A year ago, every second article on the Internet was about TenChat, and commentators threw rotten tomatoes at the social network. It was on this wave of hype that my team and I decided to go to the site and find out if it really is that bad. It turned out not – we began to actively maintain a profile, look for ways to promote, write various posts.
The first 3 months we had zero clients, generally silence. We invested in content, got 15 views, no leads, and almost got discouraged. And on the third month we have already received … also zero. But we didn’t stop 😉
In this article, we will not talk for a long time about what TenChat is and what buttons you need to press there. Let’s talk about our path in this social network and share the insights that our team and I have gained during its development.
For your convenience, we have divided all the recommendations into thematic categories. Use it 😉
TenChat Features
Before you start giving advice, you need to figure out what distinguishes it from other social networks.
The main feature is the target audience , which is set up for cooperation, job search, ready to share their skills and results. But coaches, mentors, trackers and other, let’s say, “creative” people are also in abundance here.
The platform is suitable for anyone who can post professional content. That is for:
- business owners;
- company employees;
- freelancers;
- experts in their field.
Therefore, of all types of content, the target audience loves expert opinion and case studies – they are the best. What I definitely recommend avoiding:
- Lifestyle content. Users come to the site to get useful information from experts, so you should not publish your cats and dogs here.
- Infogypsy. No comments here: infogypsy = evil. TenChat has an educated audience and businessmen who will not be happy with another useless course.
- Selling posts. This social network has no place for open advertising calls. You can publish ads, but you need to make it as native as possible.
- Clickbaits. Users who come for serious content want to know immediately what awaits them in the post. It is better to give honest information – this way you will more likely gain the trust of the audience.
We figured out the features – keep them in mind, and drove to the main part of the article.
Registered on the platform
There will be no technical aspects in the article, we will give basic advice on filling out a profile during registration.
Tip 1. Indicate detailed information about yourself – so the audience will believe in your professionalism
When users register on the platform, they indicate their current place of work . It must be a registered company – the social network checks the organization by TIN. So, you are unlikely to run into the fraudster Vasya Pupkin, the coolest marketer with millions of cases from the Romashka company;)
It is important to indicate not only your real place of work, but also your real name . Do not write the name of the company, occupation or unknown pseudonym. I’ll explain why:
- Place of work– an update will be released soon and it will be possible to register an account on behalf of the company.
- Type of activity– you already indicate it in your profile, the algorithms read it and highlight it in the recommendations under the name.
- Nickname– unfortunately or fortunately, nicknames like M@rino4ka1998 have long been out of fashion. Be simple, and people will reach out to you;)
It is also better to put a real photo on the avatar . Just be yourself – everyone wants to deal with a real human expert. Therefore, photos in TenChat are more often used by official ones.
In the bio, indicate information about yourself as fully as possible : tell us what you do, what successes you have achieved and how you can help readers. Add some personal information, but we advise you not to overdo it – do not forget, the social network was created for professional communication.
Studied algorithms
Before creating posts, we analyzed the algorithms – after all, we are a digital agency. It’s about Zeus and Athena.
Tip 2. Follow the rules of Zeus to get recommended by the social network
“Zeus” is the algorithm that produces a post in a TenChat recommendation. The better, in his opinion, the publication, the more likely Zeus will promote it. Without it, you will have one and a half views, with it – several thousand.
Recommendations in TenChat don’t look like what we’re used to. If in many social networks the feed of recommendations and subscriptions are separated, then there is no need to go to separate tabs: you see in one place both those who are subscribed to and those who are promoted by Zeus. This means that if you please the algorithm, then the coverage will be large. You will find yourself in the general feed of everyone who is looking for posts in your topic. But we will talk about topics a little later.
Zeus loves expert thoughts, long reads, interesting posters or videos. He wants you to give your all to Tenchat – if you write posts “if only it was”, he will not promote you.
We paid with a gold coin for a knowledgeable person to explain to us in detail how Zeus works. Now we are sharing this with you.
If your post has pictures, make the text on them easy to read and don’t add too many decorative elements, otherwise “Zeus” is unlikely to want to promote the post.
At the beginning of the journey, we published simple posters – large and understandable headlines, a minimum of decorations and a maximum of usefulness. When “Zeus” took some of them as recommendations, we decided to try to launch posters, which we usually add to blog articles. We thought that the algorithms and the audience would like them even more – they are bright and beautiful. But this format didn’t work at all — posts stopped appearing in recommendations. We concluded that a simple format would be better for TenChat, so we returned to it.
Below is another example of our post. In it, the picture reflects only the name of the rubric, but Zeus considered the content to be good, so the publication gained almost 9k views.
At TenChat, the expert information in a post is more important than the image. If you choose to work on text or a picture, always choose text.
By the way, a post came up with “Digital Kitchen”, not only to “Zeus”, but also to “Athena”. Let’s talk about it in more detail.
Tip 3: Grab Athena’s Attention to Rank Up
“Athena” is an algorithm that pushes posts into search results. If “Athena” descended on you, you will collect views from Yandex and Google.
You will be surprised, but part of your SEO strategy may well be promotion in Tenchat. It is much more difficult to promote an article on your blog with low trust than if Athena picks up the same material in Tenchat. Alternatively, you can post on VC, but there is more work there 🙂 – Artem Pervukhin, production director of KINETICA.
One of our posts that got into “Athena” is ranked in the top of the search results for the query “Yandex Webmaster release”
Athena loves unique content. She will not want to display posts in the search that have already been repeated a thousand times on different sites. Therefore, write something new and add more expert information.
In our experience, “Athena” is more lenient towards users and appears on posts more often. But she looks at the account more painstakingly: she looks not only at the text of the publication, but also at the comments with the bio.
For Athena, it is important that the topics of the posts match the specified position in the profile – it is better not to write about what you do not understand. This principle is similar to Google’s EEAT metrics – Nadezhda Otier, editor.
Both Athena and Zeus focus on post layout, so you need to use the TenChat editor in any case if you plan to conquer algorithms. Therefore, I will continue to talk about the features of writing posts.
Wrote posts
Everyone writes posts in their own way, and correctly – keep your own style to be remembered on the site. Therefore, I will give only key advice.
Tip 4. Write long posts, but keep the middle ground – users should not get tired of reading
A cool feature of this platform is the post-article . In the editor of publications, you can write up to 7000 characters – there is where to roam.
All this in order for you to fully disclose your opinion.
An expert post can’t be short – what deep thoughts can be packed into 500 characters? But this still does not mean that you need to write down all 7k – it is simply inconvenient to read such a volume from a phone. To give you an idea of the scale – our blog posts are a little bit larger – Nadezhda Otier, editor.
When we were just starting to learn TenChat, we wrote small leads to posts, as for other social networks. But such posts did not fall into the recommendations. Then we decided to try to increase the volume of the text. And literally on the first such post, we got into recommendations, and users left their feedback.
Therefore, I advise you to write not small and not long posts. The ideal length is from 2000 to 5000 characters. We try to comply with this norm – such a requirement is even indicated in our redaction policy.
Tip 5. Speak in the first person – from the person, not from the company
This seems logical – the profile is registered for one person, which means that he himself should write. In addition, this way you become closer to the reader.
Write a little about the personal: here you need to share your own thoughts, observations, best practices, and team achievements. So the user sees you as a real person, and not an impersonal company. But don’t go headlong into lifestyle content – this is not what the platform is designed for, and you won’t show your expertise with such content.
Tip 6. Use an editor – this way the algorithms better understand that you really care about the content
No ctrl+c, ctrl+v without layout – “Zeus” does not forgive this;) At least the post will not advance.
Pay more attention to the internal editor: break the text into paragraphs, highlight sentences in bold, add quotes, attach a photo or video. So Zeus will be more favorable to you, and users will be happy to read a post in which accents are coolly placed – no one likes to read continuous sheets of text.
A separate word about emoticons: do not overdo it. The social network provides enough ways to highlight text, so colorful emoji in posts are not welcome here. But you can add 1-2 emoticons – we often do this, and publications still fly into the recommendations.
Tip 7. Don’t insert too many links and be sure to hide them in the text – links have a negative impact on algorithms
We understand: business needs leads, and you need to drive potential customers to the site. But you should not try to lure users from TenChat to other resources – algorithms do not favor this, and this annoys the audience. There are 2 important clarifications:
- Links to social networks are definitely taboo. We got burned on this several times when we added a link to Telegram – algorithms stubbornly ignore posts where there are links to other social networks. And this is understandable: TenChat was created recently, and the developers are against users being taken away from their social networks.
- You can add links to resources such as VC, Spark, or your own website. There should not be too many of them, and you should not leave them explicitly. If you want to add a link – “sew” it into the text. We try to add no more than two hidden links per post.
Tip 8. Choose topics and add hashtags to posts so that the target audience will find you faster
When adding a post, you can specify its subject in the TenChat list. There are 95 such topics in total, and you can choose no more than three for one post.
In the mobile version, the topics on the published post are displayed above the picture, and in the desktop version – below it
When choosing a topic, you need to rely not on the interests of the target audience as a whole, but on the topic of a particular post. If most often you write posts about search engine optimization, but today you suddenly touched on contextual advertising, then you don’t need to choose the “SEO” topic. “Zeus” will remove it anyway, but it’s better to do it yourself.
Tenchat has 95 themes to choose from. It seemed that this would be enough, but in fact they are not enough. For example, I would like to see the topics “Analytics” or “Targeted advertising” – we often post posts on these topics. I think it would be useful for many specialists who work in narrower areas – Nadezhda Otier, editor.
Many people think that hashtags are a relic of the past, but the creators of TenChat do not think so – see proofs . Therefore, use hashtags, even if it seems to you that no one is looking for posts on them.
You can only add 10 hashtags to a post.
Add only popular hashtags, and we do not recommend using those with less than 100 entries – they will not lead to any audience. As with topics, choose tags related to the topic of the post.
To figure out what would be the ideal amount, we reached out to the Tenchat team and looked at hundreds of comments. Developers advise using no more than 5 hashtags, but we came to the conclusion that you need to add as many as possible.
The main thing is that hashtags are targeted. I often see posts with inappropriate hashtags. For example, if in a post about SEO promotion in the medical field, the author adds “Medicine” to the tags only because of a few terms, then the post does not spin where it should. This annoys all users – and me too.
If you can add 10 hashtags that accurately reflect the topic of the post – feel free to add, but if they become garbage and inappropriate – it’s better to stop at 5-6, – Regina Kuzmina, editor.
Tip 9. Pay special attention to the title and lead – they should be simple and informative
Users must immediately understand what awaits them in your post – otherwise no one will read it. This rule works in all social networks and blogs, but in TenChat, the title also affects the attitude of “Zeus” to the post. Explain what value you will give the reader in the post – that will be enough. Stick to a few golden rules:
- Don’t write clickbait headlines.
- We also advise you to refuse emoticons in the title.
- The title should be neither too short nor too long – between 5 and 10 words.
For example, we had a cool post with a headline in which we immediately said what awaits the reader in the post. Headings without specifics do not enter neither us nor other users.
Just as important as the title is the first paragraph (lead) that the user sees without opening the post. It should grab the reader’s attention and match the theme of the title.
- If you ask a question in the title, let the first paragraph answer it.
- If you are describing a case, introduce the reader to your client.
- If you are talking about a new term or concept, give a definition or explanation.
Communicated with the audience
A year ago, good old mass following and mass liking helped to attract subscribers. But this scheme began to be stopped, and the algorithms stopped putting accounts with strange activities into the rivers. Now you can subscribe only to 200 people per day and it is better to pay attention to those who are really interesting to you.
Now standard content marketing and business connections help out in promoting an account. But first things first.
Tip 10: Use Content Marketing to Engage Your Audience
We will not go into details, but the basis of any content marketing is:
- target audience analysis;
- developed content plan;
- reliable information in posts;
- match headings and content;
- quality illustrations and videos.
I advise you to post regularly – do not disappear from the social network for a long time. But don’t post too often: Tenchat’s team advises not to post more than 2 posts per day, but I think that even 2 posts per day is too much. We post every 2-3 days. So users have time to take a break from us and are not oversaturated with content. If you post every day, the audience will get annoyed and stop reading us altogether, – Nadezhda Otier, editor.
We focus on quality content. This includes pictures, videos, and text – we test different content every 2-3 months in the company: we introduce new headings, repackage the text, come up with new formats. For example, we recently decided to try to show cases in video format, and were pleasantly surprised that Zeus, Athena, and users liked the content 🙂
Tip 11: Respond to comments and don’t use inducement to build more trust with users
If you want to chat with other users, ask them questions and answer them in the comments. By the way, replies to comments are required, otherwise the audience will decide that you are ignoring everyone and will no longer be active on your page. If you are planning a long dialogue, you can go to PM. Yes, TenChat has an internal messenger.
Also be active under the posts of other people – you can find an interesting interlocutor, discuss a topic close to you and just be remembered on the site.
TenChat doesn’t like incentive pledge either. You should not force a person to write something, go somewhere, like someone – write posts so that users themselves want to do it. However, you can ask the audience to ask you a question and answer it in the comments – here we return to the communication that users and algorithms usually enjoy.
Tip 12. Follow people you’re interested in – every business connection counts
Business connections are mutual subscriptions, an analogue of friends on VKontakte. If “Zeus” did not notice you, then the main views will come from them.
In addition to views from your followers, business connections help to get into recommendations – users see the content of “friends of friends” more often. Therefore, in TenChat it is very important to find interesting people for yourself and subscribe to them. So you close two goals at once:
- If you were followed in response, you have added another business connection. This means that the likelihood of getting into the recommendations increases.
- If you are not subscribed, these people can still be useful to you. If their content is related to your topic, you can be inspired by their features and rework for yourself. ̶Н̶е̶ ̶k̶r̶a̶d̶e̶t̶e̶,̶ ̶а̶ ̶в̶d̶o̶х̶n̶o̶v̶l̶ya̶e̶t̶e̶s̶ь̶!̶
We analyze the shortcomings
If you thought that in this article we would only praise TenChat, it was not so. Not without cons, which are very infuriating – especially our editors.
- It is impossible to track the statistics qualitatively. TenChat now has information on reach, views, and subscribers. At the same time, the only thing that really reflects the statistics is subscribers, because reach and views depend on getting into the algorithms. But the information on subscribers is also incomplete – you can’t see their age, gender, geolocation, or activity time. Without this understanding, it is quite difficult to move forward and fall into the interests of the audience.
- The web version has not been finalized. From the desktop, now you can only watch the feed, like, subscribe, leave comments. The messenger, useful services and stories are not available, and even posting sometimes lags – it simply does not allow posting. It is especially painful when they are already laid out in the internal editor.
- You cannot sign in to your account from multiple mobile devices at the same time. As soon as one editor logs into the account on the phone, the application immediately crashes on the other. For a person who maintains his own profile, this is not a problem, but if it is a corporate account, it is a headache. The web version also sometimes crashes, but this is rather an exception to the rule.
- There is no advertising. We already mentioned this when we talked about the features of TenChat. We have to come up with super native liners for advertising in order to avoid the wrath of the gods. So far, one can only dream of launching targeted advertising on this social network.
As a result
We entered the platform a year ago, but started actively developing the account in September 2022. Then we began testing different mechanics, types of content, and delivery methods.
Yes, we didn’t collect a lot of subscribers during this time, but we often got into recommendations and searches using algorithms.
Don’t despair if you haven’t conquered Zeus, Athena, or brought your business leads from TenChat yet. Grow your account, write posts, follow our advice, and everything will work out. And perhaps you will reveal other secrets of promotion in the social network. As long as TenChat is constantly updated, it can be considered an area of experimentation and possible growth.
