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Training with a guarantee of employment: "Profession Graphic Designer PRO"
Find out moreWhat do such large organizations as Avito, Magnit, T-Bank and many others have in common? The design teams of these companies actively run their Telegram channels. On these channels, they share engaging examples of their work, share recent articles, analyze trends, and even initiate joint projects.
The Flowwow design team decided to seize the opportunity and created their own channel called "Guys, We're Wow." We found out what goals this initiative pursues and what pressing needs it seeks to meet within the industry.
Product communications specialist at Flowwow. He is the creative leader of the team's Telegram channel and the developer of its design concept. He has been working in the design field for four years and is simultaneously developing his own design studio.
Why do you need a channel?
A Telegram channel is a versatile tool that can serve many purposes. It can be used to strengthen an organization's HR brand and to share experiences among leading design specialists. In this article, we will consider the motives behind the popularity of such communities.
The idea to create our own channel arose from the team's desire to have a space for an informal and comfortable exchange of experiences. Over several years of work, a large number of observations and materials have accumulated that we would like to discuss and share within the department.
The Flowwow design team consists of 30 specialists, divided into five highly specialized groups, each of which has its own channels for interaction. However, a common space for exchanging experiences and establishing connections was not enough. In this regard, it was decided to use Telegram as the most convenient platform for communication, different from the official corporate messenger.
"Developing together is not only faster, but also much more interesting."
When the community is small and friendly, the feeling of security becomes tangible. Observing how other participants operate and the challenges they face makes it easier to understand your own growth paths and develop an approach to difficult, and sometimes even unpleasant, moments. These situations are usually common, and understanding this gives you confidence in overcoming them.
"Sometimes it's possible to find a ready-made solution."
Ivan Vasin is a partner and creative director at the Shchuka design studio and the founder of the "Dear Designers" community.
While developing the concept for our channel, we realized that it could showcase our work not only to designers but also to specialists from other fields, such as marketing, branding, PR, and B2B.
We realized that as the company grew, we began to share our successes less frequently. Therefore, we decided to invite the entire Flowwow team to our channel. This led to our fellow customers contacting us, demonstrating examples from our channel and requesting the creation of similar projects.
If the results of our work are available only to a limited circle of internal customers, this negatively affects the motivation of designers within the company.
We soon came to the conclusion that we shouldn't focus solely on the work and the Flowwow team.
We wanted to deepen our knowledge, receive feedback, and interact with talented teams from various companies, brands, and studios. In this regard, the Telegram channel presented itself as a great opportunity to break out of our professional bubble.
Yes, our specialists already participate in conferences and share their experiences through media, but this opportunity is not open to everyone: most often, only team leads and managers take the stage.
Our goal was to create a platform where anyone could share their experiences. This is important because it helps employees realize the significance of both their work and their personalities. We see this as an additional way to strengthen employee commitment to the company and its mission.
In my opinion, having your own channel provides a chance to reduce the distance within the community, share not only the most striking achievements, but also discuss more personal moments, and establish informal relationships between participants.
The channel promotes the creation of trusting relationships and brings together people who share your views.
Ivan Vasin
From the very beginning, we did not intend to develop the Flowwow HR brand. In contrast, Avito had a similar goal on its agenda when they launched the "Love, Design, and Metrics" project.
According to Dmitry Sullivan, Avito's creative director, the team was tasked with strengthening the company's image as an employer and demonstrating expertise. In addition, this channel has opened up opportunities for developing personal brands for active team members and has become a platform for sharing successes and knowledge.
"One of our goals is to achieve high positions in the Avito attractiveness rating for designers as a place of employment."
Over the past two years, our channel has occupied a leading position in the Devcrowd rating. We have seen organic growth, which has allowed us to increase our subscriber base to over 7,000. Our average views range from 2,000 to 4,000.
We receive a lot of relevant responses to our vacancies, as the channel's audience mainly consists of specialists in design and product management.
Dmitry Sullivan holds the position of Creative Director at Avito.
I believe having our own channel provides a chance to bridge the gap within the community. This is a platform for sharing not only official materials, but also for communication and creating informal connections between participants.
The channel fosters trust and helps bring together people who share your views.
Ivan Vasin
Creating a Telegram Channel: Our Practical Experience
If your business already has an official Telegram channel, you should probably create your own version that will be different and will not simply become a reflection of a large brand.
On the one hand, we sought to maintain the core brand direction in the channel's visual design. On the other hand, we decided to allow ourselves more creative experiments and techniques that do not always align with business goals.
Thus, our sub-brand was created - a kind of festival interpretation of Flowwow. In the visual design of this channel, we have the opportunity to move away from the usual palette and use memes more freely.
The creation of the channel's sub-brand was a joint effort by our entire design team. It was a truly exciting project, into which everyone put their heart and soul. Team members contributed various post templates, collaborated on topic ideas, and shared their suggestions for visual design.
Official channels representing a brand usually adhere to a uniform communication style. However, in our case, we decided to choose a different approach: we strive to preserve the individuality of each voice. However, we have a common approach: we strive to communicate with our subscribers openly, sincerely, and without unnecessary restrictions.
We decided to keep communication casual and friendly, with a touch of cheekiness, avoiding boring corporate style. It's important to us that our subscribers feel as comfortable as if they were relaxing on the veranda during their lunch break.
In our publications, we have the opportunity to lift the curtain on processes, sharing sincere praise for exciting ideas or discussing the problems that have arisen. For example, we shared our experience about the unexpected challenges we faced after rebranding, as well as how we were able to cope with them.
We attach great importance to sincerity, so we do not practice We coordinate content and avoid strict censorship. For example, we recently introduced the "Beer Playlist"—a collection of music tracks curated by product communications design leader Amir Shakirov. Although alcohol isn't featured on Flowwow's traditional social media channels, we decided to be open-minded here.
We aimed to avoid strict restrictions on designers, as the channel should remain a space for creativity. Therefore, the content creation process remains voluntary: anyone willing and ready to share their thoughts can contribute.
The primary goal is a free and joyful exchange of ideas, without the need for mandatory approvals or formalities.
While we don't set strict goals for posting frequency, a lack of reminders could lead to us forgetting about an idea. In this regard, our DesignOps specialist, Ksyusha Anastasina, has taken on the role of responsible curator, ensuring that the backlog always contains relevant topics for posts. When someone on the team decides to create a post, she creates a task in our task manager, ensuring that the idea doesn't get lost in the daily hustle and bustle. Ksyusha can contact the designer directly to remind them to prepare the post or offer assistance in formulating the concept. In addition, at her initiative, we organize brainstorming sessions to jointly search for fresh topics and approaches to presenting materials.
The designers' channel on the Avito platform is managed by an operations director, who is responsible for drawing up a media plan, organizing regular meetings with authors, monitoring deadlines, and checking materials before posting. As Creative Director (that's me), I'm responsible for the feed's design and publication formats. The HR brand team also contributes, focusing on developing sections and promoting the channel.
According to Dmitry Sullivan, authors create their publications both independently and in collaboration with colleagues from the editorial team. We intend to organize events specifically for channel authors to strengthen the community within the Avito Design team.
We strive to be sincere, so we don't pre-approve publications or impose strict censorship. We recently introduced the "Beer Playlist"—a collection of music tracks selected by Amir Shakirov, leader of product communications design. Alcohol isn't featured in Flowwow's traditional social media, but in this case, we decided to be open-minded.
How a Telegram channel changed the way we perceive information
Collaboration with famous companies.
Despite the fact that the Flowwow designer channel has only been around for a few months, it has already established partnerships with such significant brands as Magnit, t2, and the Pole channel. We are seeing how our efforts to unite and share experiences are supported by colleagues from various teams, and this is of great value to us.
We held a week-long competition with Magnit. Every day, we created a new challenge, filmed a video, or prepared a post, and then invited our subscribers to vote for one of two brands. One day we organized a competition for the best AI-generators, and on another, we discussed whether a designer has the right to work for free, just to create an impressive case for his portfolio.
2. Networking
For us, the channel is, first and foremost, an opportunity to establish contacts in the field and play a role in the development of contemporary design.
In the summer, colleagues from tutu.ru joined our channel. We had a short conversation with them, during which they invited us to a master class on crafting, which will be taught by Alexander Vasin. For our entire team, this opportunity represents a chance to gain relevant knowledge that we would otherwise have to master in expensive courses.
For professional designers, such training formats are of great importance, as they allow us to stay abreast of current trends and receive information directly from primary sources.
3. Employer Brand Evolution
Initially, we did not plan to attract external employees, but after cross-promotion with design teams of other brands, interest in Flowwow as an employer increased significantly. Some of them had the opportunity to communicate with us and expressed a desire to collaborate.
4. The evolution of the Flowwow brand
The channel did not set out to promote the Flowwow brand—that's a job for PR or SMM teams. However, when the number of subscribers in the t2 designers channel reached the 1000 mark, we decided to please them and sent a bento cake from our team.
It's quite reasonable: who, if not us, should send such congratulations?
Our channel was launched just a few months ago, but we already understand how important it is for us. It has become a platform for improving communication both within our team and in the wider design community.
You will find a lot of fascinating materials about design in our Telegram channel. Join us!
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