KOLKATA: MX Player entered the short video race with the launch of MX TakaTak when the Indian audience was looking for a TikTok alternative. It was just one aspirant among a bunch of homegrown apps that were looking to fill the void created by the abrupt ban on Chinese-origin apps. These short form video platforms have been aggressive in customer acquisition but some of them clearly have emerged as leaders; MX TakaTak is one of them.

It is comparatively easy to acquire a bunch of new users but much harder to retain them. The homegrown short video app is focusing on a couple of factors to hold on to the initial success; consumer experience, creation experience being key components of the strategy, said MX TakaTak business head Janhavi Parikh.

“One is consumption experience on the platform, that is driven by content, content partnerships as well as the creators that we onboard. It is also driven by our ability to provide the right kind of recommendations to the users so that they get the content they are looking to consume. Those are two very big focus areas for us – building our content and continuing to improve our recommendation,” she elaborated.

The platform is focusing on the right kind of tools, effects, filters, video editing capabilities to help create better content and retain top creators on the platform. Moreover, there is another segment of creators who are not professional, but just enjoy creating content. For the second segment, MX TakaTak is trying to build a product that can be used easily as the platform has a huge number of long-tail creators as well, Parikh added.

A recent study by RedSeer Consulting had quantified the market leadership enjoyed by MX TakaTak. Interestingly, the report said the app leads in the net promoter score in the metro cities as opposed to the common notion that “I don’t think it is necessarily just metro cities, we have quite a wide audience” held by its peers.

“Compared to some other players in the market, we are viewed as a good alternative or a good option because of the kind of content, creators we have onboarded so far,” Parikh remarked, further cementing the claim by adding that MX TakaTak has welcomed 11-12 influencers out of the top 20 former TikTok stars.

The content they create sort of addresses the sensibility of the metro audience, she noted. In addition to that, the app has managed to create a high quality product from camera, effects, as well as overall user experience perspective which has played a critical role to attract those consumers.

Is it helping the platform rope in premium brands? There are such brands carrying out campaign experiments on the platform but a number of long-tail of brands are also interested in working with MX TakaTak, Parikh claimed. “Because our audience is very large that cuts across all demographics. We have the premium brands on board with us because short video is such a high engagement platform but we also have other brands interested to work with us,” she stated. Nonetheless, it’s very early days for them from a monetisation perspective.

Right now, most of the traction for MX TakaTak is coming from the Hindi-speaking market, followed by Maharashtra, Gujarat, South India. As part of its push into building regional content and diversity, the platform has started to focus and onboard creators in south India. However, 60-70 per cent focus is on Hindi content currently, followed by regional content.

One of the major initiatives that has driven engagement for the app is the Famehouse property. The idea is to create a location where creators from different backgrounds, different stages in their career can come and collaborate, create very engaging content, detailed Parikh. This a very exciting proposition for creators as small-scale influencers get to meet some of the larger creators and learn from each other.

“As long as we sort of focus on the user experience and keep creating a quality supply of content on the platform, make sure the environment is safe for users which we are doing through a variety of steps, there is a huge opportunity to grow,” Parikh signed off.