The 2014 elections in India on Social Media

It is certain that social media is the stop destination for all spheres. Not only brands but celebrities and now not to forget political parties and personnel are also using the platform to carry out campaigns, thereby reaching out to the masses in one of the most economical ways possible. Off and on these politicians use the domain to aware people of an occurrence or share with them the new norms that the Government has made. Not only in India, this stands true for almost all countries.

Obama’s Obama care is an apt example of the same. The extent to which the social media domain has been used in India in 2014 is enormous. The onset of general elections saw widespread campaigning from all major parties that dominate the subcontinent and in such a scenario social media campaigns could not be kept aside. Not only the political parties many tech giants also took the initiative of persuading the citizens of India to go and cast their votes. Be it Google’s ‘pledge to vote’ campaign, Facebook’s online political debates, Vebbler’s ‘the Ungli campaign’ or telecom operator MTS’ election tracker, firms are trying to woo voters ahead of this year’s general election.

India has the third largest Internet users base globally of more than 238 million users with a majority comprising of youth. This includes well over a 100 million active on various social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. No wonder, social media platforms, technology firms, e-commerce portals and telecom operators are using this opportunity to connect with users.

As per a recent study by Assocham states that technology giants like Google and social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook will see their India revenue soaring this year. The three major political parties in today’s time are; the ruling party- The Indian National Congress, The opposition party- Bhartiya Janta Party and the one which has emerged out lately promising to eradicate corruption from the roots of India- The Aam Aadmi Party. This year all these parties have taken it to social media to tell the public that why should they vote them.

The parties have hired a number of advertising agencies to help them accomplish the task. Be its Modi’s, ‘Abki Baar Modi Sarkaar’along with the various memes and sayings which were trending on Facebook and Twitter for quite some time, or Kejriwal’s video throwing light upon his life and his aim to make India a dream country, or Rahul Gandhi’s speeches which wooed many of the Congress supporters, the social media has seen it all. For more than a month these have been the talk of the social networking websites with people going crazy over these posts and statements.

This year’s election in India has seen by far the maximum use of the social media domain to spread the message across and allow users/followers. Leaving no stones unturned political parties have tried to exploit every possible way to accumulate as many votes as they can. Political parties typically spend around 30% of their poll expenditure, estimated at Rs 15,000 crore, on advertising and publicity. Of this amount, 15-20% is spent on the emerging digital marketing.

via SocialAppsHQ Blog http://ift.tt/1mkfNI0