Social Media is an unavoidable force that is ruling and will continue to do so for a fairly long period. This Case study categorically talks about the growing importance of use of Social Media in the Indian General Election-2014. I hope you get some valuable learning from the same. Feel free to download it and share with your friends and colleagues. Also do let me know your valuable Feedback on sushil.parmar@rku.ac.in Thanks.

1. “A Case study on Use of Social Media in Indian General
Election-2014”
-Prof. Sushil Parmar
School of Management,
RK University, Rajkot
Executive Summary:
General election-2014 conducted to constitute the 16th Loksabha in India has
been one of the most prolific and history setting elections in the entire
democratic history of India. Ranging from the no. of candidates filed
nominations to fight election in record setting no. of constituencies, to the
figure of total amount spent (Rs. 30,000 crore approx.) by all the respective
parties for their propaganda, India has experienced the extremes of being
the most democratic country in the world.
This election was also phenomenal in one unique aspect as well, that is use of
social media for various purposes. Various social media platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google plus etc. were used for various
objectives like general awareness, marketing/propaganda by respective
parties, track general trends of people’s mindset (virtual exit polls) etc. This
case study solely focuses on the use of social media platforms by various
parties, people, companies, news agencies for their respective agendas.
Some Data:
Following are some of the data that are important with the context of
General election-2014, India for this case study to follow.
Table: 1 General Demographic and Internet penetration data of India-2014
Sr.
No.
Particulars Numbers (in
crores)*
As a % of population
1 Total Population 125 100
2 Population of Voters 80 70
3 First time voters 12 10
4 Internet users 24.3 19
5 Social media users
 Facebook
 Twitter
 Google plus
 LinkedIn
16.8
 15.8
 11.08
 13.6
 8.9
13
 94
 66
 81
 53
6 Constituency Break-up***
 High Impact
 Moderate Impact
543
 160
 67
100
 29.5
 12.33

2.  Low Impact
 No Impact
 60
 256
 11.04
 47.14
7 Winners of the seats in
descending order
1. BJP
2. Congress
3. AIADMK
4. TMC
543
 282
 44
 37
 34
100
 52
 8
 6.8
 6.26
*Numbers are in approximation.
** Based on the following parameters:
 High Impact: >10% population using Facebook
 Moderate Impact: 5-10% population using Facebook
 Low Impact: <5% population using Facebook
 No Impact: No or very low Facebook presence
Table: 2 Data of Followers of Political parties on significant social media sites
Top Political
parties in social
media#
Bhartiya Janta
Party (BJP)
Indian National
Congress (INC)
Aam Aadmi
Party (AAP)
1st
Rank
Facebook 58.73 lacs 33.47 lacs 21.67 lacs BJP
Twitter 6,30,000 1,35,000 6,70,000 AAP
Google Plus 2500 2300 2.13 lacs AAP
YouTube* 66,000 10,000 43,000 BJP
#Numbers are rounded off and are of May-2014.
*YouTube subscriber figures.

3. Uses of Social Media:
Social media platform now has not remained just a place for chatting and
casual interactions of personal messages of people, but it has also grown to
be a serious means for achieving some desired results by political, corporate,
government and non-government agencies. Some of the prominent uses of
social media done in the recent election is listed below.
1. General awareness:
Social media platforms were used largely to make people aware
about some important details such as party and its candidate’s profile,
his/her views, manifesto, plans etc. It was also done to popularize a
voter’s duty and responsibility by several NGO’s and corporate
companies. The apex body for conducting elections in India- Election
Commission also have used such medias to increase the awareness
about some basic issues and information concerning to a voter such
as, procedure of voting, important documents required at the time of
voting, geographical location of election booth etc.
 Some of the examples for this awareness campaigns are as follows.
 Sistema Shyam Teleservices, which operates under MTS brand
name, had launched an election tracker that showcases analysis
of all conversations on social media about political parties and
politicians.
 Election Commission also revamped its policies and regulations
regarding the use of social media for the purpose of awareness
drives and had also issued a notice for the same.
Even social media giants themselves got involved in this election.
Companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google etc. had started
several features in their own websites homepage, specifically made for
the purpose of General Election-2014.
 Some examples are as follows.
 Tech giant Google has revamped its election hub to include
features like Pledge to Vote campaign, a ‘Google score’ tool for
politicians, search trends infographics, YouTube election playlists
and Hangout details for users.
o Google Election tracker
 Facebook has also launched an election tracker and has started
a Facebook Talks series involving well-known politicians of India.
o Facebook Election Tracker
 Twitter Trends Report

4. 2. Marketing:
Total expenditure Rs.400-500 Crore out of total marketing budget of
Rs.4, 000 Crore. That means it has amounted to more or less 10% of the
total marketing expenditure of all the political parties- Assocham.
This General Election has seen a major change with respect to the
marketing activities done by significant national as well as
local/regional parties. The presence of social media has greatly
impacted the democratic scenario of the country. As many as 70% first
time voters (12 crore) of the age group between 18-23 years were
believed to be using social media platforms. And hence to capture this
significant chunk of the voters, political parties geared up their efforts
to fit themselves into the communication habits of such people.
Features like direct communication, low or free of charge service, real
time communication, and face-to-face communication, attracted the
attention of the PR dept. of the parties. Marketing took place for this
parties in the ways such as, Party’s official page promotion, message
promotion, sharing of the candidates profile in the official party page,
sharing of a news article highlighting the positive news about the party
in their own page, and criticizing the negative points of the rival parties.
Not only the political parties, but also some of the news and media
agencies (print and broadcast media both) also made a huge use of
this platform. News and media agencies were enthusiastically following
the prominent leaders profile pages and the official political party
pages for the regular updates I their newspaper or channel. Special
talk shows and discussions were held at the studios of such channels on
an important update put-up on the respective party’s page in a social
media platform.
 Innovative steps taken for marketing through social media:
This election also marked the starting of innovation on the
election campaign through social media. Some of the significant
and effective examples are listed below.
o Selfie (Self Photo) with election mark on finger by Mr.
Narendra Modi
o Signed direct message by Mr. Narendra Modi for twitting
with a particular hashtag.
o Making-up of unofficial pages of parties in Facebook, and
making them popular by making controversial updates.

5. o Uploading of videos and messages directly in Facebook
first later to other media.
3. Poll prediction and trend analysis:
Another significant use of social media was seen in the feature of
prediction of the results of the polls and analyzing the trend of the polls
and electorate percentage.
News and media agencies were frequently having a semi-poll on their
websites, such as asking the readers or viewers to cast their virtual vote
to a particular party or candidate, and then publishing the results on
the same websites. They were conducting such virtual exit polls in their
social media platforms too. Some of the important names using such
thing include Aajtak, NDTV, and Times of India etc.
Some social media sites such as Facebook allows a feature of polls on
the respective page of the concern entity. This feature enables the
page owner to undertake a poll having the predefined questions and
answer options.
Another such feature is the Twitter Trends. Twitter publishes the topmost
trends (topic that are most talked about) on the news feed page of a
user. Hence it also gives a glimpse of the general trend happening
around the country and particularly on that specific platform.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is also a quite popular technique
that is generally used by the corporate people. In this technique a
person or an organization can improve their chances of getting
reflected as the top search result in Google. Many times it is done
through some algorithm, however in this election paid marketing
(known as content marketing) were used more.
End Note:
Technology and social media goes together. The way recent trends in
technology has emerged and the way it has enabled the mankind in
achieving more and more advancement, no one can deny that we would
see an upwards use of both technology and social media platform in the
political environment.

6. References:
1. Social, Digital and Mobile in India 2014
By Simon Kemp
http://wearesocial.net/blog/2014/07/social-digital-mobile-india-2014/
2. Social media and Loksabha Elections: A report by IAMAI
http://www.esocialsciences.org/General/A2013412184534_19.pdf
3. A case study on Strategy and tactics behind creation of brand
Narendra Modi by Shamni Pandey, Business Today.
http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/case-study-strategy-tactics-
behind-creation-of-brand-narendra-modi/1/206321.html
4. A news article on Social media and election awareness campaigns
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/election-fever-
social-media-abuzz-with-awareness-campaigns/
5. An article on NDTV-gadgets about the role of Social media and its
impact on election
http://gadgets.ndtv.com/social-networking/features/did-social-media-
really-impact-the-indian-elections-527425
6. Data about election results:
http://www.webcitation.org/6PfWDNtfY
7. Data on Population:
Various sources of newspapers and other media.