TSCFM Markomania Asks: Will Indian Politicians Take to Social Media?

The objective of this club is to provide a space for learning and discussion regarding new developments and insights into the marketing world. Students are encouraged to strategize and offer solutions to questions put forth that would create real world impact.
To kick off the first discussion, Prof. Menon writes this:

A study by Ernst & Young has revealed that Indian organizations use social media much more than the global average and their counterparts in emerging economies. Social media is being used as a platform to highlight brand development, engage with customers, launch advertisements and build a community of advocates. Companies like P&G, Yatra, Flipkart, Microsoft, Cadburys and Honda among several others have been using the digital route extensively. Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+ and Foursquare are being widely used.

Take the recent case of GSK, which has taken an interesting route to engage with consumers online. As part of the launch plan for its new TV campaign, the brand announced a contest on Facebook, asking consumers to guess the storyline of a TVC, along with a contest. The activity increased the fan base by 7-8% and garnered 150 responses. Or the case of the automaker BMW, which has initiated a multiplayer racing game on a virtual track across premium malls in five cities to create buzz about its forthcoming BMW 1 Series. Over 2,000 people played the game on ground and shared their scores/pictures/experiences online, which further helped the company reach out to nearly 200,000 people online. The BMW India Facebook page has more than 2 million fans.

You may remember that the 2012 US elections were nicknamed the “Social Media Election”. Barack Obama dwarfed Mitt Romney in both social media and digital marketing activities. A major success factor that ensured Obama’s victory was how Obama’s campaign used social media and technology as an integral part of its strategy. In India too, politicians are apparently impressed with social media’s role in the recent street protests – like the ones after Mumbai’s 26/11 strike, the Anna Hazare agitation and the protests sparked by the Delhi gang-rape. Representatives of some of India’s best-known PR and social media marketing agencies – like Pinstorm, Perfect Relations and Iris Biz Services – have made pitches to political strategists of the Congress (Rahul Gandhi) and the BJP (Narendra Modi).

So is India going to witness the might of social media on the political scene in times to come?

What’s your take? Can politicians use social media effectively to market themselves for the upcoming elections or is it the traditional ways of campaigning that will rule even this year?