We recently hosted a broadcast where we told how to use the messenger and what features it has. Based on questions and feedback, we realized that it is not yet clear to everyone what to do with this cart. Therefore, we decided to fix the main points in a series of articles about how to create group on Telegram.
In the first issue, we explain in detail with illustrations where to click and how to create groupon on Telegram.
Channel vs Group: What to choose
There are two entities in Telegram – a channel and a group. Both can be used as a place to distribute content, but there are important differences.
In terms of mechanics, the channel is similar to the public Vkontakte, where one or more admins publish messages, and the rest read. A business, media, or blogger distributes information, and subscribers consume it: they read posts, watch pictures and videos, participate in polls, and put reactions and comments.
The group is more like a WhatsApp chat where everyone can speak. This format is suitable for supporting students of an online course, access to classified information, communication within a team, and organizing large thematic communities. Don’t worry as the information that follows on how to create group on Telegram will be of help.
Procedural Guide to Creating a Telegram Group
The article below demonstrates the process of how to create group on Telegram on the desktop version of the Windows application.
The appearance and location of the buttons on the versions for macOS and smartphones will differ. If you can’t find something or have other difficulties – write in the comments. We will try to help.
How to create and set up a group
1. Open the menu in the upper left corner.
2. There you will see the first two buttons. Click on “Create Group”.
3. A window will appear in which you will need to enter the name of the group. You can also set an avatar here if you click on the camera icon. When you’re done, click “Next”.
4. In the next window, Telegram will offer to add people from the contact list to the group. You will need to select at least one member for the “Create” button to become active. A maximum of 200,000 people can be invited this way.
After successfully knowing how to create group on Telegram you can also manually invite members to an already-created group. At this stage, it is enough to add one to move forward.
5. After clicking the “Create” button, your new empty group will open.
6. To change group settings, click on the three dots in the field with the name and select the “Group management” command.
7. A block with settings will open. At the top, you can change the name and avatar, as well as add a description of the group. Below are other group settings.
8. If you click on “Group Type”, you will find yourself in the privacy settings. Here you can make the group public so that anyone can join it. Or leave the group private so that you can join it only by invitation link.
Here you can also copy the link to the group or share it with Telegram users. In a private group, the link acts as an invitation for new members to join the group.
If you click on the three dots to the right of the link, additional options will appear:
- “Generate a QR code” – such a code can be placed on a business card/banner/handout so that people consider it their phone and go to the group,
- “Reset” to deactivate the previous invitation link and create a new one.
If in a private group Telegram itself generates an invitation link, then in a public group, you will need to register it yourself.
For example, after you have understood how to create group on Telegram and have done it successfully, you can make a link that is consonant with the name of the group
Below is the “Manage Invitations” button. By clicking on it, you can create additional links with a limit on the validity period and the number of transitions.
Such a link may be needed in advertising. For example, if you post a selling post on a popular Telegram channel and indicate that only 1,000 people will click through. This will provide additional excitement.
To create such a link, go to “Manage invitations” and click on the “Create a new link” button.
Inside you can:
- set the expiration date of the link and limit the number of group members,
- give a name to the link that will be visible only to admins – can be useful to distinguish links from each other,
- switch the toggle switch “Application for membership” – if you make it active, the admin will need to approve each membership application manually.
Click “Add” to save the link.
Under the “Manage invitations” is the block “Content saving”. If you activate the toggle switch, none of the participants will be able to copy, save or forward materials from the group.
When you make all the changes in the “Group Type” settings, do not forget to click “Save” so that the settings you have made are not reset.
9. If you click “Chat history for new members” in the group settings, you can choose whether previous messages will be visible to new members or not.
10. By clicking on “Reactions”, you can customize the emoji that group members will put on each other’s messages.
Here you can completely disable this feature or select the allowed emoji.
This is what the messages look like. This is a cool thing that allows you to express your attitude to content without words. Similar in mechanics to reactions in Instagram Stories*
11. In the “Permissions” block, the capabilities of the participants are configured.
Here you can choose which actions will be available to group members and which will not. If you disable all features for members, only admins can post content to the group and this is the information you have to get while you are in the process of how to create group on Telegram.
You can also set up “Slow Mode” here so that members can only post one post per limited period.
At the very bottom, there are two more buttons:
- “Exceptions” – allows you to limit the possibilities of an individual participant for one day, a week, or forever. This function can be used as a punishment in case of violation of the community rules,
- “Black list” to exclude participants from a group with a ban on re-entry.
12. The “Invitation Links” block duplicates the “Manage Invitations” button in the “Group Type” settings – we talked about it above.
13. In the “Administrators” block, you can assign additional group admins and configure their range of capabilities.
To appoint a new administrator, you need to go to the “Administrators” block and click the “Add administrator” button. Telegram will open the list of group members. Choose among them the one you want to appoint as an administrator.
If the person is not in the group, enter their name in the search bar. When you click on the found user, Telegram will offer to invite him and appoint him as an administrator. Click “OK”
When adding an administrator, you can immediately configure his capabilities – leave the necessary ones and disable unnecessary ones. For example, if the new admin will be a moderator, you can leave the ability to delete messages and block members and turn off the rest.
Below you can rename the admin position. Write, for example, “moderator”, “manager” or “myrmecologist”.
To reconfigure the capabilities of an existing admin, you need to go to the list of administrators and click on it. The same window will open when adding a new admin.
14. In the “Participants” block, you can view the profiles of current participants and add new ones.
To open the profile of a group member, you need to click on it in the list of members. From the participant’s card, you can go chat with him if you click “Send message”.
To add new members to the group, click on the “Add Members” button.
This can be done by force – without the prior consent of users, add them manually. Or intelligent – send out an invitation link to the list of contacts and allow them to decide whether to join or not.
15. Block “Recent activities” will be needed to control the admins.
You open it and see what your admins have done in the last 48 hours.
16. At the bottom left of the settings window is the “Delete group” button. She deletes the group.
How to create and set up a channel
Steps 1 and 2 are the same as in the group creation algorithm.
3. Already at the stage of creation, Telegram offers to choose whether the channel will be public or private. The differences are the same as in the case of how to create group on Telegram: the materials of public channels are available to all users, and the materials of private channels are available only to subscribers.
Also, for a public channel, you will need to immediately register a link, and for a private one, it will be created automatically this is done at the initial stage of how to create group on Telegram.
Both the channel type and the link can be changed later in the settings.
The next window to add the first subscribers to the channel will open. Manually at this and subsequent stages, you can add up to 200 users, but no more than 50 in one day.
4. When the channel is created, click on the three dots in the line with the name of the channel and click on the “Manage Channel” button
5. The “Edit Channel” window will open, at the top of which you can change the name and avatar, as well as add a description.
The “Channel Type” block contains the same features as the similar block in the group settings. More is written here.
6. The function of internal comments for the channel is sewn into the “Discussion” block. If you want subscribers to be able to comment on posts, discuss them and communicate with each other, connect.
The first thing to do is to click on the “Discussion” button.
Telegram will offer how to create group on Telegram in which all comments on posts will be saved, or select an already created one.
To link an existing group, click on it and click “Link Group” in the pop-up window.
If you decide to follow the steps on how to create group on Telegram, the same window will appear when creating a group normally. Change the name of the group if necessary and click “Create”. Settings, avatar, and description can be adjusted later according to the instructions described above.
Ready. Now you can comment on your posts.
7. If you activate the toggle switch in the “Sign messages” block, each post will be signed with the name of the admin who published it.
8. Blocks “Reactions”, “Administrators”, “Subscribers”, “Black List” and “Recent Actions” are configured and work similarly to the same blocks in the group. See links for instructions.
The Delete Channel button deletes the channel.
In the following articles, we will describe the details of publishing posts and conducting live broadcasts in Telegram. If there are any moments in the work of the messenger that interest you, write in the comments and we will tell you about them. Hope it has been a great journey on how to create group on Telegram.