New Delhi: Recruit more social media warriors, interact with influencers, spread a “feel-good” mood about PM Modi’s leadership, increase political content in poll-bound states and engage millennials through Instagram and YouTube reels are the main directives given by the BJP brass to its MPs and leaders to maximise the party’s outreach for the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
The party’s top leadership, including national president J. P. Nadda, took part in the two-day workshop organised for its social media heads, personal staff of MPs and volunteers and guided them on how to use the three social media platforms — Twitter, Facebook and Instagram — powerfully to communicate with the people.
Inaugurating the workshop Tuesday, Nadda asked every MP to focus on pushing a larger narrative on social media, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speeches and government’s popular schemes, and not just their day-to-day activities and speeches.
One of the leaders who attended the workshop told ThePrint that Nadda also asked the MPs to interact with their social media personnel regularly to know the quality of content going on their Twitter handle.
“You are not only MPs, but brand ambassadors of the party. It should reflect in your posts,” Nadda was quoted as saying by the leader.
The leader said Nadda asked the MPs to reply to negative comments and also go a step ahead and call up the person to understand why he wrote such a comment. This way they can create more engagement, he pointed out.
BJP national general secretary (organisation) B.L.Santosh, national general secretary Vinod Tawde and in-charge of the party’s social media and IT department Amit Malviya also addressed the workshop.
A social media head, who attended the workshop, told ThePrint that Malviya’s speech focused on technical aspects, and how to keep the netizens engaged and to increase outreach.
He asked MPs to use more polItical and quality content on their platform. Only good content can create more engagement, he said.
Asking social media executives of the MPs to post more content in a day, Malviya regretted that most of the times the MPs fail to post content that has larger political ramifications.
Citing an example, Malviya said that an accused in the 2008 Jaipur serial blasts was released in Rajasthan recently, but most of the MPs failed to raise this issue to corner the Ashok Gehlot government on their social media handles.
He also asked the MPs to focus on YouTube whose viewership was increasing day by day. A very few MPs have a dedicated YouTube channel for themselves, the IT cell chief pointed out.
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‘Use NaMo app to spread awareness’
One of the workshop sessions was dedicated to the NaMo App, which keeps its users updated about the initiatives and achievements of the Modi government.
The MPs, who attended the workshop, told ThePrint that the party leadership pointed out how the public were not aware of many ‘ease of doing business’ features introduced by the government such as the simplified process of issuing life certificates to pensioners.
Stating that such features are posted on the NaMo app, the MPs were told to ensure that such unique initiatives touching the people’s lives are shared on social media.
Another leader said social media heads were told to adopt innovative ways to push the PM’s work as much as possible, apart from spreading populist measures and development works taken up by the BJP governments in various states.
The party leadership pointed out that all the three social media platforms should be used to handle different target groups. While Instagram should be used to corner the millennials, facts embedded with graphics should be pushed through Twitter and detailed speeches on Facebook.
Focus on recruitment of social media warriors
A leader from Bihar told ThePrint that focus was on to recruit more social media volunteers for the 2024 Lok Sabha election and set up social media cells in all constituencies before campaigning starts. The energy of the ‘nationalist youth’ who get attracted to the party ideology and Modi’s leadership should be tapped for this purpose, he added.
The heads of social media cells were asked to organise hyper local events in the next two-three months at district and mandal level to attract and recruit youth for the 2024 outreach programme, another senior leader said.
A BJP functionary said that the party leadership emphasised on spreading the ‘feel good’ Modi factor through innovative ways across the country and to work on minimising the digital divide in rural areas.
The party leadership appreciated the social media conclave organised across Gujarat before the assembly poll there and the campaign strategy adopted in Uttar Pradesh which led to CM Yogi Adityanath becoming a brand.
The UP unit’s poll campaign ‘Fark Saaf Hai’ (the difference is clear) which created a “feel good” mood for the Yogi government found mention in the workshop.
According to party insiders, social media heads were told to counter opposition attacks proactively but without losing temper.
“We were told that whenever the opposition attacked the prime minister and the party, the counter attack should be in a civilised way without losing cool. It should be with facts and figures. It has more longevity than simple social media posts. Graphics has more attention and recall values than other tweets and Facebook posts,” a BJP insider said.
(Edited by Geethalakshmi Ramanathan)
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