Politicians across parties, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi, have begun strengthening their presence on social media platforms, sprucing up their profiles and increasing their interactions ahead of the general elections.
Since social media first played a significant role in India’s elections five years ago, politicians have evolved and become savvy in using these platforms to reach out to their followers. Some leaders have only just opened their accounts, acknowledging the importance of social media.
Engagement rates and content posted by political accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have gone up significantly from last year, analytics companies told ET. These companies measure “social buzz” – activity across social media platforms such as tweets, retweets and replies on Twitter, posts, comments and shares on Facebook, and posts on Instagram.
For Modi, who has 46.1 million followers on Twitter and about 43 million on Facebook, the social buzz volume increased by 51% to 13.4 million in February from 8.86 million in January. However, this came with a 10% increase in negative sentiments, according to data from GroupM agency Wavemaker. For Rahul Gandhi, this figure was a little changed at 5.9 million.
While mentions for Modi on social media went up by 68% in the first two months of 2019 from a year ago, the social buzz for Rahul Gandhi in this period increased by 59%. The Congress leader has 8.8 million followers on Twitter and 2.3 million on Facebook.
Modi’s tweets generated average interactions (including retweets, likes and replies) of 6.9 million per month in the first two months compared with 4.3 million per month in the corresponding period last year, according to Wavemaker. On Facebook, average interactions for Modi’s posts were 4.3 million per month in the first two months compared with 3.7 million per month in 2018.
Rahul Gandhi’s tweets generated average interactions of 1.9 million per month this year compared to 1.4 million last year. Average interactions on Facebook were 1.8 million per month compared with 1.3 million last year.
Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati made her debut on Twitter in October, while Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra joined in February. They have 130,000 and 228,000 followers, respectively. Mayawati has tweeted 81 times, while Vadra is yet to start.
Mails sent to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram on the number of political profiles and political posts did not elicit a response till press time Thursday.
With the elections due by May, content discovery app ShareChat said 30-40 political accounts have been created on the platform over the past two months. ShareChat is popular for content and posts in about 13 Indian languages besides Hindi.
New political accounts on ShareChat include those of the Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s office, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan, BJP MP Manoj Tiwari and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
“Political leaders and parties pan-India are turning towards ShareChat to woo voters in their native languages. Most of the political accounts witness posts around specific issues concerning their regions – local issues, their daily routines, public meetings, facts and schemes introduced by their parties and government policies,” said a ShareChat spokesperson.
Tiwari and Fadnavis are among those who post their daily routines on ShareChat. The CPI (M) in Kerala posts about fact checks and their activities. BJP4Gujarat puts out posts on government policies and their benefits.
On Twitter, the engagement rate for BJP politician Jairam Thakur has increased by more than 100% on a month-on-month basis, according to social media analytics firm Konnect Insights. Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar’s engagement rate on Facebook has risen about 95%, it said.
Among Congress leaders, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh’s engagement rate on Twitter has more than tripled, while for Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath, it went up by 96% on Facebook.
“Lok Sabha elections of 2014 ushered a new era where political parties realised the true potential of social media. Since then, everyone jumped on to the bandwagon but lacked the insights of what they wanted to achieve,” said Palash Goorha, business head of Konnect Insights. “The strategies have evolved; hence you can see all major political leader are able to strike the right chord on social media platforms.”
On the Neta app, where citizens can rate their favourite leaders, the average weekly logins of politicians more than doubled to 6,300 in February from 2,800 in December.
“We saw how technology played a crucial role in the 2014 general elections. More and more politicians and parties have become tech savvy and are expanding their digital footprints. With elections on the anvil, engagement has gone up massively on our platform from both users and politicians. Netas are also more conscious about their profiles on the app,” ssaid Neta founder Pratham Mittal.
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