Political Digital Marketing in India
Digital marketing is proving to be a veritable boon to politicians and political parties in India. India is a highly populous country and the world’s largest democracy. Through digital marketing, political parties can have instant access to hordes of people – and that too, in a cost-effective way. Major political parties in India are conducting crash courses in social media to their rank and file. They are being specially taught how to use the internet to interact with and woo the voters, how to participate in giant sites like Facebook, microblogging site like Twitter and mobile messaging services. Political parties are determining what apps can be useful for interacting with voters. Political parties have realized that digital media marketing for political campaigning has become inescapable. Sashi Tharoor, one of the Congress ministers of Indian government comments “If you are thinking about a long-term future, which we are, you have to build a platform today.” The Congress is not the only party trying to exploit the digital wave. The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has hired many tech professionals to assist them in their digital campaign. Arvind Gupta, an IIT graduate who ran his own business in Silicon Valley is leading the IT team at the BJP headquarters at Delhi. Political parties are working overtime to segregate the population on the basis of gender, Facebook and Twitter users and the mode of Internet access – mobile, computer, tablet, etc. They are devising appropriate strategies based on the data collected. Political analysts in India state that the digital media could impact polls in at least 160 Lok Sabha seats. Till lately, the campaign strategies of political parties in India centered on public rallies, pasting of wall posters, television and radio advertising, erection of banners etc. But with the proliferation of the Internet and smartphones, the methods of political campaigning have dramatically altered. The advent f the internet has prompted politicians to look at the potential of the online medium. India has almost 165 million Internet users as of March this year according to a publisher report of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Political parties in India can no longer afford to ignore the digital media and if they do, they will lose heavily to opposition parties. Digital media strategies are now an integral part of the overall political campaign briefs, and political parties are spending an increasing amount of time and resources to mobilize voters. DIGITAL ELECTION AGENCY is a Political Marketing, Election Management & Planning Agency based in Delhi. We offer services of political marketing, social media marketing, digital marketing , election management and election survey/analysis. Visit www.deaindia.org for more updates.