Pr activities on social networks. Course work: Social networks as a tool for PR activities using the example of the social network "VKontakte"

Federal Agency for Physical Culture and Sports

Ural State University Physical Culture

Department of Public Relations

COURSE WORK

in the discipline "Theory and Practice of Public Relations"

Performed:

student gr. 232

faculty of EYUGN

Zavyalova Olga

Checked:

Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor

Kiuru K.V.

Chelyabinsk 2010

2.3 Musical groups. Group “Another Mask” - group in “VKontakte”

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Introduction

Recently, both in the West and here, in Russia and Ukraine, this type of site as social networks has become widespread. Investments in such projects reach hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars. The results of numerous studies indicate that social networks have already reached more than half of all Internet users. What are social networks? In the usual meaning of the word, a social network is a community of people connected by common interests, a common cause, or having other reasons for communicating with each other.

On the Internet, a social network is a software service, a platform for interaction between people in a group or groups. Also in relation to the Internet this virtual network, which is a means of providing services related to establishing connections between its users, as well as different users and information resources corresponding to their interests, installed on global network sites.

The object of study of this course work is PR activities.

Based on the stated purpose of the course work, its main objectives are:

1. Research of scientific literature and online publications on this topic.

2. Study of the site “VKontakte” as a tool for PR activities.

3. Analysis of groups created by various companies in social network"In contact with".

The methodological and information base was the work of the following authors: V. Petrova, A. N. Chumikov, M. Kutuzov, M. P. Bocharov.

The hypothesis of the course work is that a correctly created and clearly defined group in contact contributes to the formation (increase) of the public capital of the basic subject of PR, and non-compliance with the rules of running the group and the inability of group members to discuss the work of the group leads to a lack (decrease) of public capital.

Research methods used in the course work - analysis of scientific literature, analysis of groups in the social network "VKontakte", comparison of theoretical knowledge with practical knowledge, as well as an empirical method - observation.

Course work consists of two parts - theoretical and practical, and also contains applications. The theoretical part provides a definition of the concept of a social network, as well as the possibilities of PR in a social network as a PR tool, a number of prospects in the development of social networks as a tool of PR activity are given, the possibilities of working in a social network and methods of promoting a product, company, and ideas are described. In the practical part, an analysis of several groups of the social network “VKontakte” in different directions was carried out. The appendix contains photographs of groups placed in groups for reporting.

The term “social network” was introduced long before the advent of the Internet and modern Internet networks proper, back in 1954 by sociologist from the “Manchester School” James Barnes. Modernly, the concept in its simplest form means a certain circle of acquaintances of a person, where there is the person himself - the center of the social network, his acquaintances - the branches of this social network and the relationships between these people - connections. On the Internet, a social network is a software service, a platform for interaction between people in a group or groups. Also in relation to the Internet, this is a virtual network, which is a means of providing services related to establishing connections between its users, as well as different users and information resources corresponding to their interests, installed on global network sites.

The results of numerous studies indicate that social networks have already reached more than half of all Internet users. The study's authors concluded that "social media has enormous potential to provide a new generation of PR professionals with incredible opportunities for interaction." About ten years ago, experts and researchers realized the enormous impact of the Internet on PR. However, according to statistics, most PR professionals use the Internet only as an additional, and not the main communication channel. Although practice shows that PR professionals are increasingly paying attention to websites and social networks, including blogs, some are even trying to create a scientific basis for PR in social networks. The media environment has changed; traditional PR techniques no longer bring the desired results.

For advertisers, social networks provide unique opportunities to reach consumers directly. Every day, millions of users conduct conversations about companies, their products and services, sharing their opinions and impressions. As a result, an individual member of the online community can ruin (or vice versa) the reputation of a company with a multimillion-dollar turnover.

Having outlined the main features of social networks and shown in general terms the main mechanism of communication within a social network, we can begin to analyze the opportunities for PR activities that a social network provides. These opportunities will directly result from the characteristics of social networks and the characteristics of communication within them.

1) Personal PR

Unlike blogs, social networks do not provide such wide opportunities for publishing any texts on your personal page. A person running his own blog posts in it on his own behalf any texts of any format and volume, thus gaining the opportunity to attract attention directly to himself, earn a certain reputation and increase the fame of his name - in other words, getting the opportunity to “promote” himself personally through his texts. On social networks, on the contrary, there is practically no possibility of writing and posting original texts for public viewing. This is not at all the “independent journalism” of the blogosphere; there is simply no such form of PR here.

However, there are opportunities for personal PR. A profile on a social network, being as formalized and informative as possible, is, in fact, some analogue of a dossier on a person, a dossier that is compiled by the person himself. A profile is something like a highly expanded resume in which you can informally and in detail tell a lot about yourself. Increasingly, such resume profiles are becoming a way to promote yourself in the professional services market.

On social networks, a large number of profile fields are devoted to business information about the user. This allows the user to promote himself as a professional, and a convenient search system allows recruitment agencies and direct employers to search for future employees. As the researchers note, “The most important advantage of moikrug.ru is that it can provide much more information about the candidate than a regular recruiting site. A user profile on moikrug.ru is a form of resume, but with one addition: by gaining access to the applicant’s profile, the customer receives not only information about his work history and professional achievements, but also access to the people with whom he communicates. They can be used to check a candidate's references. And it’s completely free.”

In these social networks, the system of connections beyond the user’s immediate friends is most clearly implemented (not only the first “circle” of the user, that is, his friends directly, is immediately visible, but also the “second circle” - the list of contacts of his friends, as well as the “third circle” - list of contacts of friends of his friends). Thus, the user receives business information about people whom he does not personally know, but whom he can easily contact. This is especially effective for personal PR of people whose work is of a short-term project nature: programmers, designers and web designers, artists, translators, teachers, tutors, etc. Often people who need such specialists do not know who exactly to turn to, and when they see on a social network a person of the profession they need, for example, a programmer who turns out to be a friend of a friend of a friend, he can easily get in touch with him.

PR through the creation of virtual groups

As stated above, connections between group members are one of the most important types of connections in social networks. Given the huge number of social network users, creating a group on a social network provides good opportunities for PR.

A group on a social network is a kind of analogue of an Internet forum on a certain topic. The difference is that any social network user has the important ability to simply, quickly and en masse invite all their friends to the group at once. Moreover, the snowball principle works: the first one invites all or many of his friends, each of his friends invites all his friends, and so on. Thus, literally in a matter of days, the number of users joining the group can reach tens of thousands of people.

The creators of a group who are interested in the PR of an object can achieve their goal by inviting users to the group, as well as by posting certain information and moderating the group discussion.

By creating a group you can promote completely different things.

a) The object of PR can be a place: a country, a city or a separate attraction. For example, groups of lovers of northern Russian monasteries, bridges and churches of St. Petersburg, certain countries and cities are being created. This kind of PR can be done, for example, by travel companies.

b) The object can be any event. For example, a specific public event. Thus, groups are created dedicated to music festivals, concerts, city days, and so on.

c) The object of PR can be any musical group. Beginners and little-known groups take advantage of this PR opportunity especially actively. Moreover, such PR turns out to be really very effective. Members of a musical group or people close to them create a group on a social network, post information about the musical group and its music in this group, and then send out invitations to everyone, informing them that there is such a musical group and that right in this group on the social network you can listen to his music. Thanks to such groups on social networks, many young musical groups are reaching a new level of popularity.

d) The object of PR can be political parties and individual politicians. A demonstration of the possibilities of PR in this area was the second half of 2007, when a large number of groups dedicated to the elections to the State Duma of the fifth convocation of the Russian Federation, held on December 2, were created on the fastest growing and extremely popular social network among Russian youth, “VKontakte”. Both groups were created dedicated to discussing this or that party, as well as groups that advocated not voting for a certain party, not going to the polls, or, conversely, being sure to come and vote. The groups posted video materials of politicians’ election speeches, videos of television debates, party programs, and active discussions took place. A large number of young people visited and joined these groups, and many of these people, who have a negative attitude towards television and rarely watch it, watched videos of televised debates and addresses of political leaders from precisely these groups on the social network.

PR through sending out invitations to any event

In addition to groups, many social networks have a separate software service (let’s call it “meetings”) that displays any one-time events. A group may be created for such events, as mentioned above, but it may not be created, in which case PR may simply consist of creating a special “meeting” for such an event on a social network and sending out invitations to network users to participate in this meeting . When registering a new meeting and sending out invitations, you can provide recipients with any information that the organizer wants to convey: from indicating the name, time and location to a detailed press release. A user who has received an invitation to an event, becomes interested in it and clicks “accept invitation”, will no longer forget about this event, since it will remind itself in advance in his profile several days before, on the eve and on the day of the event itself.

1.2 General principles work of virtual social networks

Virtual social networks differ from each other in their general focus, the different capabilities provided to users, the different requirements placed on them, and the interface. However, there are some common features that are inherent in most social networks and distinguish them from other means of network communication, such as blogs, forums, chats and guest books. Some social networks, for example, MySpace, have built-in blogs and forums, but in this case we will only talk about the features of the virtual social network itself.

Understanding these specific features is important for identifying opportunities for using social media as a PR tool. Connections in most social networks come in three main types:

a) Friendships between acquaintances

People you know add each other as friends, and this information is displayed on their profile. Thus, for any human network node, from the general faceless mass of other network nodes, a group of nodes is allocated with which he receives additional software communication, which gives him new opportunities, the most important of which for the topic under consideration is the ability to send mass messages and mass invite friends to the group.

In addition to the list of his immediate friends, any user also has access to the lists of friends of his friends, thus being able to see network nodes that are not directly connected to him, but are connected to his friends. For example, in the “My Circle” network, each registered user, in addition to his circle of friends (“1st circle”), also displays the circle of friends of his friends (“2nd circle”) and the circle of friends of friends of his friends (“3rd circle”). Thus, a user, seeing another user who is interesting but unfamiliar to him, and seeing the “3rd circle” mark on him, can easily understand through which people he can contact him.

b) Connections between group members

In virtual social networks, human nodes can not only communicate with each other one-on-one, but also unite in groups on any topic. A separate profile is created for the group, similar to the user profile. If people are united into groups, the message of one group member, placed by him in the group profile, is seen by all members of the group. Thus, the group’s profile becomes somewhat analogous to an Internet forum.

c) Connections between people who have certain information in their profile

The unification of social network profiles makes it huge base data of people with a large amount of different information about them, and this information is strictly structured. This provides an excellent opportunity to search on a social network to find people of interest to a person with certain data in their profile, with such data acting as search criteria.

When talking about monitoring social networks, it is very important to mention those individuals who are more interested in this issue than others. These are, of course, employers. The employer's reputation in the labor market is a widespread assessment of the employer's advantages and disadvantages in the information field from the point of view of both potential employees and existing personnel/former personnel.

Monitoring can be carried out both by employers themselves and by specialized companies. The following types of monitoring can be distinguished:

Regular monitoring, which allows you to constantly track information appearing on social networks, helps you understand trends in opinion changes, reactions to this or that information, and even adjust the company’s information policy.

Primary monitoring is intended for companies that are just beginning to use new Internet media in their communication activities. Primary monitoring will allow you to identify “hot topics”, places where the target audience is present, and opinion leaders. This analysis allows you to create the basis of a communication strategy on the Internet.

Competitive monitoring allows you to determine the position of competitors on the network, their activity and company promotion;

Reputation monitoring is carried out, as a rule, for a period of at least 6 months and will allow you to determine the image of the company and its products, which has developed on the Internet as a whole. The results of the analysis are the image of the company that is formed by consumers looking for information in the boundless spaces of the Internet.

When looking for a job, the Internet is one of the main sources of information about employers - job seekers are interested not so much in officially disseminated information as in the opinions of current employees, former employees, and candidates who failed interviews. Therefore, a company that cares about its image must constantly monitor negative reviews online and work to increase staff loyalty.

More than 30 million adult citizens Russian Federation use the Internet, and in large cities the share of users exceeds 50%. The RuNet is full of job search services, the leading ones are visited by more than 100,000 people a day. The Internet has become a familiar companion for both employers posting their vacancies and job seekers reviewing job offers via the Internet. It is not surprising that before the interview the applicant will look for information about the company where he is already accustomed to getting information - on the Global Network.

The Internet has become the main media channel of our time, through which interested parties receive information about the activities of organizations. A company's reputation as an employer is an essential part of its image. A bad reputation of an employer includes negative reviews from former employees or applicants, insiders, and being included in “black lists.” At the same time, rumors and gossip discussed on the Internet leave traces in the company’s information field for a long time, being in an open search at the request of all interested users.

What can the Internet actually tell you about an employer? The employer's information field consists not only of official documents - news, press releases, white papers, prepared and distributed by the public relations service. The image of a company on social networks is also formed by expert opinions, employee reviews, insider information, rumors, gossip - real or falsified by ill-wishers. Modern social networks, developing in the spirit of the Web 2.0 concept, give users a lot of new opportunities to publish their opinions and search for information. Content created by users on Web 2.0 sites is easily indexed and almost instantly gets into search engines. This information cannot be ignored because everyone can see it.

Perhaps by typing the company name in the search bar, the user will find official materials. But it may turn out that in the informal ocean of information, the organization’s official materials are only a drop. The main Runet search engines provide a separate option for searching blogs, which greatly simplifies and speeds up access for all interested parties to word-of-mouth information. The exchange of opinions and reviews within UGC platforms (sites whose content is created by users themselves) has become a high-tech continuation of “kitchen conversations.” In a situation where more than a million people in Russia are online personal diaries, the information in which is available to everyone, the risk that the company’s reputation will suffer from a careless or intentional word has never been greater. An offended or fired employee, a manager dissatisfied with a bonus, an applicant not hired - the statements of these individuals can negatively affect the attractiveness of the company's image as an employer and play a decisive role in making a decision on employment. At the same time, there is no doubt that the applicant would rather believe what a person in his circle said - a former or current employee of the company, a candidate undergoing an interview - than the official statements of the HR service or the press secretariat. There are quite a lot of examples of negative changes in the reputation of employers under the influence of individual reviews.

In social networks, such as vkontakte.ru, odnoklassniki.ru, Webby.ru, employees can unite in groups based on work in a particular company, but their statements in these groups, not limited by corporate ethics, will be informal.

Talking about an unpleasant work moment on a group page can involve a large number of participants in the discussion and become the sensation of the day on the Internet.

People write more and more and not only about their work, unsuccessful relationships, but also about goods and services, about their experience with this company. All this information is carefully processed search engines and becomes available to millions across the country.

Regular work on monitoring and responding to mentions of a company on the Internet will create a positive image about it: we hear, we react, we help and it is remembered. Again, don’t forget that commenting is part of the link strategy.

Social networks are practically not indexed by search engines (the only exception is some part of Facebook), so tracking here occurs manually without the use of automated tools (daily viewing of main groups, communities).

The most popular social network in Russia today is VKontakte. Its users are predominantly young people.

This is the most visited portal on the Russian-language Internet, and also very functional. Why not use its capabilities to promote your project?

Before considering these technologies in more detail, a few words should be said about the VKontakte website.

VKontakte.Ru is:

· Internet resource No. 1 in Russia (Alexa) and No. 1 in Ukraine (Alexa), the most visited social network in Russia (TNS Gallup).

· 500-600 million pages are opened on the site every day (LiveInternet).

· The largest photo hosting site in the CIS: more than 2.3 million photos are uploaded to the site daily.

· The largest video hosting in the CIS: more than 400 thousand new video files daily.

· The largest audio hosting in the CIS: more than 300 thousand new audio recordings daily.

· The most popular type of communication in the CIS: more than 20 million messages are sent daily.

· As of May 2010, the site had approximately 74,135,000 million registered users.

Each user on average views 150-180 pages every day.

· The resource is visited daily by 4,000,000 people or more (LiveInternet).

· About 80% of visitors live in Russia.

· 41% of visitors are from Moscow, 26% are from St. Petersburg (LiveInternet).

· 18% of visitors are under 19 years old, 18% are from 19 to 25 years old, 11% are from 25 to 35 years old.

The main interest for VKontakte PR are “groups” - these are communities of people united by similar interests. The number of group members can be measured in the millions.

The functionality of a "group" in general may include something like a forum for participants - the "Discussions" section and a blog - the "Wall" section.

To make it more clear what we are talking about, let’s look at the specifics. Open the Groups section (in the top menu “In Contact”) and in first place is the Comedy club group. The group has more than 2,100,000 members. This number is measured in hundreds of thousands of hosts per day or, at a minimum, is in the region of hundreds. Moreover, in addition to the members of the group, it is also viewed by many visitors who are not part of it.

Of course, promoting your own VKontakte group is not easy, since this requires certain specific skills. But by promoting your group, you will receive constant additional targeted traffic to the site if the group’s interests match the topics of your site. This is significantly better than periodic surges in traffic from forums, although one does not interfere with the other in this case.

What is convenient about the social network “VKontakte” is that many people already have their own profile there, and you can join an open group (there are also closed ones that require the approval of the administrator to join) with one click of the mouse. To promote a group you can use various ways, for example, send invitations to join a group to people with relevant interests, exchange links with friendly groups. You can make an attractive name for the group, which in itself will encourage people to join it. For example, a group with the following name: “A group of people who first type, and then realize that they are typing in English and typing everything again” already has more than a million people in its membership! And this is far from the limit of its development. Promotion of a group on a social network, just like promotion of a website, requires its own analytics for each specific case. Being the owner of a well-promoted group on a social network is a very serious asset for the website’s PR.

Thus, by registering on a social network, a person has the opportunity to attract the attention of millions of people to his activities. Young beginning groups or solo performers use this very actively. First, they find their friends, tell them about their hobby, and post audio recordings and videos of their participation. Then they send out messages inviting them to a concert in which they take part. Gradually, information about the musicians spreads across the social network, and over time, the music group or performer gains its own fans. Subsequently, groups are created on the social network dedicated to the activities of certain performers, where their work is discussed, wishes, comments or gratitude are expressed. In the group you can find information about where, when and on what occasion the next concert will take place, and learn about the creative plans of the musical group. Thus, with the help of a social network, musicians gain fans, they gain popularity, albeit in a narrow circle, but for a start this is already quite good. Fans, in turn, have the opportunity to communicate with their favorite musical group. As a result, performers begin to “promote themselves” without spending any financial resources on it. After all, they don’t pay for advertising, since they do it themselves, or for creating a group dedicated to their work, or for audio recordings posted online. An important aspect is the fact that the main users of this social network are people living in Moscow and St. Petersburg, i.e. cities that provide the opportunity to become famous throughout the country. It’s not for nothing that all musical groups are trying to make their way to Moscow, because it’s no secret that if you are recognized in the capital, the whole country will know you. On the other hand, performers have the opportunity to introduce their work to people living throughout Russia and even the CIS countries.

Let's consider several groups of different directions (music, beauty salons, travel companies) in order to identify how effective the method of creating groups on the social network “VKontakte” is and to identify their advantages and disadvantages.

2.1 Travel companies. Analysis of the content of the group “Travel Agencies MIRACLE TRAVEL”

The travel company offers vacations at competitive prices, posting hundreds of beautiful photographs of hot countries and posting reviews from satisfied clients. Through messages, they talk with potential clients, offering trips depending on the age and status of the client. It’s easy for travel agency employees to look through users’ photos and find out how a person spends his free time. If the album contains a lot of photographs from different countries, it is easy to conclude that the person travels a lot and has such financial resources, therefore, this person can be offered an expensive and exciting trip that “will leave unforgettable impressions for a lifetime.” If the user’s album contains photographs from various hikes and tourist events, it makes sense to offer the person a not very expensive trip to the corners of Russia, for example, a tour along the Volga, a vacation in one of the holiday homes in the Moscow region, or a trip to Karelia. Using this analytical method

All information about the group is on open page a group that every Internet user can join. The number and address of the travel company is indicated. Type of association - club. Category – geography – holiday destinations. The company sells tours to various parts of the world and organizes tours. The company also helps to help buy real estate in various countries peace. There is a wide range of services for purchasing a green card, booking a hotel and issuing an MTPL policy for a car for traveling abroad, obtaining a visa and medical insurance policies. The company has such famous partners as Teztour, Mostravel, Pegas tour and others. All other types of services are presented on the main page. There are also sections such as:

· Discussions

· Photos

· Video recordings

· News and announcements

· Audio recordings

· List of participants

· Wall (on it everyone has the opportunity to express their opinion about the work of the group)

The photo gallery is constantly updated. Clients who have booked tours with MIRACLE TRAVEL post photos and videos in the video gallery after arriving home.

2.2 Cosmetics companies. Analysis of the group in the social network “VKontakte” of the cosmetic company “Oriflame”

The cosmetics company describes in detail the types of services provided, often holds various promotions, invites girls to seminars, indicating the address and time of the seminars. Shares useful tips and makes various recommendations. The page contains many photographs with colorful tubes of various creams, shampoos, lotions with the name of the company, as well as photo analogues of previous catalogs and photo announcements of subsequent catalogs with Oriflame cosmetics. The photo gallery also contains photographs of models and reviews from visitors who were satisfied with the work of the company and the quality of the products. The social network allows you to exchange messages with company employees and potential visitors. This is very convenient for both parties, since it is easy for employees to use a technique such as directmail, sending messages to potential clients with offers that may be of interest to them, and for interested people to learn more about the services provided, prices or get an answer to any question they have. . This method helps to create in each person the impression that the company works exclusively for him, that in the company there are friends with whom it is pleasant to communicate, who are always happy to share advice and experience. Thus, the company becomes “one of our own”, a person develops trust in the nice people working there, and there is a desire to turn to the company’s services again and again and place orders. Implementation feedback with the audience allows the company to expand its range, correct mistakes and add missing components to its activities, whatever it is, be it new goods or services or new forms of service, distribution of goods or services, and the target audience can “throw in” a new one idea in providing feedback. The Oriflame company is very famous both in Russia and abroad, but the management is not going to stop there. By creating VKontakte groups and websites on the Internet, the company, in addition to the audience that already exists and is already loyal, attracts ever larger segments of the population, from the smallest to the broadest, because social networks cover huge masses of people of various categories and statuses: from businessmen to small traders, from managers to subordinates, from the youngest to the elderly.

I would like to note that the design of the page and the splash screen also play an important role. Colorfulness, clear design, and color scheme are some of the most important criteria when designing a page, especially if this page was created by a cosmetics company that specializes in creating the image and attractive appearance of women and men. For example, the avatar of the Oriflame group is a colorful picture depicting a beautiful, well-groomed girl with an attractive, bright image that immediately attracts attention. The company positions itself in this way, proving to the buyer or group visitor that the result of using Oriflame cosmetics will be beautiful skin, a gorgeous smile, and beautiful hair.

In the “discussion” column, topics such as “Our favorite products from Oriflame!”, “Why did you choose Oriflame and not AVON?”, “Please tell me!” are open. In them, group visitors discuss the quality of the company’s products, new products and services. From here, the sales department can find out the most preferred product names, as well as vice versa - products that are practically not in demand, and most importantly why, find out what quality characteristics and properties of the product do not satisfy customers. Taking this information into account, the company can improve itself, change, improve, modify the product, as well as discontinue products that are not in demand due to their uselessness.

An important element of the group is the video graph. It contains video advertisements that were broadcast on Channel 1, RTR, and many others. A bright, beautiful, stylish video with a very memorable image of a girl, as well as with the participation of Hollywood actresses (Reese Witherspoon, Salma Hayek), is quickly remembered and remains in the memory for a long time. Each person who visits the group page can view the video and leave comments under it.

The company's website is http://www.oriflamecom.ru/.

2.3 Music groups

Let's consider how the technologies mentioned above help the young rock band AnotherMask, created in the fall of 2007, to promote itself. The group is registered on three social networks: Myspace, Vkontakte and LiveJournal. Each social network contains photo albums, videos from performances at concerts, as well as some audio recordings. For example, on the Myspace website you can listen to and comment on the following audio recordings: Thenightmarebox, Comingsoon, FranklymydearIdon’tgiveadamn. These audio recordings are listened to from 3 to 15 times every day. In total, since the group registered, their page has been viewed by more than 35 thousand people. On the social network VKontakte you can find 9 audio recordings of the group:

TheNightmareBox (sample)

Frankly, My Dear, I Don't Give A Damn

If Only We Could

To date, over 4,200 regular participants from different cities of Russia have been registered in the group dedicated to the activities of AnotherMask. The number of participants is constantly growing. The VKontakte social network allows musicians to find out how many people are ready to go to their concert in Moscow or any other city. For example, in one of the topics the touring activities of musicians are actively discussed. The performers find out how popular the group is in the regions and look for concert organizers. Thanks to this social network, the musicians managed to invite over 500 people to the “Razor’s Edge” festival, which took place in the capital’s “Ikra” club on December 11, 2008.

The social network contains all the information about the concert activities of musicians, the release of new albums, and the recording of new songs. As you know, young bands need to bring a certain number of people for a concert to take place at the club. It was the social network that helped the musicians gather support groups to perform in clubs: Tabula Rasa, Iqra, XO, Tochka, Plan B.

After analyzing the groups, we came to the conclusion that social networks can be used with great success as one of the main technologies for PR activities. By creating a group and promoting it on the Vkontakte social network, social and business structures have the opportunity to attract a larger number of loyal customers. An important aspect is that by creating a group in Vkontakte, a company (firm, figure, etc.) has the opportunity to provide feedback, which becomes a key point in processing the opinions of clients and customers.

Conclusion

The emergence and popularization of social networks has changed the dynamics of communications; they have ensured the efficiency of two-way communication. New technologies offer PR professionals greater opportunities to build relationships with the public. However, they also create communication barriers, since the variety of sources of influence on perception alienates PR specialists from the direct recipients of the PR message. Techniques for winning the favor of authoritative bloggers (invitations to exclusive parties, free samples of company products, etc.) can hardly be called traditional PR methods, since the result is unpredictable, and the process itself is barely manageable.

It is important to note that the conquest of the territory of social networks by PR professionals has led to the ethicalization and democratization of PR as a professional industry, since social platforms provide broad public participation and attract potential consumers to discuss the company's products. Although, on the other hand, as social platforms become popular and PR agencies realize the advantages of working in cyberspace, this area of activity may sooner or later become corrupt, and bloggers will be paid for positive reviews or simply for posting material.

In addition, the uncontrollability of the Internet space, the unpredictability of the result, the ability for anyone to publish information discrediting the company, as well as the opposition of supporters of classical PR - all this greatly hinders the development and improvement of methods for using social platforms in PR. One thing is clear, this is a powerful new trend.

The Internet has burst into our lives and provided amazing opportunities for rapid interactive interaction with the target audience, and therefore PR specialists and technologists must unite to jointly develop a methodology and technique for conducting PR campaigns using the means that the Internet provides.

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10. http://vkontakte.ru/index.php

11. http://vkontakte.ru/club9742761

12. http://vkontakte.ru/club546922

13. http://vseseti.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/

14. http://www.ph4.ru/social_books.ph4

15. http://www.oriflamecom.ru/.

Social networks have become very popular recently. As of May 2009, the audience of the most popular social network on the Russian-language Internet, VKontakte, was 35 million people (registered users are meant).

This is the most visited portal on the Russian-language Internet, and also very functional. Why not use its capabilities to promote your project?

The main interest for VKontakte PR are “groups” - these are communities of people united by similar interests. The number of group members can be measured in the millions.

The functionality of a "group" in general may include something like a forum for participants - the "Discussions" section and a blog - the "Wall" section.

So, for PR of your site, you can use existing promoted groups, by analogy with regular PR in forums and blogs, thus receiving periodic bursts of traffic from the social network. But a much more effective option is to create and promote your own group.

To make it more clear what we are talking about, let’s look at the specifics. I open the Groups section (in the top menu “In Contact”) and in the first place I see the group Comedy club. The group has more than 2,100,000 members. How many unique clicks do you think a site receives per day, the link to which is indicated in the contact information?

I think that this number is measured in hundreds of thousands of hosts per day. Well, or, at least, it is in the region of a hundred. Moreover, in addition to the members of the group, it is also viewed by many visitors like me who are not part of it.

To promote a group, you can use various methods, for example, sending invitations to join the group to people with relevant interests, exchanging links with friendly groups, and so on.

You can make an attractive name for the group, which in itself will encourage people to join it. For example, a group with the following name: “A group of people who first type, and then realize that they are typing in English and typing everything again” already has more than a million people in its membership! And this is far from the limit of its development.

By the way, owning a well-promoted group can also help solve your financial problems. Some group owners, instead of a link to their website, put a banal referral link to some most suitable affiliate program.

This way you can make good money - depending on how popular the group is, of course. I'm not even talking about the potential capabilities of English-language or Chinese social networks in this regard. They are an order of magnitude higher.

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Hidden PR

In order to veil (hide) advertising in a regular post, you need your resource to be mentioned in passing, but at the same time, in a good light. It might look like this: “Yesterday I was in a cafe, the interior was like what is described on this site - cool.” It seems like you didn’t advertise, but the mention of the site remained in the post.

The advantage of such a recording is that you don’t have to pay the “owner” of the group for it, but simply submit it as news. Of course, there is a chance that it will be rejected, but it is negligible.

The downside of this type of advertising is that you may not be able to click on the link. The fact is that people with our mentality are not as curious as, for example, the inhabitants of Europe. This means that even if they are interested in the topic, they may simply be too lazy to click on the link. In this case, you can give a call at the end, they say, look or something like that. But in this case, it already “smacks” of obvious advertising. I wrote about how to make a call to action correctly in this article.

Obvious PR

Obviously, this is the creation of a post, in our case, on the expanses of the VKontakte resource, of an advertising nature. To do this you need:

Determine the audience;
Find a platform (group or popular page);
Write text;
Agree on publication.

In 100% of cases this is payable service, so there is no place for greedy people here. In addition, if you plan to make money on the advertised project, your idea will pay off when people come, order a product, service, or even just come in, which will have a positive effect on the portal’s statistics. The more popular the site you choose, the more its owner will need to pay.

The advertisement must consist of: