If social media were the poll battleground, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), the Jana Sena and the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) would have proclaimed their victory by now with great fanfare.

However, their peers in Telangana, barring the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, are not quite agile on cyber space and lag behind in digital media campaign.

“The use of digital media has a platform for poll campaign has gone up significantly. Last time, it was the Bharatiya Janata Party that used it the most for reaching out to people. This time, almost all parties in all regions have taken to social media and websites to spread across their message,” said Suresh Reddy, Chairman and Managing Director of Ybrant Digital, a global digital marketing solutions company.

When it comes to social media, what matters is not the cost of distribution of content but the cost of creating it, he added.

The TDP has reportedly roped in top Telugu commercial film director Boyapati to create the content for its digital and TV channel promotion, and is therefore ahead of the competition.

It has already released a number of ads, highlighting the ruling party’s achievements and welfare schemes initiated by the Chandrababu Naidu government. The YSRCP has taken the help of a firm owned by Prashant Kishore.

YSRCP’s followers have also virtually flooded video-sharing platform TikTok.

Using clips from party president Jaganmohan Reddy’s speeches, TikTok users have been posting and sharing videos extensively.

TDP and Jana Sena followers too have started sharing videos.

Targeted campaign

Suresh Reddy said the digital media platforms allow the parties to specifically target their audience.

“They can limit their campaign to a geography or to a gender or to people in a particular age group,” he said.

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