BJP taps influencers ahead of Lok Sabha polls

New Delhi: With India getting ready for the world's biggest electoral exercise, the ruling BJP is once again taking to social media to woo the voters.

In the 2014 and 2019 elections, the BJP utilised WhatsApp and Twitter, but this time around it is using shorter visual content, social media influencers and the party is diverting resources to Instagram and YouTube. The aim is to drive engagement.

Despite the changing patterns, WhatsApp continues to be the mainstay. Currently, the party’s IT Cell manages over 50 lakh WhatsApp groups to disseminate poll-related information. The wing has also perfected a back-end system where dissemination from Delhi to any remote place across the country takes only 12 minutes, down from 40 minutes a few years ago. The aim is to bring this down to five minutes.

Consumption patterns have changed over time. Till 2019, Facebook used to be the biggest consumer of the ad budget. While Google continues to draw a chunk of the resources, Instagram reels and YouTube shorts are where now the money is being spent. “Long-form videos are no longer watched, and short videos are made to weave in trending memes and music. The content is designed to mirror people’s preferences,” said Nikhil Srivastava of IT Cell.

On Saturday, the party ran a reel on Instagram where Opposition leaders were seen as profiles of a dating app, which were being swiped left.

While WhatsApp is where most of the resources are diverted, Meta’s changing rules where mass messaging is discouraged makes it difficult to ascertain if the message has reached the masses or not. “There is no way of knowing if the end-user has read the message,” Srivastava added. The focus is now on engagement. “We are no longer just reaching out, the aim is to drive content.”

This change has now brought influencers to the fore. Celebrities are no longer needed if an influencer has followers and viral native content. For instance, PM Modi was seen in a video with fitness influencer Ankit Baiyanpuriya in October last year and Smriti Irani was in a video with Kamya Punjabi. The MyGov portal also instituted an influencer award this year where influencers like Ranveer Allahabadia were felicitated by PM Modi.

With the provision of reaching out to Instagram users via sponsored ads, the visual platform is making its presence felt in electoral messaging. Broadcast channels, too, are coming in handy. An Instagram broadcast channel the party launched two days ago already has more than two lakh subscribers.

Going Viral

Instagram
7.5 million party followers
85 million Modi followers

X
21.6 million party followers
96.5 million Modi followers

Money matters
Rs 1.77 crore spent on Meta in the past 30 days
Rs 30 crore spent on Google ads between February 1 and March 4