We attract subscribers to the Telegram channel and make cool content.

The audience is actively migrating to Telegram, the number of messenger users is growing, bloggers and marketers are actively mastering the platform.
Experts from Pressfeed told the Academy which content works best in Telegram and how to attract subscribers to your channel.
What content to make for the Telegram channel
In our experience, Telegram has useful content — practical articles, cases, instructions and collections collect large coverage and get good reactions and reposts.
At Pressfeed, we use Telegram mainly to promote corporate media, Pressfeed.The magazine. On the channel "Pressfeed. Marketing without a budget" we talk about marketing, PR, content, SMM and working with the media — we publish several content options:
announcements of articles with links from our blog and external media;
announcements of our events, courses and lectures;
publications of other channels (mutual promotion) and partner materials;
new videos and podcasts;
"cards" with excerpts from articles;
the most interesting requests of journalists from the Pressfeed service.
Novice channel authors believe that the only content format that works well in Telegram is text: longreads that are published in their entirety. In fact, this is not the case. Users will read and forward a useful post regardless of the format. The key to success is not in the format of the publication, but in its quality.
Roman Gorbachev, director and founder of the branding agency Logomashina. Telegram channel "Roman": "For a personal channel, posts are suitable-opinions, expert materials or stories about how your company works. If the narrator is interesting, the channel can grow to a thousandth scale.
In my Telegram channel, I share my experience, which will be useful to startups, my opinion on the topic of business and the psychology of consumption, I analyze the cases of aspiring entrepreneurs."
Yulia Tretyakova, head of content agency 4X, coach and consultant. Telegram channel "Write and no nails": "The content in the Telegram channel always depends on the tone of voice of the expert or the company. There is no universal recipe: "write only longreads" or "communicate with the audience with video circles". You can do both. You can also use those models that were in banned social networks, and simply adapt them to this platform.
Reach gets quality content that people want to share. No one will send your travel photos to friends, but a selection of life hacks or post-instructions can be shared.
Telegram analytics shows that people not only share other people's posts in their channels, but also save them in favorites or take them to personal chats. If you are writing a post with the expectation that it will be reposted, make a cover with a mention of the channel or the author.
Along with useful posts, personal experience and a story about overcoming difficulties always go well. Such materials receive a lot of reactions and comments (if they are included)."
The conclusion is obvious: in order to choose the format of posts for Telegram that is suitable for your project, you will have to experiment. Try using different publication formats during the first months: videos, longreads, short posts, pictures, podcasts — analyze the most successful posts and gradually adjust the content plan.
How often do I need to make posts in Telegram
The number of posts directly depends on your resources: how much unique content you already have, how many really interesting and useful publications you can make every day. Posting "at least something" for the sake of fulfilling the plan is a bad idea, because this way you can lose subscribers and audience loyalty.
At Pressfeed we have corporate media, video studios and various events — this is a rich source of content, so the SMM specialist selects the most interesting materials and posts for publication daily.
Important: the more often publications are published, the less coverage an individual post gets.
On average, two posts are published on our Telegram channel every day, if necessary, we do three or four (if there are breaking news or events are held).
For Telegram, it is worth creating a separate content plan and alternating publications of different formats: longreads, videos, pictures and announcements. The same rule works here as in all social networks: to keep the subscriber's attention, it is necessary to ensure dynamics.
We are making announcements of new articles from Pressfeed.The journal and external sites on the day of publication. Therefore, we try to set up the editorial plan so that each article can be promoted qualitatively in social networks: one day — one article.
Olesya Rozhkova, personal brand expert. Telegram channel "Rozhkova Olesya. PERSONAL BRAND": "I see that many bloggers who have pulled part of the audience into Telegram are running the channel as if it were Stories. If a person has not visited the channel for several days, he will have accumulated 30-50 messages, and he will simply scroll them down without reading them. And if there are only two or three messages with titles promising benefits from reading, then the subscriber will carefully review the material.
We make posts every day on weekdays, sometimes on weekends if something relevant appears, but usually no more than two posts a day."
The optimal frequency of posts depends on the format of the project — if you have a large corporate media or need to constantly update information, you can work in the format of a news agency and publish 5-20 or more posts per day. For example, T—Zh posts about 15 publications in its Telegram channel every day, and RBC - more than 60 posts daily.
However, we recommend not chasing the number of posts, but focusing on the quality of the material, communication with subscribers.
How to attract subscribers to a Telegram channel
There are several "white" ways to attract subscribers to the Telegram channel:
transfer of users from other social networks, newsletters and website;
traffic from external resources;
exchange of advertising posts with other channels (mutual promotion);
purchase of an advertising post on another channel;
participation in "circular" lists of channels (also a variant of mutual promotion);
adding to directories.
Let's figure out which methods of promotion in Telegram work and which do not, how to analyze the effectiveness of other people's channels and organize mutual promotion.
How to transfer subscribers to Telegram from other channels
Facebook Instagram* are blocked, of course, but many people still use them. Therefore, it is worth trying to transfer part of the loyal audience to your Telegram channel. However, you need to be prepared for the fact that no more than 10% of subscribers will go to the new social network with you.
What else can you do to collect subscribers to the Telegram channel?
Place a button or banner with Telegram on the company's website and in all channels.
Make posts and Stories with an invitation to subscribe to the channel in social networks.
Promise gifts, free lessons, subscription discounts or hold a raffle.
Send clients and subscribers a newsletter with an invitation to a new channel.
Lala Musayeva, co-founder and head of the UniProf Academy of Physicians. Telegram channel "UniProf.med | About health": "We used lead magnets: we partially provided information in one social network and transferred subscribers to full-fledged material in the Telegram channel - we used checklists, airs, magazines. We received about 800 clicks on a link from one social network and saw an increase of 200-300 subscribers in the Telegram channel.
The biggest increase in subscribers we received after blocking Instagram*. Then we promptly prepared a checklist on the topic of health that concerns readers - more than two thousand people subscribed to the channel at one time.
In a month and a half, we gained ten thousand subscribers from our database at no cost. Then we plan to work more with advertising platforms in order not only to translate the old audience, but also to expand it."
We bring subscribers from the media
If you are engaged in content marketing and are promoted in the media, use publications to attract subscribers to Telegram. Add links to your channel in articles and comments. You can make a publication in the media and get a mention in the media for free, as they said here.
Start a blog on open platforms
Anyone can post articles on blog platforms. Even new authors get views, the main thing is to make a high—quality article. You can start a blog on one of the major blog platforms: VC, Habr, Tproger, DTF.
Make guest articles in corporate media
Many corporate blogs post materials by external authors — the editorial board expands the pool of articles, and the expert receives native advertising and loyal readers.
Guest articles can be placed in Rusbase, Cossa, E-xecutive, SEOnews, Rusability, Pressfeed.Magazine, Tinkoff Magazine, Unisender, TexTerra and other media.
To publish your material, write to the editorial office of the corporate media and agree on the topic of the article. Carefully study the rules of the blog's red policy and tips for external authors.
Work with journalists
Journalists and editors are constantly in need of an invoice for articles, heroes for interviews and columnists - requests are placed on the Pressfeed service. Experts choose the appropriate topics and answer the authors' questions directly in the request card. If a journalist likes a comment, the company and the speaker will receive a free mention in an article, an interview or their own column in the publication.
Some editors allow you to put a link to the speaker's resource, and this is an opportunity to promote your Telegram channel. For example, we have posted links to the channels of experts that we quote in this article.
Through journalistic inquiries, you can get into news and industry media, corporate blogs and major media: Kommersant, RBC, Delovoy Mir, Izvestia, Argumenty i Fakty, Forbes, TASS, RIA.
Mutual support
Another way to attract subscribers to the channel is to place advertising and native posts on other channels. With many channels, you can agree on mutual promotion — the exchange of posts.
In Pressfeed, we most often use mutual promotion to promote the Telegram channel. To exchange posts, choose channels with a target audience close to you — for us, for example, these are channels about business, marketing, SMM, content and PR.
It is not necessary to focus only on large channels. Sometimes channels with a small loyal audience bring more subscriptions.
Some channel authors publish your post without changes, others write the text themselves. Always coordinate the final version of the publication to avoid mistakes and misunderstandings.
Olesya Rozhkova, personal brand expert: "What worked badly was the "circular recommendations", when several channel authors simultaneously publish a post in their channels telling about three to five channels that are worth subscribing to.
Perhaps you need to change the advertising pitch, make a different selection of channels — this assumption is worth testing, because the method itself is not bad."
Advertising in Telegram channels
If the author of the channel is not ready to exchange posts, you can make paid integrations or barter advertising. We used paid advertising to promote the Pressfeed service itself, but you can also promote the Telegram channel in the same way.
If you want to place paid advertising, you need to carefully analyze the channel and its audience.
We evaluate Telegram channels by several parameters:
content relevance and frequency of posts;
number of subscribers;
cheating (bots);
engagement (ER) and reactions;
mentions of the channel in Telegram and other resources;
the number of ads on the channel;
views of posts, including advertising.
You can view the statistics of your own and other people's channels using special services, for example, Telemetr, Tgstat, Popsters.
It is important to choose relevant channels with a distinctive audience for advertising. The more loyal the subscribers of the channel, the better the conversion to subscriptions and leads from the advertising post.
Catalogs of Telegram channels
This method of promotion is considered obsolete. Working with directories is simple — the owner adds his channel to the general database, specifies the main topic of the resource and the link. When users search, for example, for marketing channels, they get into the catalog, find your channel in the list and go to it.
Large catalogs of Telegram channels: Tlgrm.ru , Telemetr, Telegram Analytics, and Telegrator. Telegros.
Let's summarize the results.
Useful content works best in Telegram. But you will have to experiment with feed formats — test videos, longreads, pictures, announcements, podcasts and airs.
The optimal frequency of publications is one or two posts per day. Try to alternate the formats of materials to create dynamics and keep the attention of subscribers.
You can attract subscribers both through external channels (social networks, newsletters, website, media, catalogs and events) and through advertising in other Telegram channels.
To evaluate your channel and channels for advertising, use several basic metrics: number of subscribers, engagement, frequency of posts, number of ads.
Pay attention to the relevance of the content and the involvement of subscribers — sometimes a channel with a small loyal audience can give a better effect than a millionaire channel.
SOURCE: https://t.co/K7YiMh1O3t