• How to install a widget for VKontakte groups? VKontakte greeting widget: why you need it and how to use it

    “Chief editor of the GetGoodRank blog, web analyst, blogger.
    The social network VKontakte has launched a new widget - Community Messages. Now, instead of a regular chat, users will be able to ask questions to a company representative through a familiar widget.”

    Experts social network At a recent internal marathon of VKontakte developers, they created a prototype of a new widget for branded sites - Community Messages. This is a tool for communication between the company and clients on a branded website using a familiar and proven tool.

    What does the new widget do?

    The widget simplifies communication between users and the company. Any user registered on VKontakte will be able to ask questions to company representatives in the new widget directly on the site without having to go to the social network. It is not necessary to wait for a response on the website as in the case of online chat. You can reply to a message both in the web version and in mobile application. The new widget automatically calculates the average response time by analyzing the history of correspondence with other clients over the last 72 hours.

    Messages to community administrators will be received as usual. Widget settings allow you to add a branded welcome message. This will demonstrate that you care about your customers, increase loyalty and build trust.

    What are the developers betting on?

    Most active users have VKontakte accounts. This eliminates the need for users to log in, additionally register, or provide contact information on the site. The messages widget retains all the functionality available in the desktop version of the social network: in the dialogue you can send a photo, image, document for a more detailed discussion.

    This reduces conversion friction, makes the company closer to the user, and reduces risks for the user (now there is no need to leave real contacts on an unfamiliar site).

    What is required to install the Community Posts widget?

    To install a widget on a website, a company needs to:

    • lead a community on the social network VKontakte
    • in the “Community Management” section, activate the widget

    Not every user of the social network VKontakte knows that this is not only a means of communicating with friends, but also powerful tool for webmasters. Even if you have a little knowledge of website building, you will be able to integrate your web resource with VKontakte, receiving not only fully functional interface tools, but also additional traffic attendance.

    How to do this?

    3. Go to the “My Settings” page.

    4. Scroll down the page and in the footer of the site we find a menu with a link to “developers”. Follow this link.

    6. Let's go to this section, where the list of widgets for the site will be listed.

    Let's start in order.

    Comments widget allows you to configure a comment block for articles on your site.

    Go to the page of this widget.

    And fill in all the fields: indicate the name, address, main domain and subject of the site. In the “Number of comments” list, select the required number of comments that will be displayed on the page, the rest will be hidden under the “Previous comments” button, which can also be read by clicking on this button.

    Opposite the “Media” item, uncheck the box if you want only text in the comments. If you want to give free rein to users, you can leave the checkbox or configure this function at your discretion.

    For example, allow the user, in addition to text, to attach photographs, videos and links to their comments, but prohibit drawing graffiti and adding audio recordings.

    In the “Width” field, you must specify the width of the “Comments” block. In order for the comment block to be aesthetically displayed on your website, it is advisable to specify a width equal to the width of the area allocated for content.

    For example, if the width of the content area is 600 pixels, then we specify the same width for the “Commerce” block. It doesn’t matter if you don’t guess the width initially, then you can correct it manually in the code.

    Now you can receive comments on your articles, with a guarantee that they will be real people. This widget also has the ability to moderate (deleting messages, adding individual users blacklisted, appointment of moderators).

    “Wall Post” widget – what is it for? I'll try to explain with an example.

    Let's say you post news on your blog about the dismissal of Pavel Durov from VKontakte, and would like to quote his opinion on this matter. All you need to do is find the desired entry on a social network. Copy its URL.

    Go to the “Wall Post” widget page.

    You may ask why such complexity if there is a special “Quote” tag in HTML for this? I answer: the function of this widget is the reliability of the information. Your readers will be assured of the information, so to speak. from first-hand accounts and there is no “gag” in it.

    "Communities" widget - if you have created a group of the same name for your website or public page VKontakte, you can install this widget on your website to attract subscribers on your website.

    In the “View” item, select what will be displayed in the widget.

    Participants: photos of subscribers and their number.

    Title Only: The widget will display your community's logo and name.

    Unlike “Comments”, the “Communities” widget allows you to customize the block design to suit color scheme your site, and also indicate not only the width, but also the height of the element.

    After all the settings, you also copy the “Embed Code” and add it to the designated area on the site.

    By using "Like" widget Users will only be able to like your articles, but also publish a link to them on their wall, which will also help attract additional traffic to your site.

    Here, just like for comments, we indicate the name of the site, its address, main domain and subject. Next, click the “Save” button.

    Now you need to configure appearance buttons. It's up to you here. Next, select the height of the button - for all button options the proposed values ​​are the same: 18, 20, 22 or 24 pixels. Also, if you have chosen the button option “Button with a miniature counter” or “Button with a text counter”, then in the “Button name” item you can select the text that will be displayed on the button. There are only two options: “I like” or “This is interesting.”

    All! Copy the code and add it to the site pages.

    Next Recommendations widget without installing the previous one (“I like”) will not work, as it displays the most popular articles on your web resource according to readers. With this widget you can make it easier for the user to find the most interesting posts on your blog.

    With the first settings of this widget, I think everything is already clear to you, so I’ll start with “Number of records”. Here you select the number of displayed popular pages. There may be 3, 5 or 10.

    In the “Sampling period” drop-down list, select the most optimal time interval. I think here you need to take into account the frequency of publishing new posts on your blog and the number of visitors to your blog. The higher the first and second indicators, the shorter the period should be.

    In the “Formulation” item, select the most acceptable phrase (“Like” or “Interesting”) and copy the “Insert Code” again.

    Polls widget. This is perhaps the most interesting widget. With its help, you can organize a survey on your website on any topic and with any number of answer options.

    For example, you changed the design of your blog and want to know what your readers think. Go to the “Polls” section of the widget. Fill out the form (you, of course, add a description for your site):

    Now we formulate the survey. In the “Survey Subject” field, write the question that concerns you. Next, fill out the “Answer Options”. By default there are two. To add more options, you must click on the “add” link, after which another text entry field will appear.

    When the survey questionnaire is formulated, indicate the width of the block with the survey and click the “Get code” button.

    A pop-up window will appear from which you can copy the Embed Code.

    After inserting the code on the site, your readers will see this survey form:

    Do you want links to your articles to become immortal? Then it will come to your aid widget “Publish links”, allowing VK users to publish links to articles directly on the wall. And as you know, all information published on the wall is necessarily translated into the news feed.

    The settings for this widget are simple: you choose the style of the button (with straight or rounded edges, just an icon or a button with text, with or without a publication counter), you can change the text on it (for example, replace the default word “Save” with “Tell Friends” ) and logo variant.

    Last on this list widget “Subscribe to user”. Allows your readers to become subscribers of your community or you personally with one click. You need to provide a link to the community page and select the button type. And paste the copied code onto your website.

    I think this widget can also be used if, for example, other people write articles on your blog (like Alexander Borisov), where at the end of the article you indicate the link-name of the author to his website. What if there is no website? Then you can use this widget and send everyone who wants to meet the author to his page on the social network.

    That's all! Good luck with your experiments!

    Since I am a practicing administrator of groups on social networks, when I go to any site from a search engine, I always look into their VKontakte group.

    How do I do this? Thanks to the widget, of course!

    Why am I doing this? Because I’m interested in how this or that project is presented on social networks, how the group is run, how active it is, etc.

    This is what the VKontakte widget looks like on the website. You can also see him “live” - he is just to your right. Scroll your mouse wheel down a little and you can see it for yourself :)

    Why do you need a VKontakte widget?

    The most important task that the widget performs is that it connects your website and your VKontakte community. A huge plus is that the site visitor sees on the widget, first of all, his friends who are in the group. This always increases confidence.

    Remember yourself. Surely you were very willing to join groups where your friends were already members.

    Moreover, a site visitor can literally subscribe to your group’s news in one click. And that's great! Well, people don’t like to make unnecessary movements and there’s nothing you can do about it. Mother laziness...)

    Remember that every extra mouse click is another barrier that not all of your visitors and subscribers pass through.

    VKontakte is the most visited network on the Runet and a huge number of people (to be more precise, about 60 million people) access this social network every day. And your business will clearly benefit from the fact that people will receive news from you on the very resource where they are used to spending their free time.

    How to create a VKontakte widget for a website

    In order to create a VKontakte widget, open your page on this social network.
    Then go down to the very bottom of the screen and on the left, under targeted ads, look for the “Developers” button. A couple of times, novice administrators turned to me for help and wrote that they could not find this very button at the bottom of the page.

    If you are also tired of turning the mouse wheel, then go to the very top of your page, click on the triangle next to your name and find the “Help” button

    A page will open in front of you, at the bottom of which you can easily find the “Developers” button

    You will be taken to the application development page. Click on the “Connecting sites and widgets” button

    Find the “Website Widgets” section and click on the “Communities” button.

    The “Widget for Communities” page will open in front of you, where you can make all the necessary settings for your VKontakte widget. All fields will already be filled in - don’t be alarmed! The fields are filled in for example :)

    You will see 5 blocks in front of you:

    1. In the "Page Link" field, enter the address of your group.
    2. In the “View” field, select the option that is most interesting to you:
      Members—the widget will display avatars of your community members;
      News - will be visible latest news groups;
      Name only - you will only have the name of your community on your website.
    3. In the third block you can configure the dimensions of the widget - its width and height.
    4. In the fourth - at your discretion, change the color of the background, text and buttons.
    5. In the very bottom field (in the red square) is exactly the code that we will need to insert into the site.

    Try playing with the widget settings. This is a very exciting activity because you can observe all the changes in real time :)

    How to install a VKontakte community block on a website

    Despite the fact that all technical issues related to the site are not easy for me, I was able to install the VKontakte widget myself. I think that if you have a WordPress site (my site runs on the WordPress engine), then it won’t be difficult for you to do this.

    Log in to the site admin area. In Control Panel, find Appearance.

    Then click on the “Widgets” tab there. You need to drag the “Text” block (free text or HTML code) to your sidebar.

    In the “Text” block you can come up with a title for the widget, insert the code and be sure to save it. By the way, the title is not obligatory :)

    In the last article, we looked at all the options available for personal sites. This time we’ll look separately at the VKontakte communities or groups widget for a website: from creating the widget to adding it to a website running WordPress.

    A VKontakte community or group widget placed on the site will increase the influx of participants into the group and receive additional traffic from vk.com.

    To create a community widget, you need to log in to the VKontakte social network and go to the developer section using the link http://vk.com/dev/Community. The first item in the form for setting up a community widget for a site is a link to the page. To get the link, you need to open the group for which you are creating a widget and copy from address bar browser address of the group. Copy the address and paste it into the form " Link to page«:

    • participants
    • latest news
    • only the name of the group and the number of participants

    Select the “Participants” display.

    In the next settings item you need to specify the width and height of the widget. The height can be left at default, that is, 400 pixels, but you need to think about the width. If you have a static site, the design of which looks the same on any screen, then you only need to measure the width of the place where the widget will be placed. Often widgets are placed in a sidebar, so measure the width of the sidebar.

    At responsive design and inserting a VKontakte community widget into the sidebar, you will need to measure its width at any screen resolution. This can be done by changing the width of the browser window.

    Let our width also be equal to the default value of 220 pixels:

    Then, you can also change the background color, button color and text color. It all depends on your preferences and tastes. It is advisable to select colors that will match the colors used on the site.

    Placing a VKontakte group widget on the website

    After setting up on the same page, you will receive a code that needs to be placed on the site. To post it on the site, you need to select and copy this code, then go to the administrative part of your site. Since the most optimal place for a VKontakte group widget is the sidebar, you need to open the “ Widgets"(if the site is on WordPress) and add a new widget " Text» in the side column. Then, add the one obtained with vk.com code and save changes:

    Show that you have a Vk.com group

    When adding a group widget to your site, you need to make sure it is visible. Then we can expect an increase in the number of group members.

    In addition, in order for the number of subscribers to grow, you need to add interesting information to the group and do it regularly. This is just a basic recommendation. A little later we will tell you how to promote a group using white and not so white methods.

    Hook on something picky users“VKontakte” is becoming more and more complicated: the audience is getting used to bright pictures, and to screaming inscriptions. But what to do if you need to attract the attention of subscribers to important information?

    At the end of November appeared interesting option solutions to this problem. The guys from Spycat have released a greeting widget for VKontakte communities. This widget allows you to contact the user personally.

    The request looks like this:

    They addressed me by name and showed me my avatar. It’s nice that I’m invited to the concert.

    The VKontakte greeting widget will help push the audience who enters the community to the target action:

    • place an order;
    • subscribe to the newsletter;
    • read FAQ;
    • read nice bonus(for example, a promotional code for a discount).

    In this article I will tell you how to use the widget and give you a couple of useful tips.

    How to install a greeting widget in the VKontakte group

    To install the welcome widget, go to the VKontakte application directory and click on the “Add” button opposite the Spycat application we need.

    Important: In the visibility settings, check the “Only for administrators” checkbox so that regular visitors do not see the “Open application” button next to the community cover. And in the “Application widget visibility” settings, on the contrary, set “All users”.

    While you're creating the widget, you can limit visibility to administrators only. The main thing is not to forget to open the widget for everyone later.

    Luckily, Spycat has prepared a handy cheat sheet:

    In the texts for the VKontakte greeting widget, you can use several variables:

    1. first and last name: (Firstname) and (Lastname), respectively;
    2. city ​​of residence: (City);
    3. the last profession listed in the profile: (Career).

    Please note that each text field is limited to 100 characters, and the button label is limited to 50. Therefore, you won’t be able to play Leo Tolstoy.

    How to use the VKontakte greeting widget

    General advice: don't write vaguely. While I was writing the post, I managed to forget which community I took this example from.

    Vague characteristics like “many interesting posts” and “many funny pictures" in the widget text didn't help me remember. It’s better to write something specific and specific to your community. At least there is a call to action “Subscribe” - that’s a good move.

    Now I’ll tell you what you can do using the VKontakte greeting widget.

    1. Newsletter

    With the help of a widget, it has become much easier to convince your audience to subscribe to your community newsletter or simply to your community. About how my colleague Seryozha has already told.

    2. FAQ

    You can also use the VKontakte welcome widget to direct users to the FAQ page so that you don’t have to explain the same thing to newcomers a thousand times in messages and comments. Here's how hand-twisting fans did it:

    With the help of the VKontakte welcome widget, owners of a strange hobby have made life much easier for new recruits: now, in order to find all the necessary lessons in the correct chronological order, visitors simply press a button and get the result.

    3. Nice bonuses

    Another current method using personal widgets - issuing promotional codes for discounts.

    In this widget, the admins of the group that sells perfume used a rather rare variable - a number. See where it says 45? The number is linked to the store's CRM system. With each bottle sold during the promotion, the number will decrease.

    Of course, it would be clearer for you and me if instead of “only 45 flavors” it was written “45 flavors left.” Take note of this countdown method.

    4. Competition

    In addition, the VKontakte greeting widget helps increase the activity of community members. This is especially useful if you are running a creative competition. Here's an example from anime fans:

    Just don’t take their example of writing numerals.

    5. Offer

    And of course, why beat around the bush if you can simply encourage the user to place an order or ask them to submit a request. This is especially suitable for communities where simple goods are sold.

    This cute manipulation is used by the children's charity foundation “With Love”:

    For more complex goods It’s better to invite the user to ask a question or help him calculate the cost of a service - for example, if you sell windows or design premises. Place a link to the dialogue with the community.

    Let's summarize. To successfully use the VKontakte greeting widget, you need to:

    1. Decide on the purpose and page to which the widget will lead.
    2. Write a call to action on a button or in the widget text.
    3. Don’t forget about the benefits that the widget should bring not only to you, but also to the audience.

    I told you how to most effectively use the VKontakte greeting widget, but you can use it for other tasks. Share your experience and ideas on how you use personal widgets, let's discuss it together!

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