Political parties are spending lakhs to gain mileage in the cyber sphere by launching Facebook pages as part of their poll campaigns. But majority of the candidates started their campaign only recently limiting their chances for a wide publicity in the social media.
Candidates of UDF LDF, BJP and Aam Aadmi Party are actively promoting their candidature through Facebook. With hardly two weeks left for the polls leaders are relying on social media marketing agencies to get maximum publicity in minimum time. To ensure their presence most of the candidates are using 'sponsored posts' to get likes. Facebook is charging close to Rupees1 lakh to get 20,000 likes. Technically the candidates are buying Facebook likes/followers but interestingly these likes will not fetch the desired output as most of the followers are not the target audience.
Politicians have also opened websites for their campaign but the website building have also turned a costly affair with most of the IT companies charging Rupees 25,000 to Rupees1 lakh for designing websites for the elections. Many candidates started their websites prior to the elections. Several candidates launched their Facebook pages only after the respective political parties decided to filed them
Facebook pages started by many of the candidates have less than 10,000 followers. Page of left front candidates like P K Sainaba who is contesting in Malappuram has 4000 likes, its Kasargod candidate P Karunakaran has 2400 likes, while Christy Fernandez, a left supported independent candidate in Ernakulam has 2500 likes. UDF candidates also have lesser followers compared to the left candidates. K C Venugopal who is contesting from Alappuzha have under 1000 followers just like Pathanamthitta candidate Anto Antony and Attingal candidate Bindu Krishna. The case is similar for the candidates of BJP and AAP too.
