Designing a VKontakte group: the most detailed guide in Runet

 Designing a VKontakte group: the most detailed guide in Runet

If the group is designed unprofessionally, your potential clients can quite logically conclude that you are also negligent in your work. 

You can also upload larger images. The most important factor is that their side ratio does not exceed 2 to 5.

Cover

The cover size for the full version of the site is 1590 by 530 pixels.

Please note: in the mobile version and applications, not the full version of the cover is displayed, but only its central part. So be sure to check how your cover image looks on a mobile device. 

Attached images

Images affixed to a post don't stretch anymore; they stay in place. As a result, your image must be at least 510 pixels wide in order to fit the entire available space in the News Feed. It is better if it is a square or rectangle and is oriented in landscape.

It sounds a little confusing :) Therefore, I will show you with an example.

Consider an image that is square and has 510-pixel sides. It looks wonderful in the news feed on all devices if we pin it to our post:

And this is how a horizontal image with a width of 510 pixels appears in landscape orientation:

As you can see, an image seems smaller on the smartphone feed the narrower it is (in height). Take a look at the image below to confirm this:

It is obvious that this difference is not extremely important, and smartphone users will still think about your image in the second scenario merely because they feel a little more at ease.

Images for posts with links

Linked post images are images that are automatically "pulled" to a post when you insert a link into it. Here's what it looks like:

However, you can also upload your own image. The editor allows you to see how it will look like:

537 by 240 pixels is the smallest image size that can be used as an announcement for your article:

However, as long as the aspect ratio is adhered to, larger images may be uploaded.

Picture that was produced in the editor for an article

The image size for an article cover created in the editor is 510 by 286 pixels. The name of the article and the community are lost on a light background, thus it is preferable if it is dark in color and largely monochromatic.

Good example:

Photo and video size for stories

The optimal dimensions for stories are 1080 x 1920 pixels (minimum is 720 x 1280 pixels).

Specifications for video recordings:

up to 15 seconds;

no more than 10 MB;

h.264 video codec;

AAC audio codec.

You must utilize vertically oriented images and videos for stories.

The recommended image size for an album cover is 1200 by 800 pixels. Keep in mind that in the mobile version, the bottom of the cover will be displayed 200 pixels smaller.

Video picture size

1280 by 720 pixels:

And also keep a useful video for those who are advancing in VK . If you blog and announce new articles on social media, be sure to check it out. It contains 12 tricks that will help you make such announcements that no one will pass by.

How can I prevent VKontakte photographs from shrinking? Background and image size have an impact.

If you've ever tried to submit an image to VKontakte (be it an avatar picture or just a vacation snap), you undoubtedly already know that they have a tendency to get smaller. This is particularly obvious when the picture is not too huge and has a dark (and particularly red) background. Example:

How to make sure that the quality of the pictures does not deteriorate?

Making the image 2-3 times larger than the required size is important to prevent it from shrinking (more accurately, it does, but much less so). For instance, we use 1020 by 800 if you need to create a menu with 510 by 400 pixels.

The 510 x 350 pixel image I shared above is dark blue. I saved it at a size of 1020 by 700 pixels. That was the result of it:

How do you solve it? You simply need to select a different background, is the simple solution. In actuality, pixels stand out more against a dark background than they do against a light one. Therefore, you must somewhat alter the color scheme if you want to get excellent quality (even though the image above appears to be very normal). Make the text blue and the background white, for instance:

How to design a page header

Users view your header when they visit your public page or group for the first time. Most frequently, this area has a navigation menu based on the materials of the group, some intriguing postings, or significant notifications. Let's examine some instances of how various businesses utilize this area.

Cover

Large and beautiful covers (1590 by 530 pixels) can be uploaded to group pages. Go to settings and select "Download" to do this.

You can put anything on the cover, including your company's name and tagline as well as various promotions, discounts, and even competitions.

I advise paying close attention to the potential for dynamic cover. Read about how it works, for what purposes it can be used and with the help of which services to install it, in our case “ How to increase activity in the VK community using a dynamic cover ”.

The cover in the StopHam community shows the latest video from the YouTube channel:

The cover page in the Support Team community shows the number of support responses:

The cover in the Cerebro Target community displays avatars and the number of points of the most active subscribers of the week, as well as the avatar, name and number of points of the most active subscriber of the past week:

Live covers of VKontakte

Shown only in mobile applications for Google and Apple. You can upload up to 5 photos or short videos. Such covers are several times larger than ordinary headers, and when clicked, they open almost to the entire screen. You can play video with sound.

Here is an example from the PlayStation Russia community:

How to add? Log into the community browser, click "Manage", select "Add Cover" and upload up to 5 videos/pictures. If you do not want the covers to scale during the slide show, then turn off the "Show photos in motion" option. Recommended resolution is 1080×1920, video size is up to 20 MB, duration is up to 30 seconds.

Cover + description of the community + link to the site

Some businesses purposefully don't fix any posts in the header to provide users the chance to see the essential details about the page and visit it right away.

Description with hashtags

Some businesses purposefully don't fix any posts in the header to provide users the chance to see the essential details about the page and visit it right away.

coupled with hashtags

Some businesses supplement the typical description of the page with hashtags that describe it. This is done to make the page's relevance more obvious, and as a result, it ranks better in searches for pertinent keywords. Sincerity be damned, I have no idea if this approach works. If you know of any instances on this subject that I haven't seen, please share the link with me.

Pinned post telling what the page is about

If you want to tell about your page in more detail (with photos, links and beautiful layout), then you can add an article you created in the editor to the header along with a vivid image of the announcement to entice readers to click on it. An illustration of such a post is:

Link menu

Once upon a time, to create a menu, you had to suffer with wiki pages, and then VKontakte rolled out a separate tool.I'll also explain to you how to make a stunning menu because it appears a little rudimentary.

If you use the community apps or have a store connected, the menu appears immediately. For instance, all three menu items in the previous image represent connections to programs. You can add up to seven of your own to significant records, albums, talks, etc (not counting the application). But you can only link to resources within the social network.

Click "Customize" in the widget's upper right corner to alter the menu:

In the window that opens, select a cover, enter the name of the menu item (it is important to keep within 20 characters with spaces), add a link and click "Save".

Click "Edit" next to the relevant item to hide a program from the menu, modify its title, or change its cover. The rest of the manually added links that need to be modified can be done in the same way.

team menu

A merged menu is one where the avatar and the images on the menu announcement are combined into a single image. Look at how gorgeous it is for now, and I'll explain how to make one in more detail a bit below.