Building Brand Narendra Modi Using Social Media

Social Media as Effective Political Communication Tool

Politicians promote their controlled speech and present their point of view without being interrupted by journalists or by media format limitation.

Social media has given privilege to the politicians to post a presumptive political agenda and engage voters around it. It also helps to get the feedback.

By means of social media, political parties or politicians can mobilize public and invites them to participate in discussion on some issues of public interest.

By using the social media tools, politicians and political parties interact apparently with more efficiently with their supporters, beyond institutional and bureaucratic rigors.

Social media is playing a considerable new role in Indian democracy. Presently, political parties are increasingly embracing social media to encourage people.

With the changing scenario of Indian Politics, political parties and politicians have found a new way of reaching out to a younger and aspirational population.

It is really a long leap from the times when politicians were dependant mainly on posters, cardboard, cut-outs, graffiti, banners and personal canvassing to win over voters.

Among major political parties in India, BJP has the biggest charisma in social media. BJP started using the social media even before 2009 general election, which it lost. In 2014 election, several senior leaders viz., Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Narendra Modi and many more are on social networking sites. Social media is also credited with helping the new Aam Aadmi Party and its candidate, Arvind Kejriwal, won a surprise victory in Delhi against major political parties

Social Media Presence of Narendra Modi Among major political parties in India, BJP has the biggest charisma in social media. They started using the social media even before 2009 general election, which they eventually lost. Many senior BJP leaders like Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Narendra Modi etc., are on social networking sites.

ForI want Narendra Modi as the Next PM of IndiaNarendra Modi for PMNarendra Modi Fan ClubNarendra Modi for PM 2014

AgainstI Hate Narendra ModiNarendra Modi: The Biggest Terrorist of IndiaCriticism of Narendra Modi

The Absolute Winner of Social Media for Politics in India

Narendra Modi is one of the most famous politicians on social media. He joined Facebook and Twitter in 2009 and became the first politician to use Google Plus. Narendra Modi with approximately 1.3 million+ followers on Facebook page and 3.42 million+ followers on Twitter. He also has a YouTube channel which has reached the 15,000 mark of subscribers and has more than 1500 videos.

Data: March 2014

Challenges of Building Digital Brand Narendra Modi

Three-time Gujarat chief minister was a regional brand trying to go national.

63-year-old was seeking to connect with the youth considering that this year's election had almost 150 million first-time voters.

Hindi and Gujarati speaking regional politician trying also to connect with the urban, middle-class audience that is becoming more politically conscious

The taint of the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat and image of Hindu hardliner.

Narendra Modi has been seen as Gujarat’s Brand Ambassador. People share their experiences and stories that promote Gujarat as a brand. He took the right steps to brand himself outside Gujarat even before he decided to move beyond the state but the journey of branding Modi was not easy. The digital team of Narendra Modi has complete idea of internet marketing and has completely utilized every aspect of it to become popular on the social media.

Aims of Narendra Modi Digital Media Campaign

Recognition of Narendra Modi as a brand not only for state audience but also for national audience.

Controlling and managing strongly how he is projected. Work on projecting him as face of development & growth. and working towards developing a secular image.

The development campaigns aims to cross market his achievements on a state and national level.

Design unique campaigns with focus on state as well national elections. Work effectively to counter opposition’s ad campaigns in a coordinated manner.

Indian politicians have usually been arrogant about marketing themselves. They have also been difficult products to be branded. In the recent elections many successful chief ministers like Nitish Kumar and J. Jayalalithaa did not venture out of their home states to brand themselves, Modi did, and he ventured out with aggression. He made his aggression seem decisive and hence desirable.

Elements of Digital Brand Narendra Modi

Success mantra : Combination of Thinking, Being

Desirous, Stabile and Hardworking

Risk Taker, Never looking back, not apologetic,

self-made, strong, efficient, and inspiring

individual.

Transforming obstacles into opportunity.

Sheer commitment in whatever he does

Successfully created an impression of being a sincere, credible and

committed leader.

Master strategist, Long Term Planning & Clear

Focus

Commitment towards development of welfare

society

Modi’s transition from a politician to a brand has been carefully charted out. The branding team effectively worked on transforming the brand image from a strong Hindu nationalist to India’s most popular prime ministerial candidate. However, Modi did not discard his Hindu hardliner image completely. He wore his saffron colours with pride but did not let it rule his conversation.

Choosing the Right Tools to Connect Narendra Modi has exploited the benefits of digital marketing to promote his brand image and spread the political messages by means of the various digital marketing and social networks. Digital marketing helped him gain more transparency as it helped him engage with voters around political decision-making processes. The digital marketing has also help find Narendra Modi ‘s view on topical themes and on his political fights, biography, programme, communication literature, interests, photos and videos uploaded.

Official Site: Create a personalized content experience for each website visitor

Digital Marketing: Create a ROI oriented digital experience with the help of Display Ads, Video Streaming, Native Ads, etc.

Social Media: Create a highly engaged social media experience.

Email & SMS: Deliver individualized messaging throughout every step in the customer lifecycle

Mobile Campaigns: Give customers highly relevant interactions – in store, in app, and on the go

Analytics: It is important to use a highly impact analytics tool which tracks ROI and performance at each stage of campaign.

CRM: Connect data, distribute insights, and automate interactions across all of your marketing technology

Analytics SocialWebsite MobileCRM

Email & SMSDigital

Making of Digital Brand Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi’s website and blog narendramodi.in is well designed and social media integrated.

Facebook: 17.9 million fans of Narendra Modi could track every move during the campaign on facebook.

Google+: 1.4 Million active followers of NaMo is now one of the most followed politicians on Twitter.

Social Media Marketing works on one key concept – Interact and connect like real people. The smartest move by the party was – promoting Narendra Modi’s name and clear cut face everywhere on various platforms rather than BJP. They ensured a strong online presence across social media channels – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and YouTube to keep their voters connected.

YouTube FacebookWebsite Google + AnalysisTwiterEmail & SMS

Email and SMS was used effectively to profiled database for information sharing, donations and engagement,

Twitter: 4.85 Million active followers of NaMo. After Obama, he is now one of the most followed politicians on Twitter.

YouTube: .16 million followers and 18 million Views of 3400+ uploaded videos of speeches and interviews.

The team used effective digital marketing tools to analyse engagement, and sentiments to bring in effectiveness.

Building Up a Digital Marketing War-Room

It is harmful to entrust the complite election 2.0 work to a single person. It is important to have seprate but integrated team for content and political strategy

Electoral campaign staff must include a strategic coordinator for online communication

Understanding the overall strategic indications of the campaign: strategy, positioning, key words, opponent’s behavior, monitoring the content production.

hHaving talks with the various area coordinators so that the strategy becomes homogeneous. Have a election war-room.

It is more important that the social media staff is made up by people who have communicative and creative skills rather than by political tactics experts. This should be guided by political experts.

The coordinator has to compensate for the possible lack of political vision and, in a certain way, to protect his staff so that they can work well and usefully, only focusing on the technical/creative components of their role

In order to support the coordinator for new media it is highly recommended to rotate experts who will deal with the “raw” creation of contents.

Managing the web communication of a political figure requires the same effort as the one necessary to set up a press office or a team which deals with media planning and event planning. Professionals from IIT, IIM, Harvard like Rajesh Jain, B Mahesh, Arvind Gupta are the man behind Narendra Modi’s 3.67 million Twitter followers and 12 million likes on Facebook.

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