WOMEN POLITICIANS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

INTRODUCTION

• The 2014 General Assembly Elections are proving to be a close encounter for leaders from all political parties.

• Women politicians are playing an active role in campaigning and handling important designations in political parties.

• Some noted names that are active for their respective parties are Sonia Gandhi (INC-Indian National Congress), Smriti Zubin Irani and Sushma Swaraj(both from BJP-BharatiyaJanata Party).

• Though Sonia Gandhi is more into on-ground campaigning instead of social media activities, the other two are actively participating on social media hangouts, conversations and discussions.

• Moving ahead, we go through how each one of them has leveraged themselves on social media grounds.

SONIA GANDHI

• Twitter Mentions – NA• Web Mentions – 2743• Negative Mentions – 228• Total Negative Sentiments (in %) – 8.02• Twitter Followers – NA• Facebook Fans – NA• Twitter Engagement (in %) – NA• Facebook Engagement (in %) - NA

SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI

• Twitter Mentions – 11238• Web Mentions – 943• Negative Mentions – 46 • Total Negative Sentiments (in %) – 4.88• Twitter Followers – 259696• Facebook Fans – 702026• Twitter Engagement (in %) – 12.76• Facebook Engagement (in %) – 23.05

SUSHMA SWARAJ

• Twitter Mentions – 3179• Web Mentions – 595• Negative Mentions – 29 • Total Negative Sentiments (in %) – 4.87• Twitter Followers – 1068817• Facebook Fans – 447401• Twitter Engagement (in %) – 0.75• Facebook Engagement (in %) - 0

SONIA GANDHI (ON FACEBOOK/TWITTER/YOUTUBE)

• Sonia Gandhi is one of those leaders who hardly has a presence on social media.

• Being a leader from the party in power, it is expected of her to be present on a medium which is expressible and interactive.

• Her absence on social media is one of the reasons why INC is not finding favors amongst the general masses on social media.

• The details regarding on-ground campaigning including speeches and rallies have not been effectively put across to the public.

• It is to be noted that had she been a reckoning force on social media just like her counterparts, INC would have been a stronger force to deal with.

SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI (ON FACEBOOK)

• Smriti Irani is a BJP Candidate from Amethi, BJP National Vice-President and Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha; representing the State of Gujarat.

• She has a 5 lakh+ strong fan following on Facebook and has been aggressively campaigning for this year’s elections.

• The page has frequent posts about her campaigning at various places including image posts as well.

• She has been garnering a lot of comments and shares on the efforts that she is showcasing on her official page.

SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI (ON FACEBOOK)

SUSHMA SWARAJ (ON FACEBOOK)

• Sushma Swaraj is a Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha (House of People), Parliament of India and an active politician for the last 30 years.

• She has a decently strong presence on Facebook with over 3 lakh fans.

• However, the page has gone inactive since the last year or so.

• Prior to that, it had regular updates, most of them being video updates about her speeches in the Parliament.

SUSHMA SWARAJ (ON FACEBOOK)

SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI (ON TWITTER)

• Smriti Irani has an active presence on Twitter with over 2 lakh followers.

• She regularly tweets party plans and policies along with image updates of herself as well.

• In an aggressive approach noted recently, she has tweeted a graph of her performance in Parliament against that of Rahul Gandhi.

• She has adopted Twitter as a means to mirror the efforts that she and her party are putting across.

SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI (ON TWITTER)

SUSHMA SWARAJ (ON TWITTER)

• With more than a million followers to boast of, Sushma Swaraj has made good use of her political experience to engage people with her account.

• She is actively tweeting about her future meetings, her views and sharing image updates regarding her campaigns.

• However, her account had been inactive for all of March

• Being one of the top leader in the BJP ranks, she has been able to communicate well with the general masses.

SUSHMA SWARAJ (ON TWITTER)

SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI (ON YOUTUBE)

• Smriti Irani does not have a YouTube channel named after her.

• However, her speeches are being uploaded on the official BJP channel.

• Recordings of the various rallies that she has spoken at are found uploaded on the web by various politics enthusiasts.

• Due to her speeches, she has been able to garner enough support as the language she uses is simple, precise and lucid which is easier for the masses to understand.

SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI (ON YOUTUBE)

SUSHMA SWARAJ ON YOUTUBE

• Just like Smriti Irani, Sushma Swaraj doesn’t have a personalized YouTube channel.

• All her speeches and campaigns are incorporated into BJP’s channel.

SUSHMA SWARAJ ON YOUTUBE

MOST SEARCHED KEYWORDS (SONIA GANDHI)

MOST SEARCHED KEYWORDS (SMRITI IRANI)

MOST SEARCHED KEYWORDS (SUSHMA SWARAJ)

WHAT DOES THE MEDIA SAY?

• The women politicians namely Sonia Gandhi, Smriti Irani and Sushma Swaraj have been aggressively campaigning for their respective parties which has already drawn media attention.

• Various media houses and websites are covering their intense speeches which are practically aimed at downplaying their competitors’ agenda for the elections.

• Various headlines are relaying news regarding the approach that they are adopting out of which some of them are listed as we move ahead.

IN THE NEWS (SONIA GANDHI)

IN THE NEWS (SMRITI IRANI)

IN THE NEWS (SUSHMA SWARAJ)

REPORT BY - SOCIAL SAMOSA

DATE RANGE : APRIL 23, 2014 – MAY 07, 2014