Zafri Mudasser Nofil
Zafri Mudasser Nofil is Senior News Coordinator with PTI Social media emerged as a major player in the 16th Lok Sabha elections. From being used by parties to sign up volunteers and increasing membership to brand campaigns built around their senior leadership to promotion and posting videos of key rallies, speeches and events besides targeting rivals, social media played a big role.
Narendra Modi, who led BJP to a massive win in the elections, has a tremendous presence on the social media platforms. He has 4.25 million followers on Twitter and over 5,000 tweets. His Facebook page is liked by over 15 million people.
Besides these, he also has a blog. Modi used the Internet technology to cast his net far and wide among voters, mostly those in urban and semi-urban areas during the justconcluded Lok Sabha elections. Apart from holding hundreds of public meetings for voter mobilisation, he also used 3D rallies to communicate his message to the electors.
In his own admission, Modi says he and the BJP gained tremendously from social media.
After BJP’s win, Modi blogged, “Our party, our campaign and I personally have gained tremendously from social media. It became a direct means of information and gave us the much-needed local pulse on several issues without any bias. It is said that the success of an organisation depends on the accuracy and promptness with which there is an upward flow of information from the grass root level workers and well-wishers to the top that is complimented by clear and timely guidance from the top rung to those working on the ground. With the advent of social media this principle of organisational working stands further strengthened.
“There is one more thing for which we have to profusely thank social media – it has caused the downfall of manufactured lies and half-truths at a very nascent stage. Earlier during elections we had people whose lies would reach every section of society.
In a time when means of communication were less, they could get away with their same old speeches and half-baked assurances. Social media has changed that! In this age of information and social media the lies that come out of their microphones cannot even get past the podium of their speech venues, forget reaching others. More power to social media in the days ahead.”
Modi selfies also became big hits during the elections. After casting his vote in Gandhinagar on April 30, Modi posted his selfie showing his inked finger and his party’s symbol lotus on Twitter which became a major trending item on the micro-blogging platform. Modi’s selfie tweet went on to become the “most re-tweeted” item that day, while #SelfieWithModi was second on most trending topics across India. There were over 16,000 tweets specifically about Modi’s selfie.
Again after the poll results were announced Modi posted on Twitter a selfie with his mother Hiraba smiling while blessing him by putting her right hand on his head. This also went on to become a hit. Says Modi about the new-age technology, “Here I want to make a special mention for the increasing turnout among youngsters (during the elections).
Back in the day, voting was not believed to be ‘cool enough’ for a lot of youngsters. Today that is history.
Voting is cool and rightly so! One needs to log in to Facebook or Twitter on polling day to see the number of Selfies my young friends are sharing. This is a very positive sign and I hope it continues in the times to come.”
Senior BJP leaders like LK Advani and Arun Jaitley have also been writing frequent blog posts. Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP also has a big social media presence.
In comparison, Congress was nowhere on the social media platform barring a few leaders. Congress leader Ajay Maken admitted that the party could not match up to the BJP’s campaign. “We could not use the social media effectively,” he said.
Leaders like Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are not on social media platforms.
From the Congress stable, Shashi Tharoor seems to be leading the way when it comes to social media presence. He is very active on Twitter with more than 2 million followers and is second to Modi on this platform. He also has a personal website.
From the day elections were announced to the day polling ended, 29 million people in India made 227 million interactions (posts, comments, shares, and likes) on Facebook.
“That’s two-thirds of all daily active Facebook users in India and an average of 10 interactions per person. In addition, 13 million people made 75 million interactions regarding Narendra Modi,” according to a Facebook statement.
Facebook also mentioned that Modi became the second most-liked politician on its platform after US President Barack Obama. Even Arvind Kejriwal joined the ranks of the top five liked politicians globally. Analysis of the top three parties showed that the BJP had 45.31 lakh fans, while the Congress has 33.09 lakh and AAP stands at 21.19 lakh.
Facebook started working on the Indian elections towards the end of last year and began a series of things beginning March when the elections were announced. This includes launch of election tracker so that people can see in real time.
Facebook added features like ‘Register to Vote’, ‘Election Menu – Facebook on USSD, India Election Tracker, Facebook Talks and Political Interest Lits, which, among others, allowed users to declare that they have registered for voting, provide them upto- date candidate information and also help them gauge public sentiment.
While the majority of the users of social media are concentrated in urban areas, the elections have also helped them expand their reach to the rural areas too. Before the elections, the use of social media was generally restricted to the national political parties, but as the general elections gained momentum, even regional parties joined the social media bandwagon.
According to a senior Twitter official, Twitter gave a front row seat to the Lok Sabha #Election2014 in India and was the #1 place to go to stay informed about the latest elections developments.
On the other hand, Google provided platforms to politicians to reach out to their supporters through hangouts. Google also created a Google Elections Hub for elections-related news and information created to help 800 million Indian voters stay informed and updated about the elections. The site included features such as elections related News Videos, Search Trends, G+ Hangout Series, and an interactive Pledge to Vote campaign.
In a first major disclosure of their presence on various social media platforms, a large number of candidates in fray for Lok Sabha elections 2014 had listed their Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts in their poll affidavits.
And out of the 814 million eligible voters, more than 200 million were estimated to have access to the Internet, including over 100 million active on various social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
According to digital media experts, a bulk of about 100 million first-time voters were very active on social networking sites and they were the main target of parties taking the social media route for promotions.
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