So what if banners and buntings, flags and posters are banned this election season? Indian politicians are connecting with their electorate through social media, SMSes and other digital media.
In the field, the Election Commission's model code of conduct barring all political parties from public proclamations and promises ahead of the polls may have lowered the decibel levels, but on social media, there's frenetic campaigning going on.
“Congress has finally realised that it is not Amethi but Facebook, where elections are won. This is just the beginning. I am quite confident that the next elections will be fought and won on social media,” says Mr Mahesh Murthy, social media expert and founder of Pinstorm, a search marketing firm.
According to a December 2011 report of Cellular Operators Association of India, between UP East and West, there were 89.6 million mobile users. At present, this figure can be anywhere around 100 million. “Even if 20 per cent of these use mobile internet, then there is good 20 million votes which are there for grab,” says Mr Suresh Kabra, Founder and CEO, Click2C.com, a mobile marketing firm.
BJP has tied up with Click2C.com for the Noida elections to advertise through audio-video commercials on mobile handsets.
According to Mr Kabra, the number of mobile internet users in India is slated to grow to 300 million by 2015, according to estimates. “80 per cent of these users are between the age group of 18-40, precisely the age bracket that political parties want to influence.”
Image guru, Mr Dilip Cherian, who tracks politics closely, says that all the political parties have realised that there is a large pool of new voters to woo. “So they have now turned to social media, making a virtue out of the necessity,” he says.
However not everyone agrees about the efficacy of the social media platform. Mr Gopinath Menon, CEO, Melon Media is one such naysayer. “People who tweet and update status messages do not go out and vote. At best, social media helps in creating an interactive platform where politicians interact with the voters,” he says.
He also rues the dearth of differentiation and ideation in most of these campaigns. “One party uses SMS campaigns and the rest follow suit,” he says.
But this could be a trend to watch. “We get 100-1000 hits on our website and facebook page daily. I think going forward, smart-phones and mobile applications will become election weapons. With technology upgradation, it has become mandatory for us to communicate in the idiom of our voters,” says Mr Sushil Pandit, owner of Hive Communications India Pvt Ltd and the mastermind behind BJP's communication strategy.