How we did exchange payment for posts in the social network

Cool presentations and meetings with investors are all very tempting, but this is not always the case. Sometimes just two dudes smoke hookah, look at the sky and discuss the shortcomings of targeting services, the charms of SMM and advertising in social networks.

It happened this time. The idea of ​​the exchange of posts appeared in the autumn of 2016, but really there is already something to tell and even something to show. Therefore - who cares, we read further, or “I ask for the cut”, as is customary in “Habré”.
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Repeatedly reading similar posts, I know how inspiring the example of others when you do your service or project. I will try to pay tribute to the community, and talk about the formation of their startup. I would be glad if this story motivates someone!

So, the very idea of ​​remuneration for posts in the social sphere is not new, there are many exchanges in this sphere. Someone specializes in fully automating posting to groups and publics, providing planners for administrators, styling content, and integrating with sources of posts. Others - offer ordinary people to perform tasks for likes and posts. I myself occasionally resort to similar services, but they don’t give any tangible effect - especially the second option. Unfortunately, many obstacles interfere with this business process. People have to register somewhere, check e-mail in order to receive tasks, report on their fulfillment ... You can list them further - it is already clear that the process is not optimal, and it is highly overdeveloped.

You can simplify. On all fronts and. Which way of communication is more familiar? True, the message. We are in the 21st century, what the damned reports about the tasks performed? The system is able to check everything by API. This is fundamentally changing the case.

Once, while working on one of my projects, where it was necessary to put likes on a photo (precisely, with comments), in order to increase the involvement of rich young people, I attached the possibility of chat notifications to the application. It was solved crookedly, through vkmessenger, the transport was an email, it was impossible to send pictures, but as a result, a person saw a notification about a new like in VK's personal messages. Of course, this was a success - the percentage of user returns to the application (retention) has increased significantly!

By the time we were closely analyzing the possibility of creating an exchange of posts, Vkontakte had a great “pumping over” the topic of community posts. There was a cool API, a short address to initiate a dialogue, the ability to even send pictures. The first attempts - worked with a bang. Delivery of messages was instant, the reaction of the bot to them, too. And - all this is official, through the API. It is for automatic answers and CRM-ok it is made, in fact.

Without blackness and spam, the first person writes, and then you can respond to it, and automatically. In general, the theme of bots for Vkontakte has become very popular this spring. Previously, everyone wrote bots for Telegrams, and now they are adapting their engines to the good old VK, since there are many more users willingly sharing their public social info.

However, at that time (autumn of 2016), the bots did not go beyond the limits of Slack and Telegram, and the communication with the “non-human” Vkontakte produced a surprise and a smile with my friends, even with programmers. They helped to test, correct phrases - for which many thanks to them! If it is also interesting, here is a link to the bot .

However, our conservative mind was thinking in the wrong direction. Stereotypes almost made a standard “withdrawal from 100 rubles” scheme, which obviously would produce a bunch of “abandoned” accounts, dissatisfied people, and in general - today everyone understands the mathematical component too well to delay the payments to the minimum threshold.

And then my friend and colleague Alexander proposed a concept in which the payment for the first post is carried out immediately, immediately. The perfect way - the balance of the mobile phone. Entered the number, made the first test post, received a money. A cool idea that fully continues the concept of the bot - after all, why the bot - for the efficiency of the system, fast delivery of information. Let the same quickly and rustling with payment!


No sooner said than done. Yandex Cash provides API for payments. Fine. Application, waiting, no deadlines, checks. They can be understood, this kind of payments is too peculiar. Both MFIs and online games go there. Looking ahead, I will say that integration took six months (!). From bureaucracy to the issuance of certificates, integration. Well, what can we say, one account for the replenishment of the deposit in the system, we exhibited a week and a half. And somehow in parts;) Take a part of the details from here, and a part from here. And pay. Yandex! How did it happen? 21 century in the yard.

There was one more thing. Vkontakte has blocked our service for cheating reposts. After long trials and citing similar services for posting to groups, we were explained as follows: “Reposts are cheating. She is forbidden. Posts - no. Introduce only moderation, and then ban it again! ”

“Okay,” we said. Wiped away the tears and rewrote a good half of the engine that tracked the numbers of the reposts. Long live the posts! Of funny - they taught the bot to understand the YES command. And if he is allowed access to the wall, then by the go-ahead he himself places the post. Simplified the lives of those who are happy from earning 20-30 rubles for a mobile phone. Now everything is like in the movie "Always say yes."



The forced pause with the integration of payments inspired us to redesign, finish the chips. They did not lose hope, finished and expanded. Believing and hoping that very soon we will close the chain. The basis of the personal account took the popular bootstrap-template. This is another tip. Do not worry about the wonders of design. To test your working model you should always use the work of other people. You can lose months on drawing illustrations, but never make a product. Or the second - the product will change slightly due to the realities of the market, and the illustrations will become irrelevant.

Finally, at the end of May 2016, we completed the quest with Yandex. Our Target was finally approved, and the integration was transferred to the combat mode. The first rubles began to flow into mobile accounts. The amount is often ridiculous, but here the novelty of the concept is more important. In the logs you can see how people write live phrases to the bot, “Well, come on, go ahead”, try to write something non-standard, checking it for IQ. By the way, to the question about the stupidity of the bot - so far we think: the dumber the bot, the more worthy it looks. You do not blame the linux command line for not understanding the “human” commands. There is a clear list of commands to which the system responds. It is simple, affordable and does not cause the desire to check the bot for intelligence. And at the same time he performs his duties for all 100!

What did you like about community posts like in the tool? All chats are easily tracked, you can correct phrases, look at what people stumble on, which is not clear to them in the answers of the bot. This is very important, and it helped us a lot in debugging.

What would you like to wish to everyone who is burning with the idea to make your startup?

Perseverance. Atrocious such unshakable. Belief in what you do. Interactions with people who will be customers and users. They often say important things. Do not decide for them. I can’t imagine what would have happened if not all those people I consulted with asked to test, try ... Only the feedback of the community will help to make a product useful for it.



PS The story is more for motivation, there is no PR and stories about how we celebrated 3 years of service in Bali. I will be sincerely glad that, even in this version, she will make someone stand up from the sofa and ... at least sit in a chair in front of the monitor! )