For a long time, the Aam Aadmi Party’s social media presence was characterised by adversarial posts that targeted the BJP and, in particular, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But a recent switch to humour and more positive content seems to be paying dividends.
The AAP’s losses in the Punjab Assembly polls in March and the municipal polls in Delhi in April forced a rethink, as its Facebook page had begun receiving far too many critical comments, party sources said.
By the time the AAP won in the Bawana by-election to the Delhi Assembly on August 28, its social media strategy had undergone a sea change. Recently, for the first time, the AAP’s Facebook page saw more likes and more click-throughs on links than even the official Narendra Modi page. Facebook data shared by the AAP show the party’s FB page had 7.60 lakh engagements from August 27 till September 2, while Mr. Modi’s page had 6.99 lakh. That said, Mr. Modi’s page is by far the most ‘liked’, with 42.9 million likes, to the AAP’s 3.1 million.
ADVERTISEMENT
“They [the BJP] have salaried warriors who are just performing a task. They can’t compete with our passionate volunteers,” AAP leader Ashutosh said.
After the municipal elections, which the BJP swept, the party’s social media team analysed its communications, said Arvind Jha, who heads it. “We found that the good work of the Delhi government in education and health was not reaching the people,” he said. One of the first things to change was Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Twitter usage. It went down from 25-26 tweets a day to 17-18. But the lower frequency increased the reach of the tweets.
ADVERTISEMENT
Secondly, the party boosted video content. “We are posting 35% more videos now,” Mr. Jha said. On August 31, following news that 99% of demonetised notes had returned to the RBI, the party posted a video: ‘Arvind Kejriwal was right about demonetisation’. It got over 4.96 lakh views.