Trell’s users are spending over 40 min on the platform consuming content: Pulkit Agrawal

After the Indian government banned the use of 59 Chinese apps, Trell, a homegrown lifestyle blogging platform that allows users to create videos in their native languages, witnessed a huge spike in user base with 5 million new content creators from Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. The platform has grown 10X since the ban on Chinese apps, with a total user base of 75 million+.

Trell has recently launched its platform in three new languages – Marathi, Kannada, and Bengali – making the total count to 8 languages (additionally, Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam) active so far.

Also read: Trell appoints Parul Menghani as VP and Head of Content

To know more about spike in Trell’s audience after it recently launched new languages, and how the app has benefitted from TikTok’s exit, Adgully spoke to Pulkit Agrawal, Co-Founder, Trell.

Make in India and Vocal for Local is something that al lot of brands are now accepting. How has the AtmaNirbhar Movement started by PM Narendra Modi helped you?

The AtmaNirbhar Bharat Movement has given a much-needed boost to Made in India products and services. One of the biggest concerns for any user is their data privacy and security and PM Narendra Modi and the government is making sure that we keep the privacy of our users within the boundaries of the country. But what this movement has also done is helped bring about a change in the minds of our Indian consumers, where now more than ever they appreciate the value of homegrown platforms and are being vocal about it. This has effectively made the biggest impact on our journey. When our consumers share the same love for our products and support us, the impact resonates by volumes. The faith of our users has become the biggest driving force for our growth and we will continue to harness it further. 

With the Chinese app ban in India, how has Trell benefited from TikTok’s exit from the Indian market?

The unexpected Chinese app ban did create a massive change in our growth trajectory. While Trell was growing rapidly at 25 per cent every month even before the ban in June, we have seen an overwhelming response from our users since the app ban. 

With more people embracing our localised and culturally-relevant content, we have experienced unprecedented growth with over 80 million downloads, an increase in user screen-time by 800 per cent and the growth of our creator community to over 18 million. Recently, we surpassed the number of active users on both Pinterest and Twitter in India and were viewed more than 5 billion times in the last one month.

With competition increasing every day in the market, what has been your marketing strategy during all these times?

While the marketing strategies keep changing, one thing that has always remained a constant and has been the biggest growth driving factor for us is prioritising the community first. The past few months have seen so many rapid changes in the whole ecosystem and we have always been on point to quickly adapt and build further. From COVID to the Chinese apps ban, we kept our vision clear and scaled through every opportunity presented to us.

Since there are multiple upcoming short video apps, how are you differentiating from them and getting more followers for your platform?

Trell is a storytelling platform where people share videos of their passion, learnings and recommendations with a like-minded community across various lifestyle interests, unlike other short video platforms that engage their users with 15-second videos of lip-syncing, dance, comedy, acting. 

For example, let’s look at 20-year-old KOL, Kamalpreet from Punjab, who has varied interests that are displayed on different social media platforms. On Instagram, he shares his recent photos of what he does, and on TikTok, he used to share his talent videos around lip-syncing and dance styles and on Trell he creates 3-minute vertical videos to share his passion and learnings from the latest recipes he tries and reviews the movies or TV series he watches with the freedom to do so comfortably, in his own language. As a business, we are into social commerce and are focused on building a strong interest-based/ passion-based community of content creators (KOLs) and their audiences in multiple Indian languages that enable our users to make well informed and suitable purchase decisions for better lifestyle choices.

What is the kind of traction that you are getting from the advertisers for your platform?

Trell serves as a content marketing platform for brands and advertisers by giving them the space to reach out to a large consumer base through our content creators on the platform, who understand their audience very well. Over 60 per cent of our user base is from beyond the metro cities and through the content of our creators, we are able to generate brand awareness in the users, who are aspirational and rely on a trusted source, a peer speaking to them, educating them in their own language to help them make well informed and suitable purchase decisions. This is a step ahead from the traditional inventory-based advertising space and works as an added advantage for brands that have been using this opportunity as a holistic content and community marketing solution. In India, word of mouth and community driven advertising has played a huge factor in the success of many brands. Brands have realised the similar potential on our platform and have been extremely happy with the results they are seeing. Even post the ban, the response has been great. This is also plugged into the platform so seamlessly that it does not hamper the users’ experience and at the same time gives the brand the visibility it requires. 

What kind of content is consumed on your platform? Is the content being censored? 

The latest conversation wave on the platform is of course the ongoing IPL fever, and our users are loving it! Being a lifestyle video platform, our users have the opportunity to have a conversation and share their stories across multiple categories with a like-minded community, comfortably in their own language. The conversation and trends across the country varies from region to region, for example, in UP North and East, we see people primarily talking about their interests around personal care tips, they share a passion in fashion and love for food. People from Lucknow have been talking about their famous Chikankari kurtis and how to take care of them; people from Chandigarh have been consuming a lot of foodies content and where they can indulge in food that can tickle their taste buds. Guwahati sees a lot of consumption in fashion content. Similarly, down South, primary interests are around Recipes, Tech & Gadgets, Health and Fitness. We see people sharing and consuming a lot of recipes from their cities and age old tips to make some of the most delicious food. Even with consumption, people are loving this category the most, followed by gadget reviews and affordable gadgets. Another topic of interest is Health and Fitness, where yoga seems to be a common interest among people from cities down South. And in the West, people are loving the Movies & TV reviews segment along with Fashion, Beauty, and Food. From Pathani sarees to streetwear fashion, the West seems to love it all. Women and men both consume skincare and beauty topics here almost equally (53:47) and people have been searching for more food places to explore. Recipe content here has seen a massive increase since the lockdown. It is quite interesting to see the patterns of creation and consumption across the country, it helps us deep dive further and understand the culture and community of the nation. 

The content on Trell goes through various stages of quality checks since it is an open platform for people to share content. We have both machine and manual intervention to avoid content that can hurt any sentimentality. 

How is Trell providing opportunities to content creators to earn their livelihood? 

Our KOLs are trained in the “Trell Creators Academy” to become subject matter experts and share meaningful, valuable information with the community that can help them enhance their lifestyle. This also ensures that creators have an equal opportunity to earn from Trell and become independent. These KOLs are then connected with unique brands for collaborations through which they monetise their content that helps them earn a sustainable income. The brands also get benefitted from reaching out to an audience beyond the metro cities through a trustable source, who help recommend the products and services to a like-minded peer. 

Our creators have been collaborating with some of the top tier brands and brands that have a unique proposition like Tinder, Poco, Turms Wear, Man Matters, to name a few. These collaborations have helped thousands of creators earn anywhere between Rs 15,000 to even Rs 80,000, some of the older and more prominent creators have earned over Rs 100,000 even, helping them become independent and at the same time pursue their passion in content creation.

What are your Monthly Active Users (MAU)?

Currently, we have over 25 million monthly active users on the platform. Recently, the response we have received with the IPL campaign #CSKMillionStrong is amazing. Our users are spending more than 40 minutes on the platform consuming content. 

What are you doing to get more traction from the regional space?

Currently, we are present in over 75 per cent of India and have 8 Indian languages on the platform. We are soon expanding to add many more languages and reach out to a larger segment of Indian consumers. We will continue to focus on building and connecting the community across regions. 

How is Trell as a platform aspiring people? 

The whole idea and inception of Trell came from the root desire of empowering aspiring Indians and giving them the space to make better and more suitable lifestyle choices. We ensure that Trell is creating an extremely inclusive online community and network, where each person is empowered to express themselves. The platform gives opportunity to people from different backgrounds, regions and cultures to come together and share their stories and experiences comfortably in their own languages without feeling the pressure of being judged. We take extra steps to ensure there is no judgement or trolling on Trell, making it an extremely safe platform for women. In fact, over 70 per cent of our creators and over 60 per cent users are women who feel empowered to share their experiences with their audiences. Through this, Trell is enabling many women to work from home and support themselves by creating content.