'Congress will directly connect with 25% voters on social media'
In an interview with exchange4meida, Congress' Social Media Strategist Mayur Shekhar Jha talks about the growing clout of social streams and how it is set to play a bigger role in the 2019 general elections.
With the 2019 general elections approaching, the political battlefield is witnessing a new trend. This time, the focus on the use of social media is greater than ever before. Almost all major political parties are investing heavily on building their presence across social media channels to target voters.
The Indian National Congress (INC), with its resurgent social media strategy, is going all guns blazing into this virtual battlefield.
In an interview with exchange4meida, Mayur Shekhar Jha, Social Media Strategist, INC, who has also been given the role of State Coordinator for the Jharkhand unit, spoke about the growing clout of social streams and how it is set to play a bigger role in the 2019 general elections.
Excerpts:
Unlike before, the Congress is becoming aggressive on social media. What has prompted this shift?
In the current atmosphere, conventional media has lost its credibility. We want to give unfiltered information and engage with the last man. A lot of information is going to public with a tinge of bias. Our party is focusing and investing heavily to develop a direct connect with the voters.
Since a large section of conventional media has made its bias very clear, we can use social media to connect directly with our constituency. In 2019, you will see an even more enhanced presence of Congress on the social media.
When it comes to the use of social media by political parties, which are the most preferred platforms?
The four platforms which are very popular are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp. Among these, Facebook and WhatsApp have a very high penetration. With service providers coming up with cheap packages, the penetration is only going up.
There is a growing perception that propaganda has become a mainstay of political campaigns on social media? What is your take on this?
The primary objective of Congress’ social media presence is to defeat the politics of propaganda, which has become very rampant in the last five to six years. Our mission is to counter such propaganda. In the absence of alternative voices earlier, such propaganda by some political parties could never be countered. This is bad for democracy. Ultimately the truth should prevail and that is what our mission is.
It is easy to spread a lie. But Congress has never invested in creating a lie factory. Whatever so called strength that our political rivals might be claiming on social media has now become a matter of past. We are equally strong or may be stronger.
Moreover, we don’t have the financial wherewithal that BJP has. We are not relying on paid volunteers, we are not relying on consultancies and agencies; we are just relying on the strength of our volunteers who are ideologically motivated to bring back transparent government at the Centre.
We have a very robust volunteer network working for the cause of the Congress rule in India and we are targeting the last mile through this network.
How would you explain the current state of mainstream media in the country?
I will not generalize, but a large section of the mainstream media is playing with fire. The kind of news that they are propagating is something that even the fake news sites won’t indulge in. The communal hatred that is being propagated shows the extent to which the news media is on sale; which was also shown in a recent sting operation. The credibility hit that mainstream media has taken is bad for media and worse for democracy.
And finally, what is your plan for 2019? How is Congress looking at leveraging the power of social media to reach out to its voter base?
We plan to directly connect with 20-25 per cent of the voters through social media platforms. We are also training our teams to identify propaganda. We have very robust research teams working with us. As a strict policy, we are only going with verifiable content as part of our social strategy. Most importantly, our booth level volunteers have become our biggest source of data and our strength lies in that. In 2019, this will be the biggest game changing factor for us.
The Indian National Congress (INC), with its resurgent social media strategy, is going all guns blazing into this virtual battlefield.
In an interview with exchange4meida, Mayur Shekhar Jha, Social Media Strategist, INC, who has also been given the role of State Coordinator for the Jharkhand unit, spoke about the growing clout of social streams and how it is set to play a bigger role in the 2019 general elections.
Excerpts:
Unlike before, the Congress is becoming aggressive on social media. What has prompted this shift?
In the current atmosphere, conventional media has lost its credibility. We want to give unfiltered information and engage with the last man. A lot of information is going to public with a tinge of bias. Our party is focusing and investing heavily to develop a direct connect with the voters.
Since a large section of conventional media has made its bias very clear, we can use social media to connect directly with our constituency. In 2019, you will see an even more enhanced presence of Congress on the social media.
When it comes to the use of social media by political parties, which are the most preferred platforms?
The four platforms which are very popular are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp. Among these, Facebook and WhatsApp have a very high penetration. With service providers coming up with cheap packages, the penetration is only going up.
There is a growing perception that propaganda has become a mainstay of political campaigns on social media? What is your take on this?
The primary objective of Congress’ social media presence is to defeat the politics of propaganda, which has become very rampant in the last five to six years. Our mission is to counter such propaganda. In the absence of alternative voices earlier, such propaganda by some political parties could never be countered. This is bad for democracy. Ultimately the truth should prevail and that is what our mission is.
It is easy to spread a lie. But Congress has never invested in creating a lie factory. Whatever so called strength that our political rivals might be claiming on social media has now become a matter of past. We are equally strong or may be stronger.
Moreover, we don’t have the financial wherewithal that BJP has. We are not relying on paid volunteers, we are not relying on consultancies and agencies; we are just relying on the strength of our volunteers who are ideologically motivated to bring back transparent government at the Centre.
We have a very robust volunteer network working for the cause of the Congress rule in India and we are targeting the last mile through this network.
How would you explain the current state of mainstream media in the country?
I will not generalize, but a large section of the mainstream media is playing with fire. The kind of news that they are propagating is something that even the fake news sites won’t indulge in. The communal hatred that is being propagated shows the extent to which the news media is on sale; which was also shown in a recent sting operation. The credibility hit that mainstream media has taken is bad for media and worse for democracy.
And finally, what is your plan for 2019? How is Congress looking at leveraging the power of social media to reach out to its voter base?
We plan to directly connect with 20-25 per cent of the voters through social media platforms. We are also training our teams to identify propaganda. We have very robust research teams working with us. As a strict policy, we are only going with verifiable content as part of our social strategy. Most importantly, our booth level volunteers have become our biggest source of data and our strength lies in that. In 2019, this will be the biggest game changing factor for us.
