As it is said, “The government of a country is for the people, of the people and by the people”. There is no doubt that the citizens of a country play an important role in selecting it’s rulers. Naturally, we choose them through voting, there are a number of different factors that influence our decision of selecting a particular candidate. Social Media is definitely one major factor that plays a vital role in influencing our mindsets and decisions.
Political marketing practices consisting of carefully strategised and targeted political campaigns.
Our political leaders generate extensive use of Social Media for promotional uses.
To get more insights into the usage of social media for political marketing, we thus studied and analysed the social media presence of Chief Ministers of various states of our country.
This analysis of their social media presence covers the platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube
And we have come up with a list of the top Chief Ministers of India according to their Social Media presence:
5.Yogi Adityanath- 8.7 M Followers:
Mr. Adityanath the CM of UP stands as the 5th top most CM according to his social media followings. His social media posts uses an informative conversational tone addressing and informing the public on the events and activities he is engaged in. Eg: https://twitter.com/myogiadityanath/status/1017088314552156160
He has developed his own hash-tag #UPCM and uses it extensively.
4.Shivraj Singh Chouhan- 8.9 M Followers:
Certainly, Shivraj Singh Chouhan has eventually served as the CM for a tenure of 13 years. He uses long descriptive captions for his social media posts and elaborates the details of works he has been engaged in. He prefers using Hindi for his posts. Eg: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FChouhanShivraj%2Fposts%2F1724213467663112&width=500
He emphasises on transformation of the state with his ruling initiatives and uses the hashtag #NayaMP and #NewIndia
3.Devendra Fadnavis- 10.2 M Followers:
The CM of Maharashtra is the third top most CM with 10.2M followers. His social media posts include descriptive images with little or no text as captions. Eg: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fdevendra.fadnavis%2Fposts%2F1132211010265163&width=500. All the posts on his page are linked to the page “CMO Maharashtra” which is a part of the government run pages.
2.Vasundhara Raje- 12.8 M Followers:
Vasundhara Raje has been the CM of Rajasthan since 2013. Besides that, she stands as the second top CM having a wide following of 12.8M people. She uses Hindi for all her posts and focuses on campaign specific hashtags. Eg: https://www.instagram.com/p/BedLZpaDsBW/?taken-by=vasundhararajeofficial
She associates with the general public well and uses the hashtag #MyRajasthan for many of her posts.
1.Arvind Kejriwal- 21.13M Followers:
The CM of our capital, who has been the national convener of The Aam Aadmi Party, has the top most social media followings. Mr. Kejriwal has gained popularity from the time he stood in support of Anna Hazzare for the 2011 Indian anti- corruption movement. He uses different kind of approaches for different social media platforms. On facebook, he uploads videos with small captions. Eg: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FAAPkaArvind%2Fvideos%2F1650110685086422%2F&show_text=0&width=560
For Instagram posts, Mr. Kejriwal uses pictures with a caption and mentions #Newdelhi widely. Eg: https://www.instagram.com/p/BdzUuGbBrG6/?taken-by=arvindkejriwal
While we analyzed the list, we also discovered some interesting findings. But let us first have a look on the tenure for which they have been serving as Chief Ministers:
| Name | State | Tenure | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shivraj Singh Chouhan | Madhya Pradesh | 13 Years | 7.33 crores |
| Vasundhara Raje | Rajasthan | 5 Years | 6.89 crores |
| Devendra Fadnavis | Maharashtra | 4 Years | 11.42 crores |
| Arvind Kejriwal | Delhi | 3 Years | 1.9 crores |
| Yogi Adityanath | Uttar Pradesh | 1 Year | 20.42 crores |
We can also infer that the number of followers is not directly proportional to the population of the state. Thus, it implies that wide population is not necessarily relevant to popularity of the political figure over there. Similarly, our research shows that though Uttar Pradesh has a population of 20.42 crores, Yogi Adityanath has the least followers among the listed ones. One reason for the same can be that according to the Census 2011, 77.73% population of Uttarpradesh resides in rural areas which can lead to lesser awareness and accessibility to social media and the internet.
We can easily infer that the Social Media presence, following, and engagement is not primarily based on the service tenure. It takes much more to establish credibility and engagement among people.
Concluding Inferences:
Mr. Kejriwal is the Chief Minister of Delhi- our capital therefore, all the matters concerning the Capital are naturally bound to affect the Citizens of the country more than the issues of any other state. Also, our parliament house being based in the Capital, more crucial and relevant news necessarily come up from Delhi. Also, for instance, we are aware how Mr. Kejriwal had been active during the Indian anti- corruption movement. After using the movement for building a strong base for himself, he parted ways with Anna Hazzare and launched his own political outfit ‘The Aam Aadmi Party.’ He was already well known among the general public before he became the CM of Delhi.
This research and analysis enabled us to dig out the vital role that Social Media plays and how drastically it impacts us. A good and decent level of engagement and representaton on Social Media leads to quite effecient benefits and can be very useful for political propoganda.
