SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS AND DEMOGRAPHICSVK.COM

Alexander Mitrofanov

WHY VK?

VK is the largest social media networking site in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus

Rank 10 globally according to eBizMBA (source)

Ease of creating an account – only name, phone number and password required

Ability to log in with the Facebook account

Variety of different languages – useful for foreign businesses

Free video and audio sharing – no limitations

Attach all kind of content to your post: images, polls, GIFs, videos and documents

WHAT ABOUT DEMOGRAPHICS?

This social medium is actively used by teenagers (14-19) and adults (20-27) (source)

Mostly Russian and Ukrainian-speaking users visit the website

49,6 of females and 50,4 of males (source)

65% of visitors live in Russia

More than 59% of users are 25+ years old

A LITTLE BIT OF STATISTICS

The number of total users - 380 million

The number of daily active users is 80 million

The average online is 900.000

The average duration online (min) - 7.3

The average number of Pageviews per visitor – 25

Source

VK FOR BUSINESS

Ability to create fan page (group) for free

Customized URL for the page

Verification tick – be trusted

Moderators, Administrators, and editors can be assigned to look after the page

“Post as a group” so followers see your post in their feed or reply to the comments as a group – engage with the audience

VK FOR BUSINESS

You decide - either to allow commenting under the post or not

Use discussion board to collect reviews and more

Group members can send personal message to the community – talk to the customer privately

Schedule your posts using “Timer”

SAMSUNG SUCCESSFUL EXPERIENCE

More that 200.000 followers

~ ten comments per post

Actively replying to comments

Each topic on Discussion board has on the average 4000 replies

Page is verified (ticked)

Albums are used for image contests

Samsung VK Official page

WHEN SHOULD YOU POST

Wednesday, 1 pm - 8 pm is the most active time for posting.

Thursday and Friday, 7 pm-11 pm is the most active period for likes and sharings.

Tuesday and Friday, 1 pm - 11 pm is the most active time of comments.

Monday and weekends are the less active days of the week

For a better understanding of your posting time, it is suggested to use integrated statistics page for every group. Detailed information on the next slides

IS VK WORTH USING?For businesses that want to expand to Russia and Commonwealth of Independent States, the answer is definitely YES

As it was previously said, VK is the biggest network not only in Russia but in Ukraine and Belarus. By integrating VK into social media mix, businesses can easily tap into a highly connected geo-demographic group.

As an example, Adidas has more than 500.000 followers on its fan page. It became the biggest sports community leaving behind Nike (300.000 followers) and Reebok (150.000 followers), by creating contests to attract audience

More information about VK as a great platform for foreign businesses can be found on Cleverism website

MONITORING PAGE’S NUMBERS(LIKES, SHARES, COMMENTS, VISITS AND MORE)

VK has its tools to understand how users feel about what businesses post free of charge

Data that is available:

Unique visitors/pageviews;

Sex/age;

Geo (by country and city);

Devices (mobile or desktop);

Traffic sources;

Views by section (how many users visited Discussion board, photos, videos etc.)

MONITORING PAGE’S NUMBERS

VK+B2C ORGANIZATIONS = ?

Mostly B2C companies are using VK as a social media platform to talk to the future or existing customers, where a company is a fan page, and customers are the followers who participate in page’s activity (commenting, reviewing, liking, sharing and taking part in the contests).

Users visit VK to find interesting information, funny pictures, and useful products. It is important to make use of VK and inform potential customers about the product launch and demonstration; organization hosted events. Posting poll can be helpful to find out what your followers are looking for.

The primary audience of VK is teenagers and adults who visit schools or universities.

Isn’t it a great opportunity to show what your company has in a pocket?

COSTS TO RUN A VK FAN PAGE

It is important to understand that there will be some costs when running a VK page

When created, a page has to look attracting: appealing picture, easy to comprehend navigation menu, sorted topics on Discussion board and more

Other restriction for foreign businesses – Russian language. Talking to your audience in their mother tongue is important. Russian speaking employees have to be hired to look after the page, deleting spam, answering questions and creating content

Time is another cost. Fan pages that have big audience require more engagement with the followers. Therefore it may require creating a separate division for VK social media platform

NEW TO VK?

Detailed information about why VK can be used for businesses, how to create a fan page, Adidas successful example and more:

https://www.cleverism.com/using-vkontakte-business-purposes/