MUMBAI: With less than 10 days left for the most awaited General Election of India, where the country selects its next prime minister, global social media giant Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, took down around 700 pages for showing “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, associated with various political parties, from its site.

The list of the pages taken down by the global giant from Facebook and Instagram under its refined social media policy for political campaigns included 687 associated with an IT Cell of the Indian National Congress (INC) and 15 belonging to Indian IT firm Silver Touch, which usually handles the duties for the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.

These pages were spending a hefty amount of money on promotions and advertisement. While the 687 accounts linked with Congress had spent $39,000 between August 2014 and March 2019, the 15 pages being associated with BJP had nearly double spends with $70,000 flowing from June 2014 to February 2019.

And it can very well be just the tip of the iceberg. It is no revelation that social media has been playing a prominent role in the political battles not just in India but globally for the past few years. In fact, the landslide victory that BJP recorded in the 2014 polls, probably the biggest ever in its decades-old history, has been significantly attributed to the smart use of social media as a tool to allure young voters.

And this year is no different. While all political parties are spending a considerable amount of money and manpower in refining their social media strategies, BJP is way ahead of the curve. Compare the amount spent by a collective of 687 pages with just the 15 that have been taken down by Facebook, and one can see the stark difference in the expenditures being incurred by the parties.

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`While none of the pages revealed the identity of the source running these accounts and from where the money was pouring in to spend on these promotional activities, it is evident that the IT machinery of BJP is quite strong and refined. Given that its magic-bullet approach resulted in a success in 2014, it is obvious that the party will once again take the same route.

As per Facebook’s Ad Library, which includes data related to ads of political nature and relevant to national importance on Facebook and Instagram, political advertisers cumulatively have spent more than Rs 8 crore in less than two months and again leading the charts is BJP with top three accounts promoting it. One of the topmost pages called “My First Vote For Modi” has spent close to Rs 61 lakh in the past two months. In fact, the same page is offering gifts and free BJP merchandise to people who pledge to vote for the ruling party in the upcoming elections, which means extra expenditure on those goodies.

The BJP social media teams and leadership have been intelligent with their hashtag campaigns too. Just recently the #MainBhiChowkidaar campaign was trending on Twitter. Not just that, the on-ground rallies with people showing support to this slogan surely grabbed a lot many eyeballs. Other hashtags like #ModiOnceMore are being used widely by the party supporters.
While social media is a war zone that BJP is banking on very strongly, another interesting attribute of its campaigns is the Modi merchandise. From caps to sarees to masks to kids’ snack packets, Modi’s face can be found anywhere and everywhere. The TV, print, and radio campaigns have seen an equally big investment in promotions.

#BharatBoleModiModi
Be a part of India's development like Rajat with our Main Bhi Chowkidar T-shirt!
Shop Now on https://t.co/6Czw3BXYBr or on the NaMo App at https://t.co/TQbP2KsOFF pic.twitter.com/kF7GsFmEDG

— NaMo Merchandise (@namomerchandise) April 2, 2019

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Though such wide promotions might give an edge in terms of recognisability to the party, it might not be a stepping stone to success, says TRA Research CEO N Chandramouli on being asked to compare the expenditures made by the parties across media.

He shared, “When speaking to a local political party's communication advisor recently, we got discussing on the ad budgets of the current ruling party and the others. The ad budget differences between the BJP and Congress are estimated to be at least 3 to 4-fold. With such high budgets, BJP has started advertising with high intensity early on using all media at its means. On the other hand, Congress, which is estimated to have an ad-spend of just 25-30 per cent of the ruling cash-bags laden party, is surely waiting for the appropriate time to spend most productively.”

Elaborating more on the same, Chandramouli continued, “Not many notice this but the seven phases can be construed as a wily orchestration of distributing the lesser budget of the opposition over two extra phases to try and reduce their advertising fire-power. That said, such battles are not just won depending on the amount of ammunition that the side has, but on the ability of the party's message to mobilise people through positive messaging. Parochial politics, dividing, blaming, and finger-pointing and jingoism do not have a high impact on the highly aware electorate, who decides with the ballot keeping their personal concerns and needs in mind.”

The party having the highest ad-decibels and ad-spends faces one more critical challenge, that of their messages going into the blind-spot of the voter due to the repeated 'noise'.

India will go into polls over 7 phases starting 11 April to 19 May. The results will be announced on 23 May.

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MUMBAI: R K Arora, ex-CEO of Zee Media and Founder and CEO of Divija Media launched “Maati Music” – a music production division of Divija Media Services Pvt Ltd. The music division aims to provide a platform to young and emerging artists, talented singers, lyricists, music composers, directors, actors and dancers to create content in different genres and languages.

The first song on forthcoming elections“AAO MILKER MATDAAN KAREN” is all set to urge and motivate the youth and first-time voters to participate in governance by casting their vote.In the 2019 polls, 133 million young adults will get to cast their vote – 70 million young men and 63 million young women.

In a Democracy, elections are the biggest opportunity to bring about the changes. And VOTE is the biggest weapon for this change. Commenting on this occasion, R K Arora said, ‘Voting’ is not only our ‘Right’. In fact, it is our responsibility as a citizen and we all must fulfil this responsibility with seriousness. We all MUST cast our vote and must also inspire others to cast their votes.”

Hailing from Delhi, the singer S K Gautam is a young boy who is student of 12th standard. Music is composed by AnkitTyagi, Music Director who has an experience of 7 years in this domain. The lyricist – Akhil Singh has written more than 150 songs in the span of three years for various music companies like T-series, Zee Music, Sonotec music, Chanda music and Wave Music.

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Two songs have already been recorded will be released soon during this month.SwenToday, News Portal and You Tube channel is also part of Divija Media Services Pvt. Ltd.
 

MUMBAI: Buzzoka, India’s most disruptive influencer marketing company has launched the Digital India Report Card, a survey that attempts to understand the performance of the current government in the digital media space.

The survey quizzed digital media leaders through 3rd party media publishers. The custodians included agency and brand leaders across the Indian Digital Ecosystem. From top brands, top agencies and startups, Buzzoka managed to provide a more holistic understanding on the performance of the various digital initiatives.

Overall, the survey highlights that the stakeholders of Indian Digital industry are happy with current Government’s efforts in the digital space. The experts believe that the policies implemented by the Government between 2014-2019 have given a boost to the digital ecosystem in India.

A whopping 91% respondents believe that digital media has the influencing power to change the perception of voters in 2019 elections which is good news for the Government. The digital industry believes that current Government’s digital initiatives have helped them to reach the rural audience. It’s a massive positive step towards getting far more campaign eyeballs for brands targeting rural Indians. Also, it’s a big boost for the digital economy as brands have increased their spending on digital media.

The Government has done a good job overall & the digital industry seems to be quite satisfied with their initiatives to boost the digital media sector in India.

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A majority of 69% respondents were satisfied with the Govt’s policies implemented to boost the digital ecosystem of the country. Over 77% agreed that they witnessed a rise in digital media budgets during 2014-2019 signaling a massive rise in Digital India infrastructure.

Considering the current ongoing campaigns by two leading parties, 54% of respondents believed that BJP’s Main Bhi Chowkidar campaign was impactful, whereas 65% respondents believed that Congress’ Chowkidar Chor Hai campaign was a miss.

91% agreed that digital media has the power to influence voter perception in India, while PM Narendra Modi and his party BJP were considered to be the most active leader and party on social media.

Speaking about the survey, Ashutosh Harbola, Co-Founder, CEO, Buzzoka, said, “The survey was an important one for us as we wanted to understand the pulse of the digital media industry. Since, Buzzoka focuses on B2C influencer marketing and our overall business model is directly a beneficiary to the rising digital ecosystem, the survey becomes an important landmark in eyeing the future.”

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