By A Correspondent
Leading digital content platform, The Quint, completed its first year on Facebook on January 9, 2016. First launched on the social media platform before its website was unveiled in March, The Quint, has had a good run in India. The platform enjoys over 3 million dedicated readers on Facebook having pioneered publishing concepts like Instant Articles, created calls-to-action and championed several meaningful and impactful campaigns through the innovative use of technology.
Led by Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur, co-founders of Quintillion Media, The Quint on Facebook has made its presence felt since its very first day a year ago when it coloured the social media site with the shades of yellow and purple. Besides being driven to bringing news to the fingertips of readers, the platform has successfully leveraged the power of Facebook to invite readers to participate in its campaigns and create change with it.
Speaking on the first Facebook anniversary celebrations, RituKapur, CEO, The Quint said, “In this exciting one year, we have experimented with content, formats, technology and different ways of engaging our readers meaningfully. Throughout this ride, we’ve broken news (and parameters) as well as our own expectations, but most importantly, we’ve broken the perception that only print or television can rule information. We dreamt of a platform where we could interact with our readers and they’ve overwhelmed us with their response. It is indeed a time of celebration for the entire team for what we’ve managed to achieve together!â€
Amongst several campaigns that garnered a lot of attention on Facebook was the #MakeOutInIndia campaign that talked about breaking away from the hypocrisy that is associated with sexuality and discussions on sex in India. #SayYesToWeed was another high-impact initiative where The Quint took the onus of breaking the myth that weed is harmful. The #BiharMobile campaign grabbed a lot of eyeballs as The Quint went out to become the first digital-only platform to cover an entire election on smartphones.
Facebook was where the platform began to test waters and tried to understand what its readers expected and wanted. From its first 500 likes to now more than 3 million fans, from the ‘first’ piece of breaking news to the ‘first’ 1,000 shares, the first taste of going viral with the `BuriLadki’ poster which broke gender stereotypes in India, The Quint has displayed tremendous growth in this one year which it plans to continue building on in the year ahead.