Image Source: facebook.com

Get to know more about Routine of Nepal Banda: A highly followed page on Social Media

With more than 1.7 million likes on Facebook Page and over 700k followers on Instagram, Routine of Nepal Banda has become the best source of information for all the Nepalese. Since it provides updates on the current affairs of the country, almost every Nepalese rely on this page for information. I got a chance to interview one of the admins of this page, regarding his experience and journey so far. Here's what he has to say.

First and foremost, tell us about the journey of this page. How did it start?

We created this page on Facebook in 2015. At that time, there used to be a lot of strikes and load-shedding. Since there weren't any pages on Facebook to share information on such strikes and load-shedding, we decided to create this page to keep people updated on such events. Gradually, with time we started sharing updates concerning the recent developments happening in the country and that's when we started to grow. Talking about Instagram, when I was in high school, people were crazy about it, so we created a page on Instagram as well for information sharing purposes. Although it took a lot of time on Instagram to grow as a page, we are happy to have reached a milestone now.

Many people rely on your posts for any news confirmation. How do you get the news?

We are the members/subscribers of Rashtriya Samachar Samiti (RSS), so we get the news from there. Also, we have journalist volunteers who keep us updated with the latest news. Honestly speaking, the admins just manage the page, it's the journalist volunteers, photographers, and the content providers that have been helping us to grow through their relevant information and amazing content. They are the heroes.

Running this page must be challenging at times, with millions of people waiting for your news. What are the obstacles/challenges you have to go through?

There are quite a few obstacles we have to go through. We have a small team and at times, it becomes difficult for us to research a piece of news. As many people rely on us for the information, we have to be more responsible, but sometimes the news gets mismatched from the source itself unknowingly and we have to correct that news after posting it on social media. We work on verifying the news as much as possible but it gets difficult at times due to a small team. Also, managing this page isn't our full-time job, thus it is challenging to manage our schedules for posting 16-20 posts on average.

You post about 16-20 posts on average and you must be very familiar about the type of content the audiences like the most. What update/post tends to attract more followers?

It depends upon the content of the news. The more useful and informative the news is; the more people tend to like it. Recently, on Instagram, we reached a milestone of 100k likes on the condolence post of the actor Rishi Kapoor. Although this news is really unfortunate, we were glad to be able to reach it to many people.

This page has the highest fan following with millions of people connected. Did you ever think that this page will be this successful?

Not at all. As I mentioned earlier, we created this page to provide information regarding strikes and load-shedding. We never thought about having this huge fan following. This page was made just for fun. Nevertheless, we are happy to get tremendous love from people.

I like how the youths express their opinions on certain topics through the comment section. How does that feel?

We feel really happy to read their opinions. Also, our followers are mostly from high school and bachelors' levels. We are aware that many youths do not follow the news on television, so our main target is to keep them updated about the ongoing affairs in the country and to allow them to express their opinions. However, the challenging factor is that sometimes conflicts could arise in the comment section, so we have to monitor the comment section frequently.

On a lighter note, people call you 'Routiney dai'. How does it feel?

It feels good. Most of our followers are teenagers that is why they call us by that name. We are happy to be a part of people's lives. Maybe, they don't know us personally that is why they address us as 'Routiney dai'. Moreover, we only call people by their names when we know them, right?