Moj the short video platform launched in July 2020 has also witnessed tremendous growth since its inception and currently has over 120 million monthly active users. Our users are spending an average of 34 minutes daily on the platform, thus showing the stickiness and popularity of the product. Moj makes it possible for users to not just consume entertaining content, but also provide a new stage to showcase their flaming hot talent to the world out there.
In recent times, home-grown short video platforms have been on an explosive growth trajectory. With a growing demand for fresh, entertaining content, short video platforms have emerged as the fastest-growing content category in India with 180 million users in the financial year 2020.
Last year, we saw variety of content creators, creating very unique and niche short video content. As the video creation increased, more videos were available for consumption, which led to further engagement and sharing, and this ultimately resulted in more demand. According to Monocept, it was concluded that 56% of viewers in India preferred downloading videos on smartphones, of which 85% inclined towards snackable, or short-form video content.
Recently, Moj roped in Bollywood diva AnanyaPanday and Tollywood heartthrob Vijay Devakaronda as brand ambassadors and creators on Moj.
Shashank Shekhar, Director – Content Strategy, Moj in an exclusive chat with MediaNews4U talks about the platform, the challenges, the association with IPL, and much more…
What made you want to start something like ‘Moj’?
We were quick to identify a market opportunity and work relentlessly to build a product to seize it. ShareChat, with its legacy in the Indian social and digital space, provided a lot of insights and understanding while building Moj. A lot of technical, product learnings were borrowed from ShareChat while building Moj.
Due to the existing know-how around social and video with ShareChat, a team of over 70 engineers and product experts was formed with a single focus, of building Moj in the earliest possible timeline. Backed with immense dedication, hard work, and 30 sleepless hours the team delivered the first version of the product on 1st July 2020.
Moj was created as a go-to destination for users across the country to showcase their creativity and talent, through short videos and provide an immersive social experience to our community.
In the past year there have been many Short Video platforms emerging, what is your USP and what differentiated content are you creating?
We have designed every feature with great attention to detail, innovating at every step – like how the users would receive notifications, the flow of the explore section, and keeping the creator ecosystem abreast with the latest viral trends. Upgrading the product throughout with best-in-class tools that are ideal for creating engaging content and showcasing videos in a way that would further augment the community’s experience on the platform.
Our plan is to serve our community the best social experience. Our AI and ML tools power our recommendation engine that builds a highly personalized feed for each of our users.
Our community of users and creators love content around mainstream entertainment topics like dance, lip-syncing, acting and comedy. But apart from that, other niche content categories like lifestyle, food, fashion, sports & fitness, future tech are also very popular on Moj. We are also continuously powering our platform with more niche, long-tail content.
What has been the growth and what have been the challenges?
Ever since Moj was launched on 1st July 2020, the platform has been on a positive growth trajectory and has consistently ranked on top of Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Our community has increased multifold and we have emerged as the entertainment destination of choice. Currently, we have over 120 million monthly active users who on average spend 34 minutes on the platform daily, with 75 million pieces of content created every month.
Moj is also the first Indian short-video platform to bring Snap’s innovative Camera Kit technology to India. The camera kit is an end-to-end solution to include Snap’s AR platform into apps. With innovative filters being added on the platform regularly.
We are innovating continuously, rediscovering every day with our learnings, developing newer tools and technologies for our community, as we strengthen our position in the short video landscape.
What are the factors that have contributed to your growth?
With increased access to smartphones and low data bandwidth costs and language-enabled devices, content consumption on mobile is beginning to grow rapidly. In the past few years, short video content has become a popular format in India. Indian audiences are hungry for short videos now more than ever. This growing appetite for short video consumption coupled with an increasing number of content creators has started a new digital movement.
In the last ten months, we at Moj have seen a variety of content creators, creating unique and niche short video content. As video creation increases, more videos are available for consumption, which further leads to engagement and sharing, and this ultimately results in more demand.
Moj has been successful in creating an identity for itself because we built the best product and have attracted the best creators. Our growth has been organic in nature, particularly coming from our efforts in improving stickiness & retention on the platform, acquiring the best content creators and diversifying the content platter, and growth hacking for building organic installs and word of mouth.
How is the content curated, and how are content creators identified?
Our content strategy is completely focused on user-generated content. UGC short video content is deemed to lead content creation in the near future. Our creators are the beating heart of our platform, we provide them with the right opportunities, technical support, and guidance that empower their creativity and pave the way for their growth.
We are also continuously powering our platform with more niche content. And for this objective, we are diversifying our content platter with more long-tail content. Our approach is to break away from the regular categories of short video content like dance & lip-sync and diversify the content available in far more niche categories. We have identified many engaging categories within the short video space and are supporting creators who are leaders in those categories.
What is your revenue model?
We are strengthening the platform with more creators and relevant content for our users. At present, we are focused on building the right combination of scale, content, and platform offering before we build a strong ecosystem for brands.
However, there has been immense interest from brands. We have seen significant interest from advertisers organically, ranging from digital consumer services to FMCG. We have done some pilots with select brands so far.
We started initial experimentations with brands like Tinder, Flipkart, and OKCredit, to ensure brands use the strength of the platform to get huge engagement. These were a great success and the collaborations helped enhance user experience on the platform.
Recently, we even collaborated with the carbonated beverage brand, Fanta, and integrated Moj Lenses for their campaign during the festival of Holi. The resultant campaign not only helped engage the users but also blended the brand’s message into the overall communication
You have recently roped in Ananya Pandey and Vijay Deverakonda, the strategy behind this move?
We have recently on boardedAnanyaPandey and Vijay Deverakonda as brand ambassadors who are present on our app’s brand videos – #SwipeUpWithMoj and also as creators on our platform. This has been done to strengthen Moj’s positioning as the ultimate entertainment destination, while also establishing Moj’s recall through consumers’ Swipe Up behavior on smartphones. Each Swipe brings up a new video.
While Ananya is helping drive relevance and boost brand affinity in the priority Hindi speaking markets for Moj, Vijay with his mass appeal, high brand value, and unique perspective is further helping in scaling up our presence in the South market.
Why did you think it was important to get onto the IPL bandwagon?
Cricket as a sport has historically been a great platform for brands to connect with consumers as the game’s popularity and reach cuts across all geographies and demographics in India.
We wanted to leverage the audience’s attention towards IPL, however, right now we feel everyone should be more focused on recovering from this unfortunate pandemic so that we all can cheer for our favourite teams in the upcoming season.
