How to become the number one Telegram channel in the country: the story of TruXa
On February 24, Russia launched a full-scale war against Ukraine. Several fronts appeared — military, economic, and information. It is information that is an important weapon against Russian propaganda, and the TruXa telegram channel has become the largest one in the country. This is a story about how we came to this and how we are fighting the large-scale propaganda machine of the occupiers.
How it all started
My name is Max and my path as an admin began back in 2009. Then I watched a lot of documentaries about famous personalities. To share content with others, I created a group on this topic on social networks. I posted films there, various collections with photographs on the topic, and wrote texts. At the beginning of the journey, I did not understand at all how everything should look, where to take high-quality photographs, and how to write texts. But I’m really into what I’m doing. After 5 years without investment, I managed to grow the group’s audience to 300,000.
I wanted to move on and began to analyze my expertise and interests. I had expertise in sales, and in managing groups on social networks. Then I was interested in the news, I read a lot of channels on Telegram. So I decided to move in this direction.
In Kharkiv, the second-biggest Ukrainian city at that time there were already a lot of news channels. I began to analyze them. I saw a lot of shortcomings and understood that I could create competition.
My budget was small, so I decided to turn to my friends from the IT sphere. I explained my idea to them and told them that this is a cool topic for development and earnings. That's how I raised angel funding. Then we attracted a guru in the promotion — Sergei. And the three of us started working together.
This is how TruXa appeared. By the way, we came up with the name quickly. We just combined the word “true” — “truthful, honest” and the name of our city Kharkiv. Since our team consisted of very ambitious people, the goal for the first year of our work was to become the №1 news channel in Kharkiv.
How We Became Leaders
We built a clear strategy and tried to follow it. Developed our style. It was a bit harsh, with profanity, but the audience perceived it. We conducted surveys on how subscribers feel about this format of presenting information, the majority were not against it. Tip: always go to subscribers for feedback. This is your key to development.
An important point that we immediately understood was that people need a prompt and high-quality picture from the scene. In the start, when we did not have the opportunity to collect content ourselves, we borrowed it from other channels and the media — everyone does this. But then we decided to pay for photos and videos. For 2 and a half years, the amounts were different: from 50 to 5000 UAH. But even a small amount motivates people to send footage to you and not to someone else. Now we don’t need to do this anymore, but then it helped a lot.
To develop recognition, we painted our logo on the walls and pavement, launched podcasts, conducted surveys, and gave our merch to passers-by who know our channel. This is how we achieved our goal and became leaders.
At that time, we had 190k subscribers on the Kharkiv channel. In parallel, we launched 10 regional channels, and now this number has grown to twenty. Before the war, I worked from 9 am to 1 am every day. For 2 and a half years I did not have a single day off. I often post news because I feel like it, it’s an addiction. And I sincerely wish that everyone is so fanatic about their work. If so, you will find ways to scale, grow and earn. Telegram makes it possible to do this.
What has changed since February 24th?
Like many others, I did not fully believe that a war would begin. We even made posts on the topic “no panic, nothing will happen.” But it happened. I live in Kharkiv, which is 50 km from the Russian border. The morning of the 24th began with terrible explosions. I immediately understood that with a machine gun on the front line, I would be of little use. So, I went to the information front. I posted 17 hours a day without raising my head. On one of the first days, I looked at the number of subscribers on the channel, there were already 500k. And then I realized that I needed to be included in full and we additionally launched advertising. As a result, in 2 months, 600k subscribers came to us through advertising, and more than 1 million subscribed themselves! So, from TruXa Kharkiv we grew into the national news public TruXa Ukraine. Yes, everyone had a jump. But those channels with which we went head-to-head remained at around 400–500 thousand subscribers when we already have more than 2 million. We built the right algorithm, and our strategy worked.
The enemy does not stop and continues to attack with disinformation from all sides, but we are fighting much more effectively and continue to work on the information front. We will win. Glory to Ukraine!
