Let’s ask trio of 21-year-olds
KATHMANDU, Aug 29: “Ever since I started following Trending Nepal, I get updated about the recent trends and happenings,” said Aayush Marasini, 18, a high school graduate.
For Marasini, the page has worked like a news channel. “I wake up every morning and open my Facebook or Instagram and I browse the posts from Trending Nepal. They post great contents, covering every sector,” he added.
Trending Nepal is a popular Nepali page on social media platforms. The page has over 228k [1K is 1000] followers on Instagram, over 187.4k likes and over 203.8k followers on Facebook and over 2k followers on Twitter.
Initially started as a brainchild of Prabin KC, 21, the pages are now handled by Prabin and his two friends -- Newton Sapkota, 21, and Pratik Poudel, 21. The trio shares all kinds of information that is trending on the Internet.
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Prabin remembers the moment when the idea of creating the page first came to his mind. “I had just woken up and heard the news of ex-prime minister Sushil Koirala’s death, on February 10, 2016. I wanted to share the news to a large group of people in a short time,” KC said.
He then opened a new Instagram account with a username @Trending_Nepal and shared the information. The post went viral and that motivated him to keep the account active. “There were hardly any Instagram pages that posted current affairs,” he added.
The page had around 60 followers in the first two days but he kept on posting information, from politics to entertainment to fashion and travel with hash tags. His page had around 10k followers by the end of a month and 80k active followers in eight months.
Originally from Baglung Bazaar, Prabin and his elder sister moved to Kathmandu in 2011 when he was in grade eight. Currently a first-year undergraduate student in Kathamndu, Prabin’s parents live in Baglung.
Prabin handled the page for a year. But after crossing 150k followers, he realized that it was too much of a work for one person. And that was when he asked two of his most trusted friends to join him. KC, Sapkota and Poudel now post at least 10 contents a day.
“We normally post about trending topics and events, but we try to post motivating and entertaining contents as well,” said Sapkota.
The page is occasionally sponsored by different brands and the trio makes a decent earning from advertisements. “We are all students and we do not have other full-time job. The page is a reliable source of pocket money,” Sapkota added. The three boys spend about two hours every day working on Trending Nepal pages. They make about Rs 30,000 per month.
A majority of the followers are between the ages 16-24 and 80 percent of them are from Nepal, 5 percent from Australia, 4 percent from USA, 4 percent from India and so on.
Besides Facebook (@Trending Nepal), Instagram (@Trending_Nepal) and Twitter (@Trending_Nepal) pages, Trending Nepal also has a blog that covers short stories once a week. The team has plans to make it big. “I want to create a blog page to share uplifting stories to motivate people to bring positive changes,” Prabin told Republica.
Trending Nepal also encourages aspiring photographers. The page posts a photo every morning, displaying some individual’s photography skills. Most of the pictures speak of diversity, natural beauty and lifestyle of Nepal and the people. The group is doing so to promote Visit Nepal Year 2020.
“Very few people knew about my photography skills earlier. But after Trending Nepal featured my photographs, people have started to notice my work. It motivated me to keep up with my passion for photography,” said Roshan Mainali.
The team recently registered Trending Nepal Media. “We all have technical background and want to expand this company into a big IT company,” said Pratik Poudel.
When Republica reached out to Dil Bahadur KC, Prabin’s father, in Baglung, he said, “I am proud of the work he is doing. He also updates us on current events and he is also supporting himself financially.” Prabin’s father is happy that his son is embracing new technologies to do something good.
