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    Helo chases creators to meet 100 million user target

    Synopsis

    Helo is calling itself a platform for the ‘Gully Boys’ of social media, referring to a Hindi movie Gully Boy which is based on talented and popular rappers of Mumbai’s poorest neighbourhoods and slums.

    Social media
    Helo claims Indians use the platform on an average of 30 minutes daily and 85 percent of the posts are user-generated content.
    Helo, a vernacular social media platform of Chinese startup ByteDance, aims to double its user base in India to 100 million by the end of the year as it aggressively chases content creators by offering a possibility of instant stardom and future monetisation.

    Helo is ByteDance’s India-first product launched in June last year. It is now available in 13 other countries for Indian communities and expats. It competes with Indian startup ShareChat, which had accused the Chinese application of copying its design and infringing on its copyright last year. Both applications are available in 14-15 Indian languages and are wooing first-time Internet users who are more comfortable in sharing content in regional languages. “We want to widen the engagement of creators and increase their social currency,” said Raj Mishra, Head of Creator Strategy at Helo. “All of us are trying to capture attention span of users. Whatever we do is driven towards getting users and creators to stay on the platform.”

    Helo is calling itself a platform for the ‘Gully Boys’ of social media, referring to a Hindi movie Gully Boy which is based on talented and popular rappers of Mumbai’s poorest neighbourhoods and slums.

    Helo is now offering free traffic boost, staff support to eligible creators apart from an opportunity to be part of ‘Helo Stars’ incubation program which will help 100 creators reach one million followers.

    The regional social network also launched live streaming on the application so creators can engage and interact with their audience in real-time, ‘Helo Analytics’ to make it easier for creators to understand their followers and their feedback so they can create more engaging content, and ‘Helo Playbook’ with tips, tricks and hacks to create viral-worthy content.

    “We want people to use and exploit Helo to distribute content to people who otherwise would not have seen it. We identify talent and incubate them,” Mishra said. “Helo gives access to people in tier one and two towns to showcase their talent. We then distribute the content which these creators make to a larger section of the audience whose engagement really matters.”

    Helo claims Indians use the platform on an average of 30 minutes daily and 85 percent of the posts are user-generated content. Its pursuit of creators isn’t something new. In 2011, YouTube did the same - enable users to create higher quality content in a bid to attract users and finally advertisers. ByteDance’s TikTok, another social media platform for short videos, is doing the same. Instagram regularly posts tips for its creators on the platform.
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    The Economic Times

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