India elections gave huge fillip to social networking company.
By The American Bazaar Staff
NEW DELHI: Social networking company Twitter, which played a crucial role in India’s recent elections, is taking their strategy to other countries that have big elections coming up on the horizon.
In the wake of India’s hugely successful and historic elections, which saw the BJP and Narendra Modi win in a shocking landslide against the incumbent Congress Party, Twitter has realized the potential it has to help political candidates in other nations reach their constituents and win votes, reports Reuters.
To that end, the company is planning to meet with political leaders in Brazil, Indonesia, and the US to showcase the power of social media. While Twitter usage by politicians in the US is already relatively high – President Barack Obama used it extensively during both his 2008 and 2012 campaigns, and currently has 43.2 million followers – elections in the other two countries can bring huge numbers to Twitter.
Brazil will be holding its general elections on October 5, while Indonesia’s Presidential elections are just weeks away, on July 9. The US elections are in November, and are only midterms, but could be equally significant if they re-arrange the makeup of the two Congressional houses.
Last week, a Twitter envoy already met with Brazilian political leaders to pitch the social network to them, showing how it allows them to actively interact with voters and help boost their profile and public image.
Modi is living proof of that, having used Twitter constantly to show voters what he was doing, where he was going, and interact with them on a more personal basis. Unlike Facebook, in which users simply post what they wants and people can comment on it of “Like” it, Twitter allows for interactions and hashtags, keeping users more engaged and active.
The results speak for themselves. Modi won in a landslide, while his main opponent, Congress Party’s Rahul Gandhi, didn’t use Twitter and lost the election by a huge margin. There’s no coincidence that Modi and Obama have been compared by several analysts, for their abilities to use social media as a way of galvanizing a country that desires widespread reform and a changing of the guard.
Twitter will now try to capitalize on that in other countries, where we could see Presidential administrations using tweets and vines (six-second Twitter videos) more often than ever.