Social Media Influencers: A New Tool for Political Parties To Win 2024 Elections

 

             

In India, election campaigns are at their peak these days. In such a situation, no political party is leaving any stone unturned to communicate with voters. Both direct and indirect methods are being used. Social media is one of them, as it plays a very big role in shaping voters mindsets.

In the last decade, there has been an increase in the interest of political parties in social media. It is evident that Indian politics has become more dependent on the use of social media to connect with people who have experienced companion democracies. Politicians are using the Internet and social media to connect with people from all areas for their agendas and political programs.

Today, about 622 million people in India are connected to the Internet, including urban and rural people. Thus, major political parties in India are courting social media influencers to reach rural voters, paying for access and avoiding tough questions. They are already collaborating with social media influencers to target India’s vast online population of 752 million for the upcoming 2024 general election.

Now social media influencers have become a powerful tool to try and shape voter behavior. Actually these influencers are pro to create content that makes people believe that something nice is actually happening. When politicians are publicly endorsed by influencers and celebrities, they benefit from increased visibility, but their central goal is often to transfer follower's trust in the influencer to a candidate or cause.

Political parties not only pursue celebrity influencers, but also seek out those with smaller, more niche audiences. Hundreds of social media influencers are hired this time by major political parties to sway voters (BJP and Congress are also using dozens of social media influencers on a large scale to attract voters). In fact politicians are willing to pay top bucks to ride on their popularity to drive the election campaigns. Coordinated networks of social media influencers, especially small-scale influencers with fewer than 10,000 followers, are now a powerful asset for political campaigns, PACs, and special interest groups. Sometimes it seems that this election will be less political and more about influencers.

How do social media influencers attract voters?

 

Influencers are those who have a large number of followers on social media and can influence the opinions and behavior of their audience or a person who acts like a pro at pressing the emotions button of citizens.

Now the presence of social media in elections has become common. Political parties use social media influencers to attract voters by leveraging their popularity and reach on social media platforms. They often collaborate with these influencers to promote their campaigns, policies, and candidates to a wider audience.

Influencers help political parties reach a younger demographic, which is often difficult to engage through traditional political advertising. They  also help parties reach specific communities or interest groups that they might not otherwise be able to reach.

Influencers promote political parties in a variety of ways, such as by sharing posts, creating videos, or writing blog posts. They attend events and rallies and share their experiences with their followers. Political parties often pay influencers for their services, although some influencers may support a party or candidate for free if they believe in their message.

 

How much do political parties pay social media influencers?,

 

There is nothing wrong in saying that such influencers, far from being 'volunteer digital door knockers', are paid, highly organized surrogates of political campaigns who are working to report on this new way of politics. However, there are ethical concerns around political parties using social media influencers. Some argue that it is misleading to use influencers to promote political messages without disclosing that they are being paid to do so. Others argue that it is unethical for influencers to use their platform to promote political messages without fully understanding the issues at hand.

Yet political parties pay huge amounts to social media influencers to promote their campaigns, policies and candidates to a wider audience. Which perhaps the innocent followers of these social media influencers do not realize and get ready to cast their vote for the said party without any self-assessment. Nearly half of an influencer’s audience does not understand what is motivated and gets swayed. If an influencer is able to influence 50% of his followers, that is good enough for a political party.

The amount that political parties pay social media influencers in India varies depending on the influencer's reach, social capital, and political notoriety. For example, in June 2023, the government of Rajasthan, which is governed by the primary opposition party Indian National Congress, announced that it would pay influencers between $120 and $6,000 to promote its welfare schemes on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Meanwhile, some politically owned ad agencies are ready to offer these influencers up to 45,000 rupees ($548) for a politics-related tweet. Doing six tweets a month can easily earn more than  two lakh rupees ($2,437) in a month, making it a very lucrative market.

Influencers can be paid on a per-post basis or for a set number of posts over a period of time. The amount paid can also depend on the type of content being promoted and the length of the campaign.

While, many influencers don’t reveal they’ve been paid, and payments often take place off social media platforms. This amounts to a new and growing form of ‘inorganic’ information operations, such as elite-dictated propaganda through trusted social media spokespersons.

Although it is economically cheaper for political parties to mobilize such influencers, these influencers also get wider exposure by associating with politicians, meaning both are benefited.