Unlocking Success: Promoting Your Brand on Odnoklassniki

Digital brand promotion in the Russian market has undergone significant changes for many marketers since 2022. Tools and platforms that were not actively used before, for various reasons, have now gained prominence again due to the impact of foreign services being blocked, leading the audience to actively use them.

One of these platforms is the Odnoklassniki social network, owned by the VK holding company. Throughout its history, since 2006, the project has gone through many stages of popularity, modernization and more. As of 2023 Odnoklassniki  has again become an "active" social network in Russia boasting a large audience and serving as an effective resource for brand promotion. Like any other service, Ok (note - short form for Odnoklassniki) has its own specific points and peculiarities.

So, how can you effectively promote your brand on Odnoklassniki? What subtleties do you need to be aware of? Let's take a closer look.
 

Odnoklassniki audience

Around the middle of 2022, companies resumed promoting on Odnoklassniki as the platform's audience began to grow. According to developers in 2024, the monthly number of users on the platform reached 36 million, with 80% of them accessing it through mobile devices. The majority of the audience is concentrated in large Russian cities like Moscow, Saint-Petersberg, Krasnodar, and Novosibirsk.

Who are these people? On average, Ok users are financially capable audience of 35-64 years old. Among them, 37% are male, 63% are female. Besides the fact that a large number of users enter the service, they are also active within the platform. The developers estimated that Ok collects more than 17 million reactions (note - "thumbes up") and 1,8 comments, with the topics of interest varying according to age groups.

For instance, the younger audience, aged 14 to 24, is interested in clothes, household appliances, computer games, and education. Therefore, interior design, banking services, baby products, etc.  are the keys for these users. 

On the other hand, the interests of the older audience (25 to 44 years old) differ significantly by gender, with women being more inclined towards clothes, beauty, health, baby products, and pregnancy, while men focus on cars, devices, and household appliances.

The older audience shows interest in food products, houshold appliances, medicines and supplements, active vacation, and real estate purchase. 

In other words, promotion in Odnoklassniki has its advantages. It's not accidental that the number of advertised goods inside the platform reached the level of 39 million in 2024.

However, it's essential to be mindful of Odnoklassniki's peculiarities. Unlike platforms like *Instagram or Telegram, an emphasis on the visual aspect or news-style publications may not be as effective on Odnoklassniki.

What should you pay attention to?
 

Organic brand promotion in Odnoklassniki

Let's start with the positioning of the social network itself. First of all, Ok  is  a platform for communication with friends and relatives.Therefore, instead of focusing on an ideal visual image, concentrate on content that solves specific problems or caters to life situations.

The following are examples of the page of the Klinika medical center group and a publication in the Gazprombank group. If you read them carefully, it will be clear what approach marketers have taken to the issue of community promotion.

 
Thus, the example of the "Klinika" medical center group showcases the problems they can solve for their clients . Plus, on the right side there are  approximate prices for their  services. Thanks to this the audience of the community  has an immediate impression of the brand. In other words, it solves a specific question about the necessity of the service and its cost. 

In the case of Gazprombank, the emphasis is on publications that describe in detail the services provided by the bank and how they can improve the financial side of customers' lives. The content covers relevant for the Ok network  topics related to finance in general, loans, mortgages, etc.
 

Speaking of content, we should mention a peculiar feature connected to the reactions. Commonly accepted “likes” here are called "thumbs up" and clicking on them prompts the algorithm to show the user similar content from other communities.

The groups themselves can be divided into 3 types:

• public/business pages,
• groups by interest,
• events.

The first type is the best for a brand promotion. It's somewhat similar to the same format of a VKontakte group. Here you can add a cover, avatar, photos, videos, products, and other familiar tools for promoting communities. From the SMM point of view, the design of the page is of a great importance. Also taking into account the specifics of Ok, you should pay attention to reviews and tips when forming a content plan. The more diverse the materials, the higher the conversion rate. It can be real photos, videos, customer stories, personalized posts on the part of the employee/manager of the company, etc.

The example below is one of the solutions for personalization of a beauty salon community, the content of which uses videos showing services on the real clients.
 

Often marketers use the "70 to 30" rule to work with Ok, where 70% is useful content and 30% is sales content. The effectiveness of this is a complicated question. Everything is purely individual for a particular brand promotion. But one thing is certain - native advertising, which has become a trend in SMM for many social networks, will work best.
 

Another important issue that can be used in Odnoklassniki is posts with a call to action. In this network, "put a thumbs up", "make a repost", "leave a comment" under the post or "subscribe to the community" can be considered as key actions. The first of the mentioned above works on the principle of similarity. That is, if a user leaves a reaction, he will most likely see other brand publications in the feed. However, a huge amount of appealing content tends to scare users away. Therefore, this format should be included in the plan not as often as the main content.
 

Paid promotion formats in Odnoklassniki

In Ok there are two options: 

• seeding - purchase of posts in another active groups, where the target audience is more likely to be; 
• targeted advertising - paid promotion with a clear range of  social network audience characteristics.               

In this case, the seeding strategy is good because it will attract the attention of active users from another group provided that the posts in it are gaining “thumbs up” and have a sufficient number of views. Targeting will allow you to broadcast advertising with a clear portrait of the target audience and other characteristics of views (note - or allow you to change it in the ongoing campaign).

Plus, the second option has different types. In other words, images, video, audio and text in different ratios and formats can be used in targeted advertising. Special attention in 2023 should be paid to a universal format of VK Ads cabinet, which can be broadcast on many social platforms (note - including Ok).

You can launch targeting in Ok using the VK Ads. In this case, the service allows you to publish ads on several platforms at once (note - social networks VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, partner sites, etc.). By default, the VK Ads platform has "Automatic selection of placement". It allows you to publish your ads on all available resources. However, this function can be changed manually. For example, you can select Odnoklassniki only.

We gave a detailed description of the launch of paid promotion through the VK Ads here.

Collaboration with bloggers in Odnoklassniki

In 2023, Odnoklassniki made a significant leap in influencer marketing. They successfully attracted authors to the social network through monetization programs. The number of new bloggers on the platform tripled, and the growth in reach per opinion leader was approximately 61%.

Opinion leaders have the opportunity to create groups in Odnoklassniki, where the monetization system is connected (approximately +86% of groups monetize content in 2023). Additionally, bloggers can create promotional content in the form of native integrations.

Native advertising post for Wildberries Marketplace in the Maria Shedi - stylist OK group

The program to attract bloggers to Odnoklassniki is still new, but it's already attracting authors with huge audiences and interesting content.
 

Odnoklassniki goes beyond content monetization with its own shows for talented authors. In 2023, OK shows garnered 800 million views, and some of them (OKnut people) were broadcast on TV. This format is a magnet for opinion leaders. With large views, a blogger can easily gain subscribers and attract attention. 

In short, influencer marketing in Odnoklassniki is an extremely effective tool that can be used as an additional tool in the overall promotion strategy. Integrations with OK bloggers will undoubtedly become a full-fledged promotion channel for brands in the near future.
 

Some useful conclusions

Odnoklassniki, as one of the promising platforms for brand promotion in the Russian market, has a large financially capable audience. To achieve the attention of users and perform targeted actions within the social network one should understand the basic principles of Ok. At the same time, it is necessary to move away from the logic of promotion on the other resources, since these mechanics will not work here. 

The minimum set of tasks is an emphasis on the "usefulness" of the community and content in general, native format, call to action, lack of standard image, work with comments. Plus, analytics, evaluating competitor profiles on the platform and, of course, testing and testing again. 

Subscribe to our blog updates to get the most relevant and useful information about marketing and advertising every month. RMAA is always ready to help you promote your brand on the Russian market.

 

*Meta Platforms Inc. project, the activities of which are prohibited in Russia.

Follow us in social media