Chapter I. For what does everyone love Telegram?

In the first chapter of her book, Christina Potupchik answers the question that many Runet users are asking today: how is it different from instant messengers like WhatsApp or Viber? What are its advantages over Facebook or Instagram?

According to Potupchik, Telegram stands on three psychological pillars: a high level of trust in the platform, a respectful administration attitude towards the user, and “minimalism that reduces neuroticism”.

“Users love Telegram for its Spartan simplicity: there are no separate items for friends, colleagues, entertainment, and everything else that is sorted and requires additional effort. Here you do not need to decide whether to block an annoying user for 30 days or not to offend the poor guy - unsubscribe, but do not refrain; or better to ban reposts from it; or reduce the priority of the annoying "friend". Here you are either signed or not, there is no third. The interface is not clogged with unnecessary buttons, dies, colors, advertising. Simplicity is combined with high functionality. For example, in the user profile there is a very convenient search system for all the content that you shared in the chat, with a breakdown into types. The same Facebook can not even establish a normal search for ten years. "

Among other things, among the advantages of the platform, the blogger calls security ("Telegram Creator Pavel Durov initially conceived the application as a tool for secure correspondence") and anonymity ("The administration refuses to provide users' correspondence and data about them to anyone. This means that even if someone’s content is insulted by someone, you’re not in danger, because the law enforcement agencies won’t know who distributed it ”).

Chapter II The first steps in the telegram

What to choose - Telegram or Telegram X? How to set a profile photo? And finally - how to maintain confidentiality? A bonus to security tips is a checklist for people working with sensitive information.

“Social Engineering” is the name for a set of techniques that allow fraudsters to get “the key to an apartment where money is lying” right from the hands of the owner. Fake websites, spamming with malicious links, luring passwords, SMS from a relative from the “police station” ...

We have all heard about this many times, but we continue to use our birth date as a combination to the safe, store the pin-code from the card on a piece of paper in our wallet and believe that nothing bad can happen to us.

So: no encryption, no reputation of Pavel Durov will save you from divulging secrets if you yourself do not learn how to use the means to protect them. ”

Chapter III. How is Telegram useful for politicians, authorities and their press services?

This chapter is also useful to those who have no relation to power, but want to understand what is happening around: how Telegram channels consciously influence the image of politicians, weave intrigues and provoke scandals.

“The realities today are as follows: if you hold a high position, if a lot of people follow and evaluate your work, then you will not be able to keep silent and hide in the shadows. When you do not share any information about yourself, others begin to write about you, and the information vacuum is filled with distorted, unreliable, and often simply invented data, which is fraught with unpleasant consequences. Therefore, it is very important to be open - this is the only way you can achieve a good attitude towards yourself. But sharing information is not necessary where you are comfortable: on the department's website, on Facebook or in the column on the fifth page of the municipal newspaper, but where the audience lives that you influence and that affects you. ”

Chapter IV Who is there? How the world of Telegram works

Four types of organization, four types of telegram channels, five success factors for the thematic channel, five tips for those who want to have a personal channel, five insights about anonymous channels. And (most interesting!) Detailed instructions for creating an anonymous political channel.

“Create a legend.

Why should your channel interest your audience, which will make people subscribe and prefer your content to other, more well-known sites? Here again, there are two strategies: either to fill a narrow niche that is still free (for example, to follow the policy only in Yakutia), or to introduce yourself as an expert with unique knowledge.

Thus, on the Riskovik channel, an employee of a bank engaged in risk assessment shares economic news, and it is potentially more interesting and useful to read them in its interpretation than the usual thematic news agency tape. Naturally, in the second case, the channel moderator will have to understand the economy at least at the level of a graduate from a specialized university.

The romantic and unverifiable legend works best: the author is his own among strangers, he managed to infiltrate the power structures. Or, on the contrary, an employee of the headquarters of the opposition party is divided by insiders, because not everyone agrees with the leadership. The “wife” of an unnamed functionary or his “mistress”, “son” of the deputy minister, “trainer”, “cleaner”, “cook” - any semi-ironic self-representation combined with the constant development of a political segment will convince the reader of the authenticity of the author’s role ”.

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  • © Dado Ruvic

Chapter V. How to write (and how not to write) in Telegrams

You should immediately determine the audience of the channel (audience typology is given), develop a development strategy (template is attached) and build an information campaign (and there is an instruction for this). Immediately - five errors novice channel author.

"five. To flirt with readers with old-fashioned methods

“Telegram's audience is mainly young, actively reading, constantly involved in information flows of all types. For such people, the meme becomes obsolete in a maximum of a week, and entertainment content from other social networks is only a few light-years away. Therefore, all the work of a specialist responsible for analytics in the channel can be nullified by one demotivator about Karl, who, with the best of intentions, will be posted by your boss, who exchanged his fifth dozen.

Chapter VI. Fine work: negative and delicate topics

The authors of the Telegram channels now and then have to protect their customers and fight back from the negative. This chapter tells you exactly how to do this. And also - how to comply with the norms of political correctness and not accidentally call the homeless a homeless, and the editor is the editor.

“It is easy to offend a woman, but in our time it is also dangerous. If someone persistently puts feminitiv near his own name - this is important for her. Show understanding and call her as she wants. Otherwise, what you said will be perceived as a misogyny not only by the author / editor / blogger, but also by the crowds of her feminist friends and even by many sympathetic men. Never has a simple suffix affected reputations in this way. ”

Chapter VII How to promote your channel

Patupchik deals with several ways of channel promotion: mutual PR, catalogs, paid advertising, paid promotion, promotion through other platforms and the purchase of subscribers.

“Buying subscribers in Telegraph.

I would compare this technique (sorry) with advertising of cheap means for increasing the known part of the male body: it is just as seductive - and ineffective.

Yes, the Internet is full of sites that offer dead souls for as low as 70 kopecks. for each. By the stranded subscribers must have to buy views (8-10 kopeks. Apiece), because a dozen views from the post with an audience of 2 thousand people - a clear sign of dishonest play.

On the one hand, this is an easy way to close the report and inexpensive crutches at the start of the project. Prove that the views are screwed up is unrealistic. On the channel, where there are already readers, people come more willingly. On the other hand, fake subscribers are periodically blocked, with bundles, and instead of growing, your platform can subside. ”

Chapter VIII. What journalists need to know about the Telegram ecosystem

“In the telegraph channels there is no pure truth to which the reporter aspires. You will not find here the refined authenticity of the format “the fifth graduates of the Physics Department of Moscow State University in the world by quoting in English-language peer-reviewed journals”, “15 people died in the accident”, “every eighth Russian took microcredits”, “the fulfillment of the Spring Act will cost operators 200 billion rubles” .

The telegram is a puzzle where the truth is collected in pieces, a stream in which gold is washed in grains as a result of a long and painstaking sifting of the rock through a fine sieve.

For a journalist with a weak analytical apparatus who is not used to understanding the context, the Telegram will remain the same as it remains for his 70-year-old grandmother, another dump of letters without a clear structure and meaning. ”

Chapter IX And everything changed

In the final chapter (not counting the applications with the list of the most popular Telegram channels), Potupchik sums up, recommends additional literature and gives some universal tips - for example, “the reaction speed solves everything.”

“I called this chapter by analogy with the film“ And Everything Was Illuminated ”, based on the novel by American writer Jonathan Safran Foer (as you probably know, I love to read, and my main resource in Telegram is the book channel @krispotupchik). In the apartment Foyer hanging a lot of frames. At first glance, they are empty, but in fact, each of them is framing a piece of paper from the desktop of some writer. Leaf Sigmund Freud there is adjacent to the leaf of Victor Pelevin, Susan Sontag - with David Foster Wallace and John Updike. So Foer fights with the creative block.

I would like this book and Telegram to help you become a little writer, unleash your potential and give the world something new. It’s always scary to start an unusual business, but it’s not a shame not to succeed in it from the first day - it’s a shame not to try. ”