Meticulous planning behind Congress social media success

The Congress has often pipped the BJP on social media with witty one-liners from vice president Rahul Gandhi, and his supporters eager to take his message to the masses forcefully.

However, behind the success of making Rahul and the Congress 'trend' on Twitter and other social media, which was used effectively by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, lies meticulous planning and execution.  

The Congress has put in place a detailed social media architecture — much on the lines of the party's organisational structure — to add the necessary punch in the virtual world where till recently it was viewed as an also-ran.

"State help for Shah-Zada! Why this, why this Kolaveri Da,” Rahul had tweeted on Tuesday, taking a dig at BJP president Amit Shah's son Jay's controversial business dealings. The tweet, which was a take on a popular Tamil song that had gone viral, was retweeted more than 5,800 times, liked by more than 13,000 people and had received more than 1,700 comments.

With his Twitter handle @officeofRG gaining traction, Congress social media managers are mulling moving to a more personal Twitter presence — @rahulgandhi. The change is expected to be timed with his elevation as party president later this month.

Team structure
According to the elaborate team structure put in place by the AICC, its social media team is helmed by chairperson Divya Spandana, who is assisted by national coordinators responsible for activities in states.

In every state, each of the Assembly seats have an 'Assembly coordinator', which goes down to the level of booth coordinator, read a presentation made during a recent AICC social media workshop of state coordinators.

All the Assembly coordinators have been advised to reply to social media posts by Rahul and also take on trolls on Facebook.

The Congress' social media team has also been asked not to tag 'random people tweets or Facebook posts'. The team also operates WhatsApp groups to share content — pictures and graphics — for use on Twitter and Facebook.

At all levels — state, Assembly and booth — the coordinators have been asked to identify digital volunteers and keep them engaged.