Group or public page. What is a public VKontakte page?

Before creating a VKontakte community, you probably thought more than once about what to choose: a group or a public page. How important are the differences between them and what are their advantages?

Some, in pursuit of fashion, create public pages en masse without fully understanding the differences between them and the group, while others, on the contrary, are more conservative and prefer to work with groups that are more familiar to them, since they have already studied their functionality quite well. But don’t rush to choose the type of community based on the ease of registration and inviting friends. In fact, the choice should depend on the topic and goals of your future community: be it an online store or a humor page.
It is important not only to understand the technical differences between a group and a public page, but also the very reason for the existence of these two types of community.
Public page- is an official platform for a brand, organization, individual or specific topic. First of all, it is intended to promote this very brand or personality. Information on a public page is official in nature, compared to information presented in groups. In essence, a public page can be compared to an online magazine in which users can find useful information. The main difference between a public page and a group is that a public page does not have obvious commercial goals of making money from its users. Of course, there is a commercial interest, but no one talks about it openly.

Group is a community where people can communicate with each other, exchange ideas and suggestions. This type of community is the most studied, since it appeared from the very beginning of the existence of Contact and their functionality developed along with the development of the social network. And, therefore, when creating a new community, many, without hesitation, choose the old-fashioned group, afraid of the lack of a function for inviting friends on a public page. But let's not rush.

Let's take a closer look:
Creating a public page and group
When creating a group or public page, we see fundamental differences in the preliminary settings.
Public page. When creating an official page, we are offered 4 different types, which are slightly different from each other. When you click Create Page, we will go to the settings window for the created community.

Group. When creating a group, a window with the settings of this group immediately appears, that is, it turns out that we created it in one click.

Access to information

Public page Any Contact user, as well as an ordinary Internet user who does not have an account on their social network, can freely view all materials on the public page. Public pages are not aimed at hiding information from readers, but, on the contrary, do everything possible to attract subscribers.

Group. An open group, in principle, is no different from a public group in terms of access to information. It is also indexed by search queries and is visible to an unregistered user. If the group is closed, then only members of this community can access the information. The user submits an application to join the group, which will be approved or not at the discretion of the moderators.

Community Wall

Group. As I already said, the group is more user friendly and it allows users to write messages on the wall themselves. This option is customizable; if desired, the group wall can be made open (everyone can write), limited (they can only leave a comment) or closed (they can only view the wall).

Promotion
Public page You probably already noticed that the public page does not have an “invite friends” function.
There is an option to tell friends. This is actually a very effective and efficient method of promotion compared to pushy invitations from friends. People subscribe to your community voluntarily because they are interested in the information posted on your public page. And if they particularly liked your post, they will definitely share it with their friends. The most important thing is to attract the user with quality content.
Another common method of promoting a page is an advertising post in other popular communities. The method requires an investment of funds, or a mutual exchange of posts (by agreement)
With a well-developed company, you can use paid placement, but before you pay money to the first community you come across, study a little about the “VKontakte market” and the principles of money circulation within this social network. I recommend watching Alena Lenskaya’s video seminars. They can be found for free on YouTube.
Another paid method is to place an advertisement on VKontakte. Targeted advertising will help your target audience find your page and tell their friends about it.
On user pages, the public page is placed more advantageously, in terms of location, it is located in the menu on the left “Interesting pages”, this is one big plus for promotion.

Group. Promotion of a group seems easier at first glance. But is this really so? In order to see the list of groups, on the users page you need to click on “Show detailed information”, scrolling through the wall to the “Groups” list and this is a big minus, since users can hide the settings of the “List of Groups”, then the groups will not be displayed on the page.
But from the group you can send invitations to friends; if you have enough friends, it will be easy to recruit the first 100-200 participants. Remember that you can invite no more than 40 people to the group per day.
If you plan to invite more people using this option, then before that you need to add new friends to your personal page.

Registration
The differences between a public page and a group are easily visible to the naked eye in their design. Let's look at what visual opportunities these two types of communities provide us. For convenience, I took a screenshot of an empty public and a group so that we can easily see their differences. Please note that before this I activated all elements of the group and public page in the settings.

What are the differences?

Latest news section
This is where one of the main differences between a group and a public page lies, since the public page does not have this element. Many consider this a great advantage, since a group menu is created in the “Latest News” section. But I don’t think at all that the presence of a menu in the info block will be decisive when choosing the type of community, especially since it is hidden by default, in order to see the menu in the “Latest News” section you will have to open it every time.
It is possible to create a pinned post with a link to the internal menu - it is the same for both the group and the public page.
I’ll reveal a secret in a public page, but it’s still possible to create a wiki page in a roundabout way, details here.

Events, places
Only the public page has these elements, but if you're smart, you can also add them to the group - by creating an event and a photo with the location and adding them to the group's link block. Although, without a doubt, in terms of the presence of this functionality, the public page outperforms the group.

Documents
And only the group has this element. Here you can store files in doc, ppt, rtf, jpg, etc. formats. But here you can also get tricky by creating a document on a wiki page and adding a link to it and a block of links from public pages.

Displaying the community on the user's personal page
Public page Subscription to public pages is displayed on the main page of the user account in the Interesting Pages section, which is very effective in terms of promoting this type of community (this section cannot be hidden).

Group. All user groups are displayed almost at the very bottom of the Detailed information block, which is automatically hidden, and to see it, you need to click on it. You can also add a group to bookmarks, but getting to the bookmarks is not so easy. In addition, the user can hide the list of groups using privacy settings.
Users' ability to post their information

Removing users

Public pageHere you can only blacklist the user. You will not be able to limit viewing information in your community; you will only limit the ability to add comments.

Group.In a group, a user can be either blacklisted or deleted. Moreover, if this is a closed group, then your information will no longer be available to the remote user.

Selecting the author of a post on the community wall
Let's consider this possibility as an author's choice when creating a message on a community wall. Please note that this option is only available if you are a moderator.
Public page When posting a message on the wall, the post is always published on behalf of the community, i.e. There will always be a community avatar next to her. But you can mark your authorship by checking the Signature checkbox when creating a message.

Group. When publishing a post on a group wall, the user can choose from whom this post is published. If you check the box On behalf of the group, then the group avatar will appear next to it, and if you check the Signature box, then your name will appear under the published message, in the form of a link to your personal page. If you don’t check any boxes at all, then your personal avatar will appear next to the entry.

Let's summarize:
A public page is a more news-oriented community that aims to provide information to users, and with the help of the group, effectively create an online store or promote a product or service.

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A public page on VKontakte (or) is a type of community on the VKontakte social network for disseminating news and information, as well as promoting a brand.

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A public page can be compared to the press center of a company or celebrity. With his help, society is kept informed of what is happening in the company or life of this popular person.

Public page on VK: what is it?

One of the most visited sites on the Internet is the social network VKontakte. This platform is used not only for personal communication and sharing news with friends and family, but also for self-expression, building a career, networking, and finding users interested in your product or services.

There are two types of communities you can use when promoting your brand.

This is either a public page dedicated to your brand. The public can also be used to disseminate news from a famous person whose opinion is interesting to subscribers.

What is the difference between a group and a public VKontakte page?

Although a group and a public page are very similar, they have a few significant differences.

In a public page, users are not actually members of the community, but simply its subscribers. They can't just post their information in the community.

The group status may be closed. This means that news and other information are available only to its members. Information posted in the public is available to everyone, including those who are not registered users.

You cannot invite friends to a public page, which complicates its promotion. However, the user's five most popular public pages are displayed on his page.

Creating a public page and changing the community type from group to public

To create a public page on VKontakte, you first need to:

be registered on a social network;
go to the list of groups you are a member of;

3.select “Create a community”;

4.and mark the points you need, following the instructions.

You can also change the type of an already created community on VKontakte.

When you change the group type, you will not lose subscribers, only its functionality will change. However, you should remember that you can change the community type no more than once a month.

There are also the following limitations and consequences:

you must be the creator of the group; to change the type it is not enough to be a moderator or administrator;
the number of participants in the group is no more than 10,000 people (otherwise the decision is made by support);
all posts on the wall not on behalf of the group will disappear.

So, how to make a VK page public:

Join the group.
Under the group avatar in the drop-down menu, select the appropriate item:

3. Mark the points you need, following the instructions.

What is better: a group or a public VKontakte page?

To understand what type of community to create is best for your business, you need to determine how you want to communicate with your audience. The VKontakte group implies equal communication and the ability to propose topics for discussion by participants. This works well if you want to know your audience's mood and interests.

The public page is a more official channel. Topics for discussion are offered here on behalf of the public. This is a good option for promoting a business and managing its image.

Before every user thinks about what to choose: a public page (public) or a group. What is most suitable for the chosen topic?

In fact, this issue is very important and we need to approach it very seriously. The future fate of the community depends on this.

In this article we will look at the advantages and disadvantages of each type of community. You will also find out which topics the group is applicable to, and which the public page is applicable to.

Public page(public) - an official platform for an organization (company), brand, personality or specific topic. The direction of the public page is to promote the brand or personality itself.

Advantages and disadvantages of a public page (public):

All materials are open to access - any user can view them;
Only admins of a public page can publish posts on the wall, but users can either leave a comment on the post if they are open;
The " ", "Photos" and "Audio" blocks are located on the right side of the public page;
On a public page you can ;
There is no section on the public page "Latest News", but it is possible;
It cannot be stored on a public page, since there is no corresponding section;
There is no function in the public page "Invite friends";
Each subscriber has a block on the page under the "Friends" section "Interesting pages", where the logo of the public page is indicated, which attracts the attention of other users;

Group- a community where users can exchange information with each other. The direction of the group is to unite people with similar interests. The group is popular due to its privacy (): you can unite your friends, fellow students, and classmates into a group. Although you can do no less than in public.

Advantages and disadvantages of the group:

A group can be open (anyone can view news), closed (to view entries, an application to join is submitted) and private (applications to join are sent by admins);
If open, then users can publish their entries. The wall can also be limited (you can leave comments on a post) or closed (you can only view posts);
The “Discussion”, “Photos” and “Audio” blocks are located at the top of the group (under the news);
You cannot create events in a group;
In the group you can publish the latest news in the appropriate section;
The group has a section "Documents", where you can store files of various formats;
You can join the group through a special function (any subscriber can invite his friends, which greatly influences promotion);
Each subscriber has a list of groups on their page under their personal information, but this does not really attract the attention of other users (compared to a public page);

Impact on promotion

As already mentioned, public pages lack the function "invite friends", in this regard, the group wins. But on the day you can invite up to 40 people, so for a competent approach to this function you need to have many friends.

List of groups can be found under the personal information of subscribers, but no one pays attention to them and the user can at any time :

As for activity, there is still less of it in the group, since the public page is directly aimed at promotion and mutual PR. Although, with the right approach, you can not give in to public.

There is a psychological point: users join public pages more willingly than groups, especially for entertainment topics. The era of groups is passing and many consider it fashionable and relevant to join public groups.

In any case, it all depends on the community leaders. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a group or a public page, if you don’t take any action to promote it, nothing will happen.

Before using any platform, you need to figure out how best to do it. Many Internet entrepreneurs try to use groups or public pages on VK to attract new clients or promote their ideas.

Group or public page – that is the question. Let's answer the question.

Groups have existed since the dawn of contact. This is probably why they are still ahead of public pages (aka public pages) in popularity. And almost everyone who comes to social networks to achieve their goals tends to create a group.

Of course, nothing prevents you from immediately creating a group and public and running them together. But this will be a little confusing for users, so it's better to focus on one thing. Just first you need to find out what.

Let me make a reservation right away that if you work in the B 2B segment (business to business), you may want to consider Facebook – the audience there is more “business”, and there is less competition so far. But VKontakte, when used skillfully, is capable of much.

So what are the differences between a group and a public? Let's go in order.

What's better than the group?

The VKontakte group fully lives up to its name - it is suitable for groups of people. Man by nature strives to be part of some community. Some do not admit this, considering themselves anarchists. But anarchists are exactly the same group. It's even ironic.

A community (aka group) can be driven by some common goals or interests - music (jazz lovers) or politics (people who hold similar views). Therefore, it is better to choose it for those who want to achieve close contact with the audience.

The group is best suited for:

Independent online store. Because there is a little more functionality, and you can also make a beautiful menu so that users can more easily find what they need. Most sellers work this way now;
Doing what you love. That is, you can publish posts about how you do what you love;
Earning money from affiliate programs. In your posts you will be able to mention some services;
Beauty salons and hairdressers. Despite the fact that public spaces are more suitable for business, for some reason groups are more popular in this area. It’s the same with wedding photographers and florists.

What's better than public?

There are not as many public pages as groups, but this does not mean that they are less effective. In fact, most entrepreneurs don't need to create a community, but a public page.

Publics work well for companies, celebrities, products, and music groups. That is, if you want to promote toothpaste or a cafe on social networks, you need to create a public page.

Public is best suited for:

Traffic directions to the site. Because a group is a more independent cell. Regulars of the group may never go to the site, even if every post contains a link to it.
Advertising sales.
Sales of information courses. But here the situation is the same as with stores - if you have a website on which sales are conducted, create a public page. If sales are only in VK - group.

Promotion of groups and public VK pages

We've figured out the goals, now let's look at the progress. For some, it may seem that promoting a public is harder than promoting a group, because you cannot invite friends to a public. Therefore, you will not be able to get some initial number of subscribers by simply sending invitations to all your contacts.

But this does not mean that progress is impossible. For example, the public VKontakte page is completely open. That is, absolutely anyone can see everything that is on the public page. And in groups, some albums or functions may be limited.

In addition, any VK user can hide the groups in which he is a member. Therefore, no one obliges him to tell his friends about you or invite someone to the group. But public pages (they are displayed in the “Interesting Pages” column) cannot be hidden. Therefore, the chances that someone will subscribe to a public page after seeing it from a friend are greater.

Otherwise, the promotion methods are similar - advertising, interesting posts, competitions, etc. Word of mouth works best, of course. There are no fundamental differences - what is suitable for a group is also suitable for a public.

But there is one “but” - groups are ranked slightly better in search results. So you should take this into account.

Functionality of public pages and groups

If you have not yet decided which is better – a public page or a group – then let’s take a closer look at the functionality of public pages and groups. In groups, each member can access some part of the group. That is, any user, if allowed in the settings, can add entries, photos, videos or audio recordings. Because of this, the group's audience is more involved in the process.

In public, it’s the other way around – only administrators can add posts and everything else. Regular subscribers can only comment and like. And even if the administrator wants to write a post, it will be sent on behalf of the public (you can leave a signature).

Another aspect is privacy. Although those who are going to promote do not think about any privacy, because it is better for them when information about them pops up wherever possible.

Public pages (that’s why they are public) are open to absolutely everyone. And groups can be made closed. That is, users will only be able to view or add information to them if they receive an invitation from a group member.

Public (public page):

can be public, closed and private;
discussions, community photos and audio recordings are at the top;
it is forbidden create events;
there is a block “latest news”;
allows you to store documents;
Inviting friends to the group works great;
a link to the group is located under each subscriber basic information;

Our choice

In one of our projects on teaching thinking tools and working with beliefs, it’s time to work with the VKontakte audience. And the question “What is better to create – a group or a page?” stood in front of us. The target audience is fans of self-development who have hit their income limit and cannot break through it; or they achieve growth, but roll back, losing their hard-won heights.

Goals:

more than 10,000 group members in 6 months;
reaching sales in excess of 100,000 rubles per month in 6 months;
receive more than 10 reviews from course/training participants per week;
increase the number of clicks through affiliate links by 500+ people per month.

To achieve our goals, we decided to create a group. At the same time, check again in practice which techniques and tools work and which don’t.

The next article in the series is. In it, we count the frequency of keywords, analyze competitors, generate a list of options and accept one of them for work.

Let's sum it up

If you are woken up in the middle of the night and asked: “Group or public page?”, you will be able to accurately navigate the specific situation. There is no universal solution. Therefore, you should always think before you act.

In any case, you can once every 30 days to change the type of community (change a public to a group or vice versa), so you can test and determine which is better public or group in practice.

Internet services for business.
A link to the material is required!

“VKontakte” is today one of the most popular sites on the Runet. This resource was created to unite people who have similar interests. Let's try to figure out how a page differs from a VKontakte group. The need for this article is ripe, because at the moment most sources already contain outdated information - the network is developing very quickly, one change follows another. So, let's go!

Definition

VKontakte pages also called business cards, where the user talks about himself and, based on the information provided, friends and acquaintances can find him. Moreover, by creating a public page “VKontakte” you can share company news, brand new products, and products, thereby attracting an audience from the social network and interacting with it.

VKontakte groups are formed on various topics and bring together like-minded people. In this case, a group can be created simply for communication. However, most of the creators of VKontakte groups have the goal of advertising a product or service and making money from it - and there’s nothing wrong with that, right? The group is the very first interesting feature of social networks. The number of groups is constantly growing, which is why the VKontakte management has introduced pages. Groups appeared much earlier than pages.

Comparison of features

The main difference is that the pages are available to everyone, including those who are not registered on the social network. The group can be closed from other users.

Design. It can only be changed for groups, for example, by creating a “News” block. Only the logo can be changed on the pages, but the design is unified. The interface of the pages is subjectively a little more convenient than that of the groups.

Main difference

Every VKontakte user can see the “Interesting Pages” menu under their profile photo. This is where the five most frequently visited pages are displayed. If the page you created is in such a Top for users with the largest number of friends, then, accordingly, there will be an opportunity to receive additional traffic to the page. Groups do not have such opportunities.

Conclusions website

Groups appeared earlier
The page is visible to everyone, but the group can be made private
In groups you can change individual design elements using wiki markup
Pages appear in the "interesting pages" menu, but groups do not.