Actor Sonu Sood has launched a new social media app, Explurger, with the aim to give back rewards to people who are active on social media and don’t get anything out of it apart from entertainment.
Sood along with Founder and CEO, Jitin Bhatia launched Explurger, which focuses mainly on travel and exploring new places, on June 7, 2022.
BestMediaInfo.com caught up with Sood, who is also a Co-Founder of the app, to understand the reason behind his association and is he also trying to get on the bandwagon of celebrities investing in start-ups.
Sood said, “We have been working on this app for the last two-and-a-half years. When Jitin told me the idea of this app, I wanted to create something that gives back to the online community. People spend a lot of time on social media and they don’t get anything, with this Made-In India app, I want to give back something to people.”
The app has many features but one feature that is distinguishing is that all the verified users will have the Blue Tick, unlike other social media apps like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that give it to users with huge followership or to public personalities and influencers. The app is designed in a way that the amount of time spent on the app will give users rewards in the form of discounts, coupons, etc, thereby giving brands the opportunities to have direct sales.
Bhatia said, “We have tied up with around 40 brands in India and are in talks with a few more global brands as we speak. Currently, the brand has been used by people across 40 countries and we want to cater for them with the best experience through the app. There are around 4 billion social media users globally and 76% of users shares pictures while they are on the go so with this travel app, we want them to have something useful in the form of rewards. The rewards can be used through offline and online channels.”
The more the user engages, the higher the Explurger level goes, resulting in more recognition on the platform. It automatically creates a personalised travelogue for each user. Every time a user creates a post on Explurge-in, the app’s Artificial Intelligence updates the Travelogue, so every mile, city, country, places, etc. The app currently has more than 100K downloads on Google Playstore.
When it comes to marketing the app, Bhatia said that by banking on Sood’s huge followership, the app will be promoted through different channels. When asked about advertisers' interest and benefits on the platform, Bhatia said, “Online advertising is one of the ways where advertisers can integrate themselves on the platform. Another way is to tie up with us by giving rewards to the users which will also enable the brands to get conversions.”
The app has features such as Bucket List, sharing Future Travel Plans and rating places for the travel community including influencers, bloggers, vloggers, creators, backpackers, travellers, and common users. The user experience is gamified by the platform for connecting, sharing, and making friends thereby earning rewards. The app has raised $1 million in funds in pre-Series A from a clutch of investors.