How to make time on the cover of VK. Dynamic cover for VKontakte group design

After the introduction of covers for groups on VKontakte, most communities switched to them. Still, this format allows you to convey more information through the image, thereby increasing the chance of subscription from users.
Designing groups in this way has become so popular that there were minds who decided to go further. Was createddynamic cover script for VKontakte groups, it allows you to automatically change the image: display the latest arrivals, time, weather, traffic jams and much more.

What data can a dynamic cover display?

1. Displaying the last subscriber on the cover. Any VKontakte user who joined your group last will be displayed with an avatar, as well as first and last name in the community header.

2. Displays the best commentator, liker or reposter, as well as the “comment of the day”. Increase activity in the public by displaying the most active subscribers on the cover based on different activities. People will undoubtedly begin to like public posts more often, leave comments and share publications.

3. Display of time, date and weather on the cover. These functions are often used by urban communities, showing the time of the time zone in which the city is located and the local weather. This adds a “zest” to the community.

5. You can display any text on the cover, including random text. Leave contact information for your other social networks in the header of the VKontakte group, display random text, having created a selection of it in advance. Feel free to use your imagination.

6. Countdown in dynamic cover. If you are running a promotion, you can set a countdown in your group so that users know when it will end. This way you will encourage users to purchase as soon as possible.

7. Get the latest news from your RSS feed. If you have a news site, perhaps just a blog with an RSS feed embedded, you can display the latest news in your dynamic cover page as an article title.

8. "Today's birthday boy." Increase loyalty by displaying users who have a birthday today in your cover photo. Users will definitely appreciate such a gesture.

10. Show latest donations. If your project relies to some extent on charity from subscribers, you can stimulate the number of donations by displaying the latest donations in your dynamic cover.

In addition to the points above, you will be able to display data such as “comment of the day”, group statistics, the most active person (who liked and commented the most), group products, best post with photo and others.

Data output is completely automatic. There is a convenient visual editor, you can arrangeon dynamic coverany image and text. There is only room for your imagination.

As usual, let's first define the key concepts. Dynamic is a group cover whose content changes automatically. In the community header, you can demonstrate various types of useful content, or simply make users feel good 🙂 For example, if your company is engaged in the financial sector, you can connect a widget that displays exchange rates and the most important stock indices. If your business has a clear regional connection, add a block that will display information about today's weather. Finally, you can make a banner where the names of today's birthday people or the most active subscribers over a certain period of time will appear. Thus, along with the interactive menu and widgets, this tool helps to increase audience engagement and loyalty to the brand.

You don’t have to look far for examples - dynamic VKontakte covers are used by many groups. First of all, this technology is used by the employees of the social network themselves: in the header of the official public page of the support service there is a “live” counter of processed tickets.

“StopHam” also keeps up with the times: on their page you can see a preview of the latest video and the name of the last participant to join. Unfortunately, although information about the number of views changes in real time, this is not a real embed, and you won’t be able to watch the video directly on VKontakte.

In turn, the creative association Gazgolder turned the community header into a dynamic announcer, which displays information about upcoming concerts, film premieres or presentations of music albums.

In a word, there are a lot of application options. The only question is how to create such beauty? Actually, it's not that difficult.

Designers for creating dynamic VKontakte covers

To get an interactive header at your disposal, you can go in two ways:

1. Ordering development from scratch is expensive, but in the end you will become the owner of an exclusive solution with the functionality you need, which will help you stand out from your competitors;

2. Using an online builder is much cheaper, but you will be limited to the set of widgets that the developers have provided to you.

It is easy to understand that the first option is suitable for large enterprises that have a clearly structured marketing plan and a corporate image that has developed over the years (as well as a sufficient budget), while the second option is ideal for small businesses, since for most companies standard functionality is sufficient. Let's use one of these services and make a dynamic cover.

Google helpfully suggests the name - DyCover. In terms of price, the option is not bad: the guys charge 100 rubles per month for one community, while their competitors, LetsCover, are exactly twice as much. However, the latter have a progressive discount for volume, so this site will appeal to those who are engaged in SMM professionally and manage several projects at the same time.

However, the purpose of our material is not to determine the best service provider, but to test the capabilities of such solutions in principle, so we will focus on DyCover. Registration is not difficult: authorization is naturally carried out through VK. After creating an account, all you have to do is select the desired community from among those where you are an administrator and connect it.

Next, click on the “Create it” link in the pop-up notification and get into the visual editor. After this, a three-day trial will be activated, during which you will be able to use all the available features of the designer. In the first few steps we will be accompanied by pop-up tips, so it will be quite problematic to get confused.

As the electronic assistant correctly noted, before creating a dynamic cover, you need to select a suitable background. The optimal background size is 1590 by 400 pixels, however, all significant graphic elements and widgets themselves should be placed on the central segment of 1196 by 400. The thing is that on mobile devices the banner is cut off (197 pixels on each side), which means fans portable devices simply will not see important information.

By the way, DyCover takes this point into account. Let's try using one of the preset templates and see how it works.

Select the “Informational Cover” theme, since it already has a background, and click on the “Grid for Mobile” button. Markings will appear on the screen to help you evaluate how our creation will ultimately look on smartphones and tablets. The top line marks the border of the top bar of the operating system, which can also prevent the adequate display of our dynamic header.

For greater clarity, you can use the preview function, after which it will become clear that this layout is not adapted for portable devices, since the Moscow block appears outside the display.

Now let’s go to the “Widgets” section and evaluate their range. At first glance, the list is not particularly impressive.

In fact, first impressions are deceiving. For example, the “Text” widget allows you to create both regular text blocks and load cells from Google spreadsheets, use cascading styles or JSON. “Subscriber” displays the names of the most active users, the best commentators (by number or likes), reposters, authors (by the rating of posts from the “offer”), birthday people or the latest to join the group. “Statistics” broadcasts the total number of subscribers, the number of online users, as well as summary data, including gender distribution. Thus, by combining the presented tools, you can design dynamic VKontakte covers of almost any complexity.

Let's look at how this works in practice. In the template above, each block that displays the weather and time in a particular city consists of four components:

1. Text (city name);
2. Figure (translucent white circle);
3. Date and time;
4. Weather.

Each of them can be changed. For example, instead of a white circle, you can make a colored rectangle, and in addition to the hours, display the date, month and current day of the week. The “Weather” widget can show wind speed and weather type (clear, rain, fog, etc.), and in the latter case you can choose from several icon options, and even upload your own instead of the standard ones. Of course, you can resize widgets and edit fonts, which opens up a wide range of customization options.

However, let's evaluate what the dynamic cover will look like in the group itself. To do this, click on “Save” and enter the name of the created template. Now we return to the control panel, select the desired item and click on “Apply”.

Let's go to our experimental community and evaluate the result. Well, not bad at all! Perhaps the only disadvantage of this approach is the fact that when the page is enlarged, the text looks somewhat blurry.

This is explained by the peculiarity of the technology itself: in fact, the service generates a static image with updated data at a certain frequency (once a minute) and loads it into the header. This is why you cannot, for example, embed a video player in the VKontakte cover. However, even such a “crutch” method can significantly improve the visual component of the group, standing out from its competitors.

Are dynamic covers worth the money?

So we come to the question of profitability and, frankly, the most correct answer will be this: everything is in your hands. Although the benefits of using interactive headers are difficult to overestimate, they, like any other tool in SMM, will help promote the group only if you use them correctly. For example, automatic birthday greetings won't work if you can't find gifts that will truly interest your audience. At the same time, by overloading the dynamic cover with information, even useful, you will distract subscribers from new posts and, instead of increasing engagement, on the contrary, you will reduce this indicator. Therefore, the best thing to do is to find a suitable service, sign up for a trial or a monthly subscription, and then experiment, trying different approaches and formats. And, of course, watch your competitors, learning from their mistakes and adopting successful techniques.

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What is a dynamic VKontakte cover? — This is the cover of a group or public page, which displays changing information. You can add anything to such a cover: date, weather, photo and name of the last subscriber who joined, exchange rates, the most active subscribers at the end of the day... The content on the cover changes automatically and does not require any action from the administrator. Such covers have become a real trend in the last few months. They themselves attract subscribers, and with their help you can hold various interactive competitions. All this looks much more interesting than the standard boring cover.

To create a dynamic cover for VK you need to have programming skills. The principle of operation is as follows: a code is placed on a third-party server, which, by accessing the VKontakte API, updates the group cover. But there is a much simpler way - Dynamic Cover. This is a cover designer. In it you can create a design for the cover of your VK group, add widgets to it - dynamic blocks. Below we will look at how you can create such a cover for free.

Video review of Dynamic Cover:

What can you add to your cover using DyCover.

You can add any number of interactive widgets to your cover:

• Subscriber is a widget that displays the avatar and name of the group subscriber on the cover. This could be the last subscriber who joined the group, the last commentator, the best commentator by likes or by number, the best liker, reposter, the most active or simply a user whose id you specify.
• Weather – a widget with weather icons and automatic display of temperature in any city.
• Text - can be any dynamically changing text from the site, some statistics, data, anything.
• Date and time.
• Timer – counting down the time until an event, the end of a competition, the start of a sale or something else.
• Picture.
• The grid is a widget for ease of design, but is then not displayed on the finished cover.
• Shapes - Square, rectangle, oval, circle and circle are available.
• Exchange rates.
• Widgets for YouTube: logo with name and number of subscribers, latest videos and videos via link.
• Dynamic backgrounds, changing by period and time. For example, during the day the group cover will have one background, and at night another.

How to make a dynamic VK cover.

To start creating a cover, click on “Login”.

All VK groups for which you have administrator rights appear here. If the new groups are not yet displayed, you need to refresh the list and they will appear.

From the list, select the community to which we will connect the cover. In the menu on the left, click on “Create a new cover” and select an empty template.

After entering the name, a constructor with a list of widgets opens.

First you need to set the background. Click on the “Background Management” button and upload the image.

The background can be moved by arbitrarily moving the picture, change the scale - zoom in or out. You can also choose a static background, or it should change by period or time.

In order for the background to change, you need to upload more pictures to replace it.

Before moving on to customizing other widgets, it's handy to enable the grid. It will not be visible on the finished cover, but will allow you to position the elements evenly. You can adjust the grid steps in the settings.

When viewing a group from a smartphone screen, some areas on the right, left and top will not be visible. To ensure that your hosted widgets are fully visible on all devices, you can enable the mobile grid.

Adding widgets

After marking up the cover, you can start adding the main widgets. For the title, install the “Text” widget. To edit a widget, you need to click on it in the layers section.

In the settings window, you can set static or dynamic text, font, size, color, spacing and position.

Let's look at the capabilities of the Shapes widget. We use it to highlight the title. The size of the figure can be changed arbitrarily, the edges can be rounded, an oval can be made from a rectangle, the color, frame and position can be changed. You can adjust the transparency level for the background. In general, the widget provides many options for designing the cover.

Let's move on to the weather widget. First you need to specify the city in which the weather will be displayed. You can change the position of the text and icons inside the widget, hide the wind speed, change the temperature unit, edit the font size, the font itself, and the text color.

In the “Weather Type” tab there are 4 icon templates to choose from, which will change depending on the weather.

The size of the icons can be changed arbitrarily or hidden and only the text left.

The subscriber widget also has many settings. The subscriber type is determined in the “Widget” tab.

On the free version of the service, only three types of subscribers are available - the last subscriber, the last commentator and just a subscriber by id. The rest of the settings are standard: avatar size, rounding, frame, size, case and font color. You can display only your first name or your first name and last name on the cover

The same is true for adding and configuring other widgets.

Cover connection

After placing all the widgets, you can evaluate how the cover will look on your computer and smartphone screen. There is a preview mode for this.

Save the finished cover and return to the designer.

Before you add a cover to a community for the first time, you need to connect it to the service.

Dynamic Cover tariffs - cost

The basic free plan of the service has limitations. One group and three templates are available.

To remove these restrictions from one group, you need to pay 100 rubles per month. Connecting one more group will cost 180 rubles per month, two – 260 rubles, and so on.

Promo code for DYnamic Cover:

My review of Dynamic Cover:

A dynamic cover is a cool, fashionable thing that will decorate your public page. They appeared not so long ago and still cause a wow effect among subscribers. Making such a cover using the cover is much easier and faster than designing and coding it yourself. For the speed of launching the service according to the new trend and for the free tariff - respect and respect.

Any user who decides to create their own group on a social network would like to increase the number of subscribers. There are many ways to attract the attention of visitors, but they all boil down to making the public as effective, memorable and vibrant as possible. This is why community creators and administrators need to know how to make a dynamic cover in VK.

Of course, it will lead to an immediate increase in audience, but proper use of such a valuable service will definitely have a positive effect in the long term. The main thing is to approach the creation and installation of a beautiful group header wisely and not rush into making decisions.

Before you move on to creating your own public design, you need to understand what a dynamic cover in the VK community actually is.

Under standard conditions, group administrators are able to set a small picture as an avatar, which will become the face of the account. Using a special service will make the oxbow cap more informative, livelier and more interesting. As a result, users will not be greeted by a boring picture, but by a voluminous block of information informing about news, updates and other important innovations and rules.

It is important to remember that restrictions in specifying and adding information are minimal, so the administrator can implement the most unexpected and bright ideas that will contribute to the growth of an active audience.

Dynamic VKontakte covers - free

The next nuance that requires detailed study is related to the cost of the service. It's hard to imagine that such a useful tool is distributed freely and without restrictions.

Indeed, certain restrictions and conditions are present. But they do not make the option inaccessible and expensive. Most of the currently existing programs are provided under the following conditions:

• the first cover is made free of charge;
• access to the option and header designer is provided after receiving consent from the group owner to the terms of use;
• additional covers (after the first) are available after payment (from 100 to 300 rubles);
• Additionally, after depositing money, special functions of the service become available.

That is, everyone will be able to beautifully design the start page of the public.

How to make a dynamic cover in VK for dummies?

It was mentioned above that there are many different designers that allow you to create a dynamic VK cover. Each of them has its own characteristics and nuances, but in general they are all extremely similar, so you can safely use the dycover online service as an example.

To increase the attractiveness of the public, you will have to:

Then the creative stage will begin. You need to add your favorite image, widgets and functions to the finished template and save the finished result.

To upload the fruits of the work done to VK, you need to enter the “Your covers” section and click the “apply” button. After that, all that remains is to check what the finished page looks like.

How to install dynamic VK cover?

Knowing how to make a dynamic VKontakte cover on the mentioned site, users will be able to understand the operating features of other portals and designers. All such online services and scripts use a similar API. To verify this, just visit the DynamicCover portal. Its use will require:

• registration using a valid social network account;
• go to the section for creating and editing covers;
• connecting provided widgets and functions;
• implementation of the results obtained in the community.

At the same time, working in the system is similar to using the Photoshop editor, so users who have learned how to edit photos effectively and colorfully will be able to quickly understand the interface of online designers.

At the same time, you should not rush to create a header, since the quality of work in this case is more important than speed. Of course, the changed interface can be deleted if desired; it is not created forever. But this does not mean that its development and preparation should be treated with disdain. It is important to remember that the cover is the face of the page, helping visitors form an impression of the content.

What image sizes to choose, how to set an animated cover and make a menu, what else they came up with for designing social networks - this article is about this. Bonus - cover template for download. Updated material.

Why does a group need decoration?

• indicate the topic and direction of the group;
• save users time on exploring the community;
• display contact details in a prominent place;
• create the right mood and thematic atmosphere;
• motivate comments and likes;
• perform other special functions.

VKontakte features

In this social network, to design a group or public page, you can use an avatar, cover, menu feed, menu in wiki format, just wiki entries, icons for products and illustrations for posts. If you choose the wrong size, the picture quality may deteriorate or be too small. The appearance of a group affects how users perceive it, and there are also theories that size affects the reach of posts. Next, we will examine each design element in more detail.

Cover

Dimensions: 1590×400 px, visible area for the mobile version 1196×400 px.

This is an elongated horizontal image in the community header; it is not clickable.

The cover is not required for the community; if you do not install it, the group avatar will open in full format on the right.

To prevent the quality of the cover from deteriorating, the VKontakte administration advises uploading an image with a size of 1590×400 px. But in the mobile version, the entire cover does not fit on the screen, the edges on the right and left are cropped at 197px, so all data, texts and images that cannot be cut are better placed in the visible area, this is 1196x400 px. And on top, approximately 83 px, is occupied by a strip with indicators of communication, charge level and others.

To avoid marking the areas yourself, we have made a template in psd format with guides demarcating the areas. It can be downloaded.

Many people advise putting arrows on the cover that encourage you to click on subscribe or write a message.

If the audience more often watches the group from mobile phones, then such an icon makes no sense, because in the mobile application it is shifted and points to the avatar thumbnail, and not to the subscribe or message button.

Dynamic cover

Dimensions: the same as a regular cover.

VKontakte has introduced a dynamic covers feature, which means that the cover will have changing data and be updated after a certain period of time. This cover is convenient because you can display almost anything on it: city portals may need time, exchange rates, traffic jams or weather, groups that hold promotions or organize events will benefit from a countdown timer, and displaying avatars of the most active users can be encouraged to leave comments or like posts.

For a dynamic cover, you need a regular picture on which inserts with avatars, weather, etc. will be attached, a script linked to a group, and hosting with CronTAB support where the script will be installed. If you update the cover too often, every second, for example, you may need an anti-captcha.

Pyotr Samokhin talked about how to write a script yourself on HabraHabr. If you don’t want to figure this out yourself, there are paid design services to which you can connect a group and customize the cover with the necessary applications for a small subscription fee.

The functionality may be different, for example, the design of the community may completely change after clicking on the subscription. Additional functions are developed separately, you can write something yourself, you can find groups in the search on VKontakte itself, where they develop and sell such applications.

Animated cover for mobile

Dimensions: vertical photos and videos 1080×1920 px or others in a 9:16 ratio.

In January 2019, all groups were given the opportunity to design a separate cover for mobile viewing. It can include up to five large photos or videos without sound, which will work like a slide show. It looks like this:

This feature can be enabled in Community Settings:

What size of materials to choose:

Avatar

Dimensions: no less than 200x500 px and no more than 7000 px, aspect ratio 2 to 5.

If the group has a cover image, the avatar will be presented only as a thumbnail; the full version can be viewed by clicking. If there is no cover, it will be displayed in full. For comparison, the PR-CY group with a cover and avatar and a variant of the same group without a cover:

The avatar can be of any size, no less than 200x500 px and no more than 7000 px on each side, but the maximum aspect ratio is 2 to 5. That is, it won’t be possible to install a very elongated picture, we tried:

Menu with buttons

Dimensions: image for the button from 376x266 pixels.

Groups recently had the option to add a menu feed. It looks like a horizontal block with buttons, a maximum of seven buttons. The administrator can attach a link to them, but only within the social network - to an article, post, products, application, something else. External links are not allowed, so you cannot create a “Go to site” button.

You can manage the menu in the group settings - adjust the number of buttons, add a title, cover and link.

The name of the button cannot be more than 20 characters, but even these characters do not fit on a smartphone, so additionally check that the name is clear:

The minimum size for a button cover is 376x266 pixels, but it is better to make it larger in the same proportions. The buttons for the menu are a fairly small rectangle, especially on smartphones, so use all the space for the design and don't add text.

Wiki menu

Dimensions: the width of the inner page is 607 px, the cover is at least 600 px wide.

The VKontakte wiki format implies a page with the ability to format text, make lists and subheadings, insert clickable images with transitions to VKontakte sections and third-party sites.

In the wiki format, they often make a menu and pin it in the group header to make it easier to navigate the community and provide all the important information in one place. Navigation in the group will attract attention, but you will not be able to pin other important posts to the header.

With the introduction of menu buttons, the need for a pinned wiki menu is no longer necessary, but it can still be created if you need to put more than seven links in a menu.

For a wiki menu you will need a cover, which will serve as an illustration for the link to the menu page, and internal sections.

The width of the field for wiki pages is 607 pixels. Pictures can be stretched or made smaller by specifying the size in the editor, which opens by clicking on the image. But when stretched and reduced, the quality deteriorates. Images are automatically loaded with a height of 400 px.

The wiki page with menu sections is configured in the editor. Next, a link to the page is inserted into a post on the wall; it is not necessary, but an image is desirable. It is selected as a regular illustration for a post. We attach and save the post, now the wiki page will open by clicking on “View” or on the illustration.

Posts

Dimensions: at least 700 px wide for regular posts, at least 510x288 px for an article in the editor.

Feed posts support any image, but different posts have their own limitations. There is an opinion on the Internet that the size of the image affects ranking in the smart feed, so it should be at least 1024 px. We asked support and found out that the size does not matter, the main thing is the content.

Founder of Cerebro Target