Chennai: All that people saw was AIADMK general secretary J. Jayalalithaa slog it out in peak summer, campaigning her heart out for the party’s spectacular win, but there was also a strong campaign that went on in cyberscape.
The B-schoolers of VIT University will now have AIADMK’s successful campaign on social websites and Internet media as part of their case study for MBA. “All this started when we did an analysis of voter profiles for this general election. We found that 10-12 per cent were first-time voters, so we decided to see how these voters exercised their democratic right. It was observed that social networking sites had a greater impact on these voters,” said Professor M.J. Xavier, executive director of VIT University and former director of IIM-Ranchi.
Prompted by AIADMK’s successful campaign on social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, VIT University decided to introduce it as a case study in its MBA in digital and social media marketing programme from this academic year.
“Both the AIADMK and BJP had successful campaigns on cyberspace with different target groups in mind AIADMK had first-time voters as target group. This needs to be studied in detail, which made us include it as case study,” said Prof Xavier.
The case study would include how AIADMK’s popularity would continue to grow in the future, what new engagement strategies the party should implement to attract and retain the first-time voters, besides the approach that the party should take to reach out to the common man through the use of mobile devices.
AIADMK’s official FB page launched late February has about 50,000 followers. This page has been very active with several conversations around Jayalalithaa’s election campaign speeches and achievements.
Social media and technology-enabled campaigns are changing the pace of political campaigns. This is an age of real time news. As companies both big and small are making efforts to listen and talk to their customers, political parties have also realised the importance of connecting with citizens through social networking sites, Prof Xavier opines.
