Pune: Two syllables that Pune loves, PuLa, now have a different meaning for around two lakh women in the city. Short for 'Pune Ladies', PuLa is a Facebook group exclusively for women who have a Pune-connection. The group celebrates its fourth anniversary on July 26, and has become the largest city-specific women' group in the country!
Closely followed by Mumbai Moms (with a little over 1.92 lakh members as of Wednesday evening), PuLa is a big hit among women entrepreneurs and home businesses owners in Pune who have found a safe place to connect with customers, in addition to being a go-to group for many other women-centric issues.
The group celebrates its fourth anniversary on July 26, founder and 'Admin' Sonia Konjeti fondly remembering the day the group began in 2015 with just 300 members - all from her friend list.
Konjeti is a Commerce graduate from Ness Wadia College of Commerce, a Journalism and Mass Communication graduate from Savitribai Phule Pune University, and also has a B.Ed degree.
In an exclusive interview with Sakal Times, Konjeti talks about the nitty-gritties of being a Facebook Admin of such a large group.
With the kind of degrees you have, did you ever imagine that instead of having a career in those fields, you will be a full-time Facebook Admin?
Konjeti: When I was in college there was no such concept of Facebook groups. I was quite passionate about being a news anchor. Then I realised being a radio jockey is also nice. I was a trainer in an MNC for a while. Once my daughter was born, we decided as parents not to keep her in daycare. I decided to take a career break and bring her up for the first five years. I was at home with her but wanted to work (later) so I did BEd because the easiest job that I could see was teaching -- going to school with her and coming back. In fact I imagined myself going to an air-conditioned MNC, working there, apna laptop bag leke coming back. And I think I am doing the most different thing at the moment.
What is it like being Admin of a group which has 2 lakh women?
Konjeti: When it started, I never imagined my life will change 360 degrees. I used to imagine that being an Admin would be like being the leader of a group of people -- like kitty party's leader, manager of teachers' group or head of a committee that organises the society's Ganeshotsav. I thought managing a Facebook community was something like that only -- where we help people. And so PuLa started. In Pune, it was the pioneer because there was no other group of this kind. Success came quite easily and beautifully. When the numbers started growing, managing the group even with a team of 5-6 people or managing the mindset and thought-processes of 40,000 people used to be challenging.
Communication medium is 'written', not 'verbal', so there is scope for miscommunication. My guidelines and rules were strict. We were never biased, we treated all members as equals, these things helped us to manage the group in a better way. Our members now trust us.
Tell us about the day it was founded.
Konjeti: PuLa was founded on July 26, 2015. We are completing four years this week. While I was on maternity break from 2009-2014, I had a lot of free time. I was part of many Facebook groups. I found that it is a very easy medium to connect with people. I did a little research and found that Pune did not have any women's group -- there were groups related to food, weight loss, community groups like Agarwal, Jain, Maharashtrian, etc -- but there was not a single group that catered to everybody. So I thought of making a group for women in Pune, to help them make the city smaller, solve their problems so that everything was available at a click of a mouse. I am from Pune, so I added 300 women from my friend list who were from Pune. Within the first 15 days, we had 5,000 members.
Since I was a part of many Facebook groups, I realised that if a group does not have any kind of guidelines, it becomes like a fish market.
People get bored, anything gets posted anytime, and they will lose interest. I was clear that we will have a set of guidelines like allotting days for a particular kind of post. So from the first day itself, we had #PuLaBazaar on Wednesdays and Sundays (for sellers), and #TastyTuesday on Tuesday. Different topics got added to this list as per the need over a period of time, like Saturday Swag, Travel Diaries and Gyani Guruwar. For writers, PuLa was an easy platform to put up their stories. We we saw a lot of stories coming on PuLa, we started a Writers' Club on our website (the group also has a website) for them to share their writings with everyone.
Give us an insight into the team that manages PuLa.
Konjeti: When PuLa started, two of my very good friends helped me in managing it. There were members who were pro-actively helping me, like tagging the Admin in posts which needed attention or removal, or they would themselves tell the other members about the correct way of posting. We realised that moderating a Facebook group might interest them as they have the time. We approached them, provided training and got them on board. We have three different teams - the Bazaar team to manage the sellers, the Approval team who approve Facebook profiles of those wanting to join the team, and and two-women team who manage events with me.
PuLa allows those women to join the group who stay in Pune, or have stayed here in the past. Now, many of them might be in different parts of the world. Such women often write in the group at night, since they are in the USA or UK. Then I realised why not ask women in other countries who can help us manage the group at night when we in India are sleeping. That's how we have one team member each in Australia, the USA and the UK to cater to three different timezones. That's why you will see that PuLa is active round the clock. So, today, PuLa is managed by a 14-member team. They are Priyanka Rathore, Deeba Nair, Sonam Chaddha, Sonam Mantri, Rekha Pillai, Ankeetaa Shrivaas, Jyoti Deshmukh, Harpreet Marwah, Pooja Mandlecha, Amruta Salunkhe, Nilofer Vasaya, Kirti Shrikhande and Rucha Bhagat.
PuLa is a flourishing platform for women entrepreneurs in Pune. Women who own small businesses, or operate from home, have found PuLa immensely helpful in networking in Pune and finding new clients. Any idea how much business PuLa facilitates in a day?
Konjeti: I would like to know the answer to that myself! Why we can't keep a track on this is because we don't manage payments through PuLa, it happens directly between the customer and the seller. But I can only guess that business worth crores takes place every month. Not just small items or old household things, people actually use PuLa to sell apartments worth lakhs. People have sold their cars on PuLa. There are some big deals that take place thanks to this group. It is now an Olx, an Amazon, it is also a matrimonial site now (ever since #MondayMatrimony service was introduced recently) on which 6-7 people have found ideal matches.
Apart from encouraging women entrepreneurs online, PuLa has also arranged physical markets for sellers in Pune. Did that mark PuLa's foray into events?
Konjeti: Within two months of forming PuLa, we started hosting events, mostly meet-ups for members. We organised a flea market on Women's Day on 2016, which was our first market event in Pune. Later we started doing two major PuLa Bazar Live -- which saw thousands of visitors in just two days. This year we have started a new concept which is PuLa Bazar Pop-Up, which is a smaller version and area-specific.
What about seller-buyer conflict? There was uproar when in 2017, many women were cheated by a fake seller, who took their money and vanished. PuLa helped everyone recover their money, but it highlighted the need for being careful about online frauds.
Konjeti: That incident was the first and last fraud that happened on PuLa platform. To stop sellers from duping buyers, we started 'PuLa Verification'. This was to identify the seller and check if it is a real person. The 2017 incident involved a fake profile taking money from buyers and then vanishing. Today, even if we buy from Amazon, we have the option of returning a bad product. But here, our aim was to verify the seller. We check their documents like Aadhaar, ensure that they have an address in Pune, and issue them an E-card. Now, whenever you see a Bazaar post, you will always see the first photo as their verification card from PuLa. This was a successful project as the customer now trusts the seller, and the sellers feel that people respect them more because of their verified status. We still don't take guarantee for products, because we are not an e-commerce platform.
As an Admin, what kind of support do you get from Facebook?
Konjeti: I am always open to learning more. On Facebook, I am connected with different groups managed by Facebook in which many group Admins from across the globe are there. They discuss many things that become learning for us. It is our duty as admins to read about latest features in Facebook, understand and then learn. Today, I am a community leadership Circle leader for Pune. I attended workshops in Berlin where some training was given.
Which other Facebook groups are you a member of?
Konjeti: I am a part of many groups, like food groups – it's good to know what's new in Pune -- weight-loss groups, few other women's groups, nutrition, etc.
How do you decide what kind of tie-ups or sponsorship deals are best for PuLa?
Konjeti: Anything that PuLa members can benefit from, I am game for it. You will always see a discount or a freebie for our members.
What kind of social work is PuLa involved in?
Konjeti: We started taking up small social initiatives from the first year itself. We have been involved with some NGOs. In the past we have collected warm clothing and other supplies for flood affected areas. During Diwali, we distributed faral packets to the needy. On Christmas, we asked our bakers to give us cupcakes, which we distributed among street children.
A group this big is bound to attract the attention of political parties, especially during the General Elections 2019 which was fought on a large scale on social media. What was your experience?
Konjeti: PuLa has a rule which we strictly follow -- no posts on religion or politics are allowed. People wanted to post about politics during the election campaign, but we didn't approve such posts. Everybody has their own rules. But we are not here to start a fire and then extinguish it. I was approached by a political party, but I said, sorry I am not into politics. I know I would benefit in future if I support them, but I would never do that.
How do you tackle mobile addiction?
Konjeti: Yes, that addiction is there. When I don't have my mobile phone with me, I keep rubbing my nails. I am so used to checking emails, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp because I am connected with my people with all these four things. At times, when I need my break, I just hide my phone. First two years were tough, but since last two years, I have started taking breaks from mobile.
Will PuLa ever get competition from Pune's gentlemen?
Konjeti: (Laughs) People have started, and people are still there! I think there was a Facebook group exclusively for men, they had written in their description that ladies of Pune are having a lot of fun with PuLa so why don't we have some fun. They did not grow beyond 300 members because they were so lazy and only talked about cricket. Or discussed where to meet in the evening! But now there are some men's groups I came to know, who are doing well.
