Social Media - The Game Changer in Politics

Introduction

Days has gone when social media platforms were only being used for making social circles and forming connections. The reach and impact of social media has now grown up in India. Let’s accept it; we are passionate with social media, especially when it comes to discussing critical or sensitive issues like politics, corruption, poverty and economy.

Nowadays the Internet is a sphere that involves virtually all levels of the political communications.

Growth of Social Media in Respect with Other

The revolution called social media has actually taken the world by storm and its growth has been exponential where

• Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users• TV took 14 years to achieve the same target• The internet got there in 4 years• whereas Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9

months• In the past few years, social media have made a rapid

growth in terms of user counts globally• Facebook has more than 1.2 billion active users• Twitter counts more than 200 million users• Google Plus has more than 540 million users (Sources- Facebook Statistics & Wikipedia)

Social Media From US to Indian Politics

Just try to recall the landslide victory of Obama in the US Presidential Elections of 2012 and how the social media campaigns started by him made history. He not only astutely made use of all the well-admired and well-established social media platforms, but also understood the psychology of social behaviors. Along with having a striking impact on American voters, Obama’s strategic social media campaigns influenced Indian politicians as well.

As a result, 2014 Lok Sabha elections had a high social media impact, considering the fact that it has crept deep into mainstream politics.

Some News Headlines Published in Top News Papers about India’s General Election

Social Media Played Big Role in India’s Election – Voice of America

Politicians slug it out in India's first social media election – CNN

India's social media election battle – BBC

Biggest winner in Indian election: American social media – USA Today

Election 2014 is all about social media – TOI

Narendra Modi, the Social Media Politician – NY Times

Some Statements About Social Media Role in Election

"The social media effect was huge for the BJP. … They really understood that social media is an extended version of the campaign trail," – Michael Kugelman, senior program associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center

"We saw a trend, we read this trend, where the youth of the country were embracing social media as their first tool when they started using the internet, and we made sure our presence was there," – Arvind Gupta, head of BJP’s IT division.

"Politicians realized that social media is not a couple of kids talking about fashion, but actually people talking about serious things," – Mandakini Devasher Surie, senior program officer at the Asia Foundation.

How Social Media Becomes the Game Changer

Social media has caused major changes in the political communication and has become useful resource often used by the politicians in order to strengthen their visibility.

In the next 7 slides we will see how social media played a vital role in the most influential elections in India and becomes the game changer:

Voters can view content on their own time

Many people does not have the time or they don’t feel comfortable to go in the political rallies to listen the view of politicians. Social media fills this gap and political parties can easily convey their message to the people and people can easily read them in their free time or on the go.

Involves people into Political conversations

Just like Obama became popular as the first social media president of U.S.A, Modi, become the first social media prime minister of India.

Talking about facts and statistics, Narendra Modi also became the second most-liked politician on Facebook.

The tagline “Ab Ki Bar Modi Sarkar” became viral on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and left a lingering message in the minds of people.

Political parties formed direct connection with users

Where on one side politicians were trying to form a direct connection with the potential voters on Facebook and Twitter by posting and tweeting regularly, the active users on the other hand began to engage with each other on the political front.

It also gave a chance to people to comprehend each other’s mind-set and influence opinions by sharing knowledge and spreading awareness on a personal level.

Trending hastags like #Electio2014, #NaMo, and #ArvindKhejriwal made people aware about the latest elections developments.

Mind-boggling impact on first time or young voters

Most of the youngsters showed active participation when it came to using social networking sites as a tool to discovering elections content and communicate with each other in real-time.

Being social-media-savvy politicians Modi and Kejriwal made the most of the opportunity and had mind-boggling impact on young voters, especially the first timers.

The active participation of both politicians and youth on Facebook and Twitter had a mutual impact on each other.

Helped in boosting the image of politicians

Just like big brands, politicians also used social media platforms to boost their image.

Every time Modi had gone on a rally, there was an update on Facebook and Twitter. Modi is smart enough to know that not everyone has time to attend rallies and campaigns, so his party turned all the offline campaigns into online campaigns and got connected with people who were not a part of their offline campaigns.

Bypassed the mainstream media

Since everything has become digital, why people would wait for the next day’s newspaper to get their election updates or wait to go home and switch on TVs to watch the latest news on election front for that matter.

The dedicated pages and accounts of parties continuously promoted images, videos, important actions/activities to stay connected with their followers, who can get minute to minute updates through their Smartphone when on the move.

Powerful media for the freedom of speech

Last but not the least; social media is an incredible platform to express your thoughts, share knowledge and spread awareness. When people get the right to express themselves, it becomes easier for politicians to know their interests and inclinations.

This was probably the best way for them to show their anger and disappointment.