted our own experiment with tobacco and 18+ materials.

Instructions for installing and using widgets for VKontakte communities. With examples and detailed description.

Did you know that VKontakte has its own analogue of email newsletters? It's time to master this tool. From the article you will learn everything you need to start your experiment.

Do you need to promote a sports-themed project? It's quite simple. Let's take a step-by-step look at how this is done using a specific example.

The article will be useful for those who want to invite interested people to a concert, seminar or master class. Well, and give them happiness, of course.

Alexey Ofitserov shares his tips and interesting techniques for promoting a cinema on VKontakte - all only from his own experience!

With the help of competent online promotion, you can reach audiences anywhere. Maria Makeeva proves this from her own experience. A mini-case that will be useful to anyone involved in internet marketing.

How does the recommendation section of VKontakte work? How to get a VKontakte light? How to attract new subscribers for free? What is the Prometheus algorithm and how to use it to promote your business? We answer popular questions.

We interviewed the creator of the Cerebro Target service, in which he spoke about the features of business promotion and working with targeted advertising on VKontakte.

Facebook

How to increase the number of fans of a Facebook page? How to get them to interact with you? And how to turn these people into clients and customers? Find out the answers in this complete step-by-step guide.

An article about how you can become visible on Facebook. The author is Nata Zayats, editor of the Ukrainian educational project WebPromoExperts. I jokingly call myself “Facebook duty” because this social network allowed her to dramatically change her life, find a new profession and see prospects that most middle-aged women living in the provinces are deprived of.

Facebook announced a radical change in priorities in the search feed. The news has already caused panic, but so far only in narrow circles of experts. For many participants and even for some industries, the changes will be catastrophic.

Review of 29 services that expand the possibilities of working with a community or group on Facebook. These include formatting the text of posts, conducting voting, creating a bot, and advanced analytics. Keep this toolbox to keep everything in one place.

From the webinar you will learn about working methods of advertising on Facebook - both for goods and services. You don't have to spend hours studying goals and methods that no longer work in modern advertising.

The webinar will be useful primarily for those who are not yet receiving clients from advertising on Facebook. You'll learn 5 powerful Facebook advertising features that have huge potential for growing your business.

How to promote products and services on Facebook? The author monitored his feed and selected 25 clear examples of effective advertising.

Let's look at how to avoid blocking, insure against the consequences, and what opportunities there are to quickly restore work.

Instagram

Liya Kanarskaya wrote a huge guide on promotion on Instagram for our blog. Exactly this detailed guide on this topic on the Internet – we guarantee. Read for everyone!

We wrote a guide to Instagram stories. We tell you how to add them, how to take videos and photos, put hashtags and geotags. Here is a list of useful applications.

Evgenia Kryukova collected more than a hundred examples of what can be published in stories (photos and videos), and classified ideas by topic. Bookmark this article so that you always have a source of inspiration at hand.

For many, Instagram still remains an incomprehensible social network for publishing photos of a beautiful life, but in fact it is an excellent platform for promotion. Here you can also work with hype content, which will allow you to become more noticeable and can go viral in a matter of minutes.

Instagram has become an excellent seller, so much so that in 2017, understanding people are investing not in opening a boutique, but in promoting an Instagram channel (fortunately, much less money is needed here, and the return is much faster, and you will no longer have to dine at the counter in front of visitors) .

8 life hacks that will help you promote Instagram. Case of the BodyLab fitness school, the largest fitness account in Russia. The account is already more than three years old.

Damir Khalilov considers 10 main ways to attract subscribers. Each of them allows you to get an audience. If you see a channel where there are 10,000, 100,000, 1,000,000 subscribers, then most likely these subscribers were attracted by one of these methods.

In 2018, everyone is betting big on Instagram promotion, but they continue to make the same mistakes. In this video, Damir Khalilov talks about what actions to avoid when promoting your channel, what these mistakes can lead to, and also what to use instead.

We continue to share our experience of working with Instagram. In this article, you will learn everything you need to start selling through this social network today.

How to create a content plan for Instagram? Let's explain in simple language and with examples.

Interesting case. The client has 4,000 followers on Instagram, but not a single order or visit to the website. How did he correct this situation? Read the link.

This article discusses the following points: the goals of competitions on Instagram, what are the best conditions for a competition, examples of successful and unsuccessful competitions, how to determine the winner in order to instill more confidence among participants.

The essence of a marathon is completing tasks designed for a certain period of time. Your subscribers are “running”; their goal of overcoming the distance is to reveal their talents, learn new things. Your goal is to increase sales with the help of this.

By appearing in search results or in the “Recommendations” section of Instagram, you can significantly increase the number of views of your photos and have the opportunity to attract new users.

On Instagram, advertising is used mainly in posts of celebrities, opinion leaders, corporate accounts of companies and ordinary users. Where you went, what you ate, where you got dressed and got your hair cut, in which salon you bought a car - all this interests subscribers and attracts attention to goods and services. We invite you to familiarize yourself with 34 examples of such advertising.

At the moment, it is difficult to find a detailed guide on working with bloggers on the Internet that would answer all questions. And this is important, because with the wrong approach, cooperation will lead, at best, to zero results, and at worst, to a waste of the promotion budget. In this guide, we have collected all the information on the topic and shared our conclusions.

The article contains rules for effective interaction with subscribers. Instagram account for a tattoo artist. Action plan with minimal investment.

An excellent case for promoting a mixed martial arts club on Instagram. With clear examples and conclusions for each point. In general, a real storehouse of knowledge and invaluable experience.

YouTube

In our guide, you will learn how to promote your YouTube channel, attract attention to your videos and gain many subscribers.

We tell you how to start producing video content yourself and going on YouTube with it. The entire base that a novice YouTuber needs to know.

We talk about 9 types of videos for business – their disadvantages, advantages, and complexity of production. We selected an example for each type, and even made our own videos for a couple.

Many large companies create a YouTube channel to attract customers: Coca-Cola reminds of itself during the New Year holidays, and Red Bull adds a little extreme to every day. In this article, the author has collected channels from different companies aimed at the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet or the whole world.

30 examples of interesting video marketing to get a good idea of ​​what’s going on with video advertising and learn some interesting tricks.

We warn you right away: Google does not reveal all the secrets of video ranking. The list of factors was compiled based on YouTube’s own insiders, research and expert advice, and our own observations.

In this article you will find 29 useful hacks and tips for those involved in video marketing.

With this tool, you can get a lot of data about your channel and competitors' channels that you would never find in the public domain.

Most recently, we launched a series of videos “Simply about the complex.” The idea was to shoot short videos with answers to the most simple questions about Internet marketing. Each video should be optimized for a specific search query. What came of it? Read our mini-case.

In this article we talk about paid and free, official and third party tools YouTube analysts.

YouTube is one of the largest UGC portals. Even though creating video content is the hardest thing to do, there are more people wanting to advance there than anywhere else. And it is either impossible or very expensive to moderate all uploaded content. Therefore, almost all responsibility for controlling content rests with users.

We recently updated an article about what you can get a “strike” for on your YouTube channel. It turned out a little ironic, because the next day we ourselves received a strike. How did we film it? Read our newsletter.

The purpose of the webinar is to tell you how you can create a video with your own hands. Summary: What are the different types of video content? Why do you need a storyboard? What is a storyboard? How to choose the right location? How to choose equipment? Why do you need lighting? What program should I use to edit the video? Analysis of the main stages of installation.

What if you don’t yet have the superpower to edit professional videos? Start working in simple programs, gradually moving on to more complex ones. Like in this review.

An elementary guide for those who need to process sound for the first time. The article contains recommendations for choosing a simple audio editor and some tips for working with sound.

We compare services with which you can organize webinars and video conferences. For convenience, all services are presented in the table.

Recently, we started holding one free webinar every week. The main “trick” is that these webinars cost nothing not only for our viewers, but also for ourselves. Would you like us to tell you how we do it? Then follow the link.

If you regularly follow our announcements, you know that every week we hold free webinars, which take a lot of time and effort. We often get the question “why are you doing this?” All webinars are free and we do not sell our services. Why waste so much time and effort? We answer.

Do you want to become an awesome YouTuber? Even if Dud has already settled in you, you still strive to express your thoughts in a cool way on video - it’s not just that you read our message. Don't look for banal advice about concentration here. A tough brain boost awaits you.

The ability to speak concisely and to the point is always valued. In this article we will look at an ultra-short version of speeches from 1 to 3 minutes. Some do not even consider them as a serious presentation, but in vain. Such a short speech also has all the attributes: audience, purpose, structure, the need to interest, etc.

Anton Gaivoronsky is the creator of the JohnCalliano video blog and the owner of the world's largest chain of hookah bars, HookahPlace. Starting with simple video reviews, he was able to build a real smoke empire and is still successfully promoting his business through video marketing.

Today the channel “Emotional Italians by Milan TV” has more than 230 thousand subscribers and 23 million views. We were lucky enough to talk with one of the founders of the channel, Daria Pereverzeva, and learn a lot of interesting things about the history of the creation of the channel, the internal “kitchen” and plans for the future.

We interviewed the founders of the online store shanti-shanti.rf. The two guys actually implement content marketing (with an emphasis on video content) on their website. And they do it simply wonderful. Let's take an example!

We interviewed the famous YouTube blogger Tatyana Rybakova and asked about how she came to fame, how she draws up a content plan, and promotes the channel. You can read with something tasty and healthy.

An interview with consulting psychologist Alexey Krasikov about how he promoted a YouTube channel and became a highly paid specialist with a huge waiting list for appointments.

"Yandex.Zen"

We are sharing with you a recording of a webinar about Yandex.Zen. The webinar turned out to be very eventful. The recording, presentation and additional materials can be used as a guide to working with Zen.

We asked questions to Daniil Trabun, media director of Yandex.Zen. He talked about algorithms, new products and service plans.

The Yandex.Zen recommendation system has become one of the most effective content marketing tools. Damir Khalilov recorded a special video in which he answers the most important questions regarding this service.

Telegram

New opportunities for promotion, communication with the team and clients. Public channels. Secret chats. Supergroups. Work from any device. All this is about Telegram.

Telegram channels are trending and it’s definitely time for you to start your own. We tell you why, why and how it works.

We tell you how to promote a channel in Telegram, what tools you should use + at the end useful tips from Pavel Fedorov, the author of the popular channel “Pasha and his procrastination.”

Users are interested in quality content, they are ready to subscribe to channels and consume it. But to become noticeable even in a network that is just gaining momentum, you need to be able to attract attention. Want to learn this craft? Then watch the video at the link.

Telegram was blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation. How did this happen? Who is guilty? And now what i can do? Read our article.

"Classmates"

Odnoklassniki is often perceived as a useless tool from an SMM point of view. But in vain. Dmitry Dementy will teach you how to promote a group on Odnoklassniki.

This video discusses working methods for promoting a group in Odnoklassniki.

This video shows in detail how to set up advertising in Odnoklassniki - target.my.com. There are more than 140 million people on this social network! This is a very cool and powerful tool for setting up targeted advertising for selling goods and services in Russia and the CIS countries.

Sergey Menshikov has collected for you typical and quite obvious mistakes in working with content for this social network that everyone makes. You will learn: adapt content to Odnoklassniki, design posts in such a way as to attract users, and also avoid typical errors in working with Odnoklassniki.

Useful materials on the topic of SMM

A large and very good article that clearly explains why cheap SMM is a waste of money, and how you need to promote yourself on social networks in order to get real results (and not fake likes and bots).

We talked with Ilya Rabchenko, the founder of the famous Directors Club community, about his strategy for promoting business communities on social networks. It turned out to be a voluminous and very useful article.

We tried to collect all the most important indicators for analyzing social media marketing. The information will be useful to text message operators, managers and business owners.

Engaging content is one that invites the subscriber to engage in dialogue. To invite dialogue, content must: intrigue, deceive, flirt, provide useful information. The subscriber gets pleasure from good engaging content, as if from a conversation with an interesting person, and the brand receives organic coverage, feedback and ideas for future publications.

This article is about how to write non-trivial texts if you are promoting a cafe or restaurant (or any catering establishment in general) on social networks. We recommend stocking up on tissues before reading. The text and pictures make you salivate profusely.

All marketers know the benefits of promoting projects on social networks. But specialists often don’t know what content to publish on Facebook, Vkontakte and Instagram. In this article you will find 96 ideas that will help you support your SMM campaigns.

After reading, you will learn: what content your business needs and how to get it, what tasks each type of content solves, how to create a selling content plan.

If the picture doesn’t catch your attention right away, the text in the post won’t be read. He will get lost in the tape. The time, effort and money spent on its creation will be wasted. We will teach you how to prevent this from happening.

Many people are confused about where to get pictures for posts. Stock photos irritate users, borrowed images can get you in the neck, and you don’t have time to create visual content yourself. In this article you will find several dozen sources of free images with which you can illustrate publications.

If you are promoting a company or personal brand on social networks, it is important that the pictures on all pages look appropriate, do not lose quality and convey the idea. It's helpful to know the correct sizes, formats, requirements, and tools for creating and searching images.

Mobile photography is not difficult, but incredibly interesting. The ability to take high-quality photos on a smartphone can be useful to you both when managing Instagram for your company and for personal purposes (for example, when traveling, when it is inconvenient to carry a huge DSLR with you).

The world is going crazy for GIFs. They are everywhere. Not only are social networks filled with gifs, they are already used to illustrate scientific articles and serious analytics. We can't stop this madness, so let's lead it. Check out the link above for a detailed guide on where to find GIFs, how to create them, and how to use them on social media. Bookmark it so you don’t lose it.

More than 90 tools that expand image processing capabilities: services and programs for photo processing, tools for creating infographics, gifs, memes, demotivators, postcards, tools for creating screenshots, converters and resizers, mobile tools for working with photos.

People perceive high-quality infographics better than dry text. And video is another step forward. In it, you combine text, images and sound (voice) to give visitors as much information as possible. In this article, we looked at 7 services where you can create video infographics yourself.

If you leave messages manually, you will have to spend too much time on mechanical work. Better to spend it on creating content, right? To get this opportunity, use scheduled posting on social networks.

Hashtags are, without exaggeration, a wonderful tool. With its help, users can at least partially organize the information chaos of social networks and fish out the necessary data from the background noise. And online marketers use hashtags to convey information to their target audience. In this article you will learn how hashtags work on different social networks.

In this article you will find visual instructions for setting up retargeting pixels on VKontakte, Facebook and myTarget. You will also get acquainted with visual examples of using pixels to improve advertising effectiveness.

How banks and pharmacies, travel agencies and beauty salons, telecom operators and taxi services respond to online complaints from customers. There are many examples: there are standard unsubscribes, real emotions, inadequate reactions, and blatant rudeness. Overall, enjoy.

The author has collected 80 examples of cross-marketing on social networks and more. See for yourself: banks and car dealerships, fast food restaurants and online games, food hypermarkets and jewelry brands can become partners - there are plenty of options for cooperation! Pay attention to this method of promotion.

Interviews with SMM experts

Just a couple of years ago, no one knew who Alexander Chizhov was. He appeared in the SMM field quite suddenly and immediately won the sympathy of the audience with his easy style, great sense of humor and ability to find and create truly high-quality content. The interview turned out to be sincere and very interesting. Recommended reading.

SMM expert Dmitry Rumyantsev talks in an interview about the future of targeted advertising: what targetologists should prepare for, how targeting will change and what social networks are preparing for us.

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