Written by Anastasia Kurmakaeva
Índice
We have already mentioned that a large proportion of Russian Internet users prefer to use their country’s own portals and social networks to keep in touch with their friends, acquaintances or relatives on the Internet. With this article we intend to delve a little deeper into this topic, but this time we will do it from a point of view clearly focused on the objective of online marketing. In other words, we are going to see in which social networks we are interested in promoting our brand or website, and establish the starting points for a successful social media strategy in Russia.
First of all, given the growing number of Russian-speaking users who already use their mobile devices to browse and communicate via social networks, I thought it would be useful to attach a small study on the traffic received by the most popular social networks in Russia from different devices. According to the statistical data available on liveinternet.ru, here is a summary of what I found most interesting:
Unsurprisingly, VKontakte leads in the number one position as the portal that gets the most traffic, both from desktop and mobile devices (including tablets), with 47.4% of users.- Facebook is in second place as the social network that receives the most mobile traffic (26.4%).
- On desktops, the second most trafficked social network is Odnoklassniki (25%). However, its popularity is practically nil on mobile devices, and it is far surpassed by VKontakte, Facebook and Twitter, listed in order of popularity.
Unsurprisingly, Unless it is very clear to us that our market niche lies elsewhere, this data leads us to a very simple conclusion: VKontakte is the portal where we should focus the resources of our social media strategy in Russia.in mind, OdnoklassnikiFacebook and Twitter as possible secondary or alternative social networks.
And so you may be wondering, where do I start? At this point, we should already have our target audience clearly defined, so our next steps should be the ones described below.
Before you start creating profiles in a mad dash, there is one small task that has a higher priority: installing social buttons on your website, so that users can already share the content of your portal on their social network profiles. In an effort to help you with this task, Yandex has a social sharing tool in which you only have to select the social networks in which you want your content to be shared, and it will generate a code that you can insert in the different pages of your website. There are other alternative tools that offer even more customization possibilities, such as Share42.
Once we have our profiles created, we will add links to them as well, either in the form of a widget or buttons placed in the header or footer of our website.
Now it is. Let’s start with the interesting part, which is the creation of profiles on social networks and the description of our website to make ourselves known to our followers. As we have seen above, VKontakte is the leading social network in Russia, so we will focus on this one and see how public profiles work and the type of profile that suits us best, among other techniques. VKontakte is available in many languages, including Spanish and English, so it will not be an obstacle for us to create our profile correctly. Access “My Communities” from your personal VKontakte profile to create a new community. A trick: if we do not belong to any group, the social network will not show us the link to this section.
Groups
The use of this type of profile is recommended when our intention is to invite people to publish their opinions and reflections in the discussion forums, and to encourage users to participate in creating their own debates. It is a comfortable and informal way to get to know our audience and find out how they view our site or business. For example, if you have a photography store you may be more interested in creating a group to encourage users to share their own techniques and tricks.
Public pages or fan pages
If what we are interested in is to promote our brand, a public figure, company or other type of business to publish official information about them, and to be in charge of the discussions that are created, then it is better to choose a public page. For example, if we have a fashion store, a public page is ideal to make suggestions to our followers of outfits of the day that include products of our brand.
This type of community does not allow you to invite people to follow you, but gives you the possibility to share the page with your list of friends.
Important: if for some reason you decide to change your strategy and want to change the type of community previously chosen, there is no need to create a new profile. VKontakte allows you to switch from public page to group and vice versa once every 30 days.
Customization and configuration
In the administration area we will see multiple possibilities. To give your page or group more visibility in search engines, be sure to write a good description of your business or website: one that clearly explains what it is about, and contains the keywords you want people to find you with. In addition, among other options, VKontakte allows us to export our publications to Twitter if we connect both profiles.
Publications and contents
- Interesting content for our target audience. Undoubtedly, the publication of valuable and attractive content for users is where the success of any social media strategy lies, whether Russian or from any other country. The frequent use of graphic content such as images or videos is strongly recommended: not all publications must necessarily be about the brand, but they must be related to our theme.
User-generated content
. Encourage users to participate in discussions that they might find interesting by creating an environment of free dialogue, both among participants and with your brand. User-generated content is always welcome and helps to maintain a more active profile.- Gifts and promotions. Another good way to attract members to your community and gain visits to your website is through campaigns, contests, promotions, offers, etc.
- Hashtags. The use of hashtags in publications will also help our social media profiles gain more visibility.
Dissemination and monitoring of the strategy
Finally, of course, do not forget about dissemination and follow-up. Start with your friends, family and acquaintances… To increase the popularity of your community or page faster, the ideal is to have influential contacts within the scope of your business or website, who will help you gain more audience. You can invite users to get to know your community by promoting your content in thematic groups related to the scope of your website, being very careful not to make the mistake of doing and not harming your strategy before it has even had time to get off the ground.
Monitor the productivity of your posts, and track the statistical data of your social media profiles. As you see its evolution, take note of the posts with which you have obtained more success and more traffic, as well as the times in which you have managed to attract more audience.
These are some of the tips you can follow to start moving your Russian social media strategy. Make sure you spend enough time getting to know all your options, and once everything is in place, to keep interest alive in your active profiles.
