TELEGRAM. From idea to promotion

Like many other services, Telegram has not been popular for a long time. In addition, it was subjected to repeated blocking. Telegram in 2021 is not just a messenger, but a full-fledged social network. It has all the tools to promote your business. Telegram channels act as an analogue of groups and communities, in which you can share relevant information with users and receive prompt feedback. The messenger is cross-platform, it can be both the main source of traffic and an additional one.

In this article, we will talk about who the Telegram channel is suitable for, how to find the right format, and what services exist to work with the application.

Who is Telegram suitable for promotion?

It is important to understand that different target audiences are concentrated in different social networks. When creating and promoting a business, you need to understand exactly where your client is located and what format for presenting information will suit him. In addition, by choosing one / two platforms, you can focus all your efforts on them.

Telegram is suitable for companies with:

• Clear target audience and understandable service
• Wide geography
• With the ability to provide services remotely

Let's say you are a marketer and you have useful information products, or you represent a company and want to share up-to-date information about products, services and new products – Telegram will be an excellent platform.

However, when creating a channel, it is important to take into account the specifics of the niche and the scale of geolocation. Of course, for publics offering online services or goods with a wide geography, development is more profitable than for those who are limited by audience segment and geo-factors. Such cases are not suitable for promotion in Telegram: “Shops near the house" or “Concrete mixtures of the Tagil plant, transportation of especially dangerous goods.”

Telegram channel format. Which to choose?

When creating a channel, the first thing you determine is the subject and format. What are you going to promote? Personal brand, news aggregator, shop or company? What style do you see it in? What will be its main focus? What sections will you follow in the content plan?

Conventionally, channel formats in Telegram can be divided into the following types:

– Professional/personal blog;
– Event blog;
– Magazines and mass media;
– Channel-aggregator.

Let's talk about each type in more detail.

Professional/Personal Blog

Company Blog – publishes current news and updates regarding the company's brand. Direct sales are also perfectly diluted with various reviews, useful life hacks and “backstages”, video stories “on the other side of the screen”, showing how the company lives and works.

Personal blog – depending on the topic, it may also include reviews, personal opinions and observations. It works better with media personalities, but if your thoughts and approach are really interesting, why not try it. If you broadcast a lot of personal content and want to add professional inserts, then you should consider a separate channel.

Professional blog – works as a platform for showcasing work, expert opinion, selling goods and services. As well as posting useful materials on a professional topic. Such channels also bring value and help to earn money by building “social capital” in the form of advertising and partnerships with brands.

Event blog

Announcements of events in the city are a kind of posters for upcoming city events. May include small news bulletins and responses from events. In big cities, as a rule, such blogs are divided by interests. For example, events “For children” fall into a separate category.

Places where events are held – free spaces, halls, cafes and restaurants, studios and venues adapted for events. They can also post announcements with invitations and video reports. In addition, Telegram supports markup previews. You can add a link to any other media source – the links will be displayed in the chat as snippets with illustration, title and description.

Magazines and media

They are entire aggregators of copyright content. For large longreads, Telegram has an internal service that allows you to create publications with a large amount of text and illustrations. Despite the fact that Telegram does not have likes and rating functions, you can use a special bot – we will talk about it later. 

Channel-aggregator

May be news, educational or entertainment. Such channels are more likely not about author's content, but about reposts. Convenient, in terms of the fact that you can not subscribe to 10 publics on a topic of interest, but follow one with the necessary “squeeze”.

A good specialist is always “hungry” for new knowledge. That is why channels with successful selections “from specialists for specialists” are so popular, especially in the format – a link to the source, an image, and a thesis guide. Interesting links cause heated discussions, which in turn makes the channel a great success. Especially if the content is done in the format in which you yourself would like to receive information.

Let's take a closer look at the topic of channel presentation and design.

Designing a Telegram channel

The interface of different social networks is different, each has its own format. So, on Vkontakte, you can use widgets and menus to place goods and services, and on Instagram, Actual Stories play this role.

In Telegram, of the blocks for design, you only have an avatar, profile description and your content. There is a plus – you do not need to develop a lot of design for different formats. However, what is there should be used “to the maximum”.

Avatar, which will be in a small circle, is best done in a minimalist design, using the main thing – brand style, logo and USP. For a personal channel, use your photo, you can also style it in an interesting way.

In the description, place contacts, links and mail. The text should reflect the positioning and USP. If you have a lot of links and important information that needs to be added, put it in a post and pin it.

The design of posts can also be planned visually and stylistically. Stick to a single color scheme set by the avatar and brand, then your channel will look concise and aesthetically pleasing. Use markup for text, make a brief thesis description of what the point of the article is.

Each element in the posts helps the reader quickly decide whether the information is useful or not. Most channels simply drop the link and image, but experts recommend adding an introductory article description and reading time.

Content Planning

The absence of a news feed in Telegram saves you from fighting for the “top”. However, the time of publication is still worth considering. Since the latest posts move up, try to choose the time so that the channel is at the top when the audience watches the messenger more often.

Plan content. The content plan is our everything. Do not make long pauses and “downtime” in publications, keep a “hand on the pulse” of current trends and news. Plan, distribute topics by days and blocks. Do not “stuff” the audience with monotonous content. In Telegram, channels that provide high-quality and useful content are of particular value.

Another advantage of the Telegram channel is that it is impossible to “spam” the feed in it. Because it just doesn't exist. The user watches all publications directly in the channel itself. However, as we said above, you can still influence the first position in the chat list. At the same time, if there are too many new posts and the “unread” number grows, the user will rather leave the channel that he has no time to read. 

Useful Services

Of course, in running a channel, you can do without auxiliary services. But we still recommend paying attention to some of them. They will help to make the text more expressive, and the design more attractive. In addition, with the help of telegram bots, you can get the necessary functionality that is not available in Telegram itself. Namely, collect statistics and feedback.

Let's find out in more detail what and with what services you can do in Telegram:

Text formatting

With Markdown, you can italicize or bold text, and put links inside text. There is also a separate @markdownrobot, but lazy-posting bots usually support this markup.

Creating an article in the editor

Longreads and articles created on social networks and other third-party services look very aesthetically pleasing in Telegram. They are convenient to view, they have all the basic components for easy perception and are opened by clicking the "View" button inside the application.

If you want to make big posts inside the messenger, you can use the built-in Telegraph editor. Appearance: title, description, picture and button will look similar to external links. Register with @telegraph and create/edit articles directly. .

Feedback connection 

The activity of a channel in Telegram can only be estimated by the number of views, and, of course, the @ControllerBot bot was also developed for this purpose. With it, you can attach comments and ratings to the created posts, make delayed posting. In addition, it also supports the Markdown markup we talked about earlier. Register a bot through the Controller, add to the channel administrators and create posts with additions.

@QuanBot is good for polls. The scheme is the same – add it to the channel administration and create polls using various options.

Channel statistics

With the help of statistics, you can not only evaluate the productivity of your channel, but also “expand horizons” through advertising and PR.

@ControllerBot not only gives feedback, but also shows statistics of arrivals and departures to the chat. In addition, you can view it for a specific period. Also, the statistics of your channel and not only can be seen through @TGStat.

If you are interested in more detailed statistics – @Telemetr will help you. He analyzes not only Russian, but also CIS channels. Shows the dynamics of subscriptions. It helps to keep track of how channels are advertised on your topic and increase your own sales.