The key to winning the war of communication and media pre-independence era and for long time post-Independence era were Print – Newspapers and Periodicals, and Radio. The big names of the Pre-Independence India were either the owners or the editors of the Newspapers or Periodicals. The tallest leaders of Pre-Independence India were controlling the communication. Those were the times of ‘Socialist communication’. The owners or the editors of the newspapers or periodicals had no interest in making profits but the idea was dissemination of this information. The congress had controlled the communication in the Pre-Independence Indian era by the help of having great thinkers, philosophers, and editors in the party.
The time started to change in 80s and the focus shifted to Television but the core to winning the war of communication remained unchanged. The Newspapers and Radio still enjoyed the state of dominance. We can safely say that this was the gold era of communication – The era of ‘Capitalist Communication’. This is the time when every big business house and political parties had some interest in owning the pie of media house. This is the time when we saw growth of Lutyens Media – who believed in ‘you scratch my back & I scratch yours’! The Lutyens Media till recently were controlling the media landscape of India but the power centre of the media houses started to change roughly a decade back. This golden era of communication was absolutely in control of the congress with the help of Lutyens Media.
In last one decade or so the emergence of internet, mobile communication, and social media has changed the communication landscape completely. The power of the communication and the ownership of the media has changed from the hands of media owners to the hands of the citizens – evolved digital enthusiasts and influencers. We are going through the time of ‘Democratization of Communication’. Congress and other political parties for more than a century controlled the communication but the control of the media is transferring from the hands of the bright and mighty of political and business world to the hands of the common citizens.
This Democratization of Communication needs to be controlled and make in use for our benefit. This new form of control is only possible through the controlling the minds of the citizen with help of impactful content. Task is not easy but not very tough either. The mantra of winning the new age communication war is all about engaging evolved digital citizens and influencers. The campaign management team should master the art of engaging the new age communication stake owners in plotting the campaign.
A good campaign manager should be a skilled marketer with strong understanding of creative, content, and technology. He should have good knowledge about different tactics and methods to achieve success. Most importantly, he should have proven leadership in the field of marketing and digital communication. It is important to understand that no election campaign can be a success by a single person’s effort, for this team effort is required. A great campaign management team comprises of researchers who have good understanding of politics, and economy, content writers, and journalists. It will not be wrong to say that to win the new age communication one needs to build an in-house media organization. A media organization that is free from the clutter of yester-years media approaches. This is new age media that requires new age communication equation.
Arvind Kejriwal is a quick learner, he initially copied the BJP’s game of social media and politics and taught them how it should be done. Arvind Kejriwal and AAP used all possible social media channels and just not Facebook and Twitter. AAP also used Quora for answering questions, Mango App for broadcasting speeches and messages and YouTube channel like TVF.
Arvind Kejriwal also managed to create an impression of a brand which shares every possible detail with its audience. He chose to use social media to communicate with his audience. The website of Aam Aadmi Party clearly highlights details of every funding they receive, doesn’t matter how small the amount is. This level of transparency and honesty helped AAP in winning the trust of people. AAP with its image of honest and transparent party managed to attract huge followers with a mere funding of INR 20 crores. These followers were just not following various Facebook and twitter accounts but were active and engaged. It will not be wrong to say that they were active digital volunteers for the party.
Arvind Kejriwal was successful in transitioning the followers of Anna’s movement to AAP supporters. This transition helped Arvind Kejriwal in developing a strong brand and huge political following. A small investment on the social media helped AAP and Arvind kejriwal win huge engaged followers base on Facebook and Twitter. This was also possible because of the correct communication strategy used by team AAP and Arvind kejriwal.
It is very important for any successful personal brand to understand that they need to communicate with their audience in the language of the audience, at the medium of audiences’ choice. If it’s not managed well the whole communication plan will be of no use. Arvind Kejriwal, from the very beginning clearly understood the pain points of the masses and in his every communication he touched the pain point effectively. The success of Arvind Kejriwal’s communication strategy can be seen in the social media engagement score. In general, the success on social media is measured by the number of followers or likes, but Arvind Kejriwal clearly proved that people engagement is actually the true measure of success.
The good thing that happened for the Arvind Kejriwal’s story is building of a brand around the story of ‘Power of Common Man’. As common man started trusting and associating with the leader they genuinely followed him and started engaging with him on social media platforms. The followers or likes were not bought by running promotional campaigns. These followers or likes were genuine advocates of brand Arvind Kejriwal.
Arvnd Kejriwal and AAP took the engagement to the next level for the voters of Delhi. They launched a page called Delhi Dialogue for the voters of the Delhi. The voters of Delhi could share their views on governance in Delhi, facilities they want, issues they face, solution they seek, etc. The major views from the voters of Delhi, were taken into consideration while writing the AAP’s election manifesto. The voters of Delhi loved the Manifesto as they saw their views were captured in it. This was yet another classic success of engaging voters on social media and making them feel they are part of decision making.
Arvind Kejriwal’s popularity and positive image nosedived after he joined hands with congress to form his first government, and walked out of the government in 49 days. He was criticised by established political parties and was shamed by calling politics of ‘shoot and scoot’, ‘hit and run’, ‘name and shame’. Arvind Kejriwal’s guerrilla tactics have shaken the political class when he decided to renew his campaign by offering a sincere apology to people through his Facebook and Twitter pages. The apologies note was widely shared and retweeted. This apology note helped Arvind and AAP come back in the race. The script – ‘Power of Common Man’ worked once again. The voters were shown the human and honest side of the politician, which they had not expected from any political leader. This social experiment on social media worked well for Arvind Kejriwal proving that social media and politics go hand in hand.
Arvind Kejriwal and the AAP openly declared war against the other parties on social media. They used Twitter hashtags as weapons. The classic example is the #mufflerman hashtag which was created by opposition to mock Arvind was used effectively by the social media team of AAP to put pro-AAP tweets and turned into a weapon which trended for over 14 days.
AAP kept a close watch on the voter sentiments through social media & other means & continuously modified their campaign tactics and strategy thereby running a very cost effective campaign against well-funded campaigns of the BJP.
The other major social media communication success was sentiment analysis for studying thousands of Twitter and Facebook accounts of AAP followers, BJP followers and Neutrals to politics. This exercise helped Arvind Kejriwal keep the tone of messaging right. It also helped them in modifying the communication as and when needed.
The social media sentiment analysis helped them understand the groundswell and develop positive and pro-party messaging. The message also worked well as they were not mocking messaging or hate politics messaging. The communication was loved by people because voters were getting what they wanted.
Arvind Kejriwal, the front man of AAP, made it clear in every communication that if they find their team members indulging in corruption they would straight away cancel his/her election ticket. And, such incidents did happen when people reported to AAP authorities that some of their candidates are corrupt, and in the response, AAP cancelled their assembly tickets
Today we will witness history in making when BJP Hardliner Hindutva leader, Yogi Adityanath will take oath as head of state. He would head first BJP government in Uttar Pradesh in 15 years.
The 44-year-old saffron-clad Yogi of the Gorakhpur mutth is a firebrand hindu leader.
It is told that Five-term MP from Gorakhpur and a hardline Hindutva leader Adityanath was a unanimous choice of the party’s 312 MLAs and that Adityanath himself asked for the two deputies – Keshav Prasad Maurya, and Dinesh Sharma.
The beauty of these three candidates is that none of them incidentally is an elected member of the UP Assembly. They represent three different strong caste base in UP – OBC, Brahmins, and Thakurs.
I see this as master stroke by Modi and Amit Shah. A precursor to 2019 election. The team UP is the brand ambassador of the brand Modi. A statement made bold and clear to the citizens of UP and India. We all will witness rhe impact of the bold decision. The fate of Modi in all future elections will also be based on the decision the team UP makes.
In my views lot is riding on these three individuals – Dinesh Sharma, keshav prasad Morya, and Yogi Adiyanath.
Dinesh Sharma has been Lucknow Mayor, wonderful organization builder and administrator. He is a professor in the commerce department at University of Lucknow.
It is said that He is a sincere and quiet worker. He is also admired by both Hindus and Muslims in the state capital. He is probably the only soft-spoken, friendly, good-natured face among the leadership.
He is Brahmin face of the UP government. UP is, probably, the only state in India where Brahmins have vote share in double digits. The Brahmins vote share in UP is excess of 12 percent and this move to my knowledge is to consolidate the Brahmin vote bank.
Keshav Prasad Maurya, BJP state chief, is relatively young, energetic, and organization builder. He is also RSS karyakarta.
In my views appointment of a RSS karykarta as deputy CM will send a positive message to RSS cadre. The cadre with this move will feel happy, hopeful and engaged.
It is also said that Maurya was once a chaiwallah and a newspaper vendor before he joined the RSS. He just not come from the humble background but also is the face of OBC in UP which collectively controls 40 percent vote share. Maurya as deputy CM will also make the OBCs of the UP happy and hopeful.
Yogi Adityanath is Hardliner Hindutva leader, and is known for his strong pro-Hindu views. The Yogi is mathematics graduate, which probably gives us comfort that yogi’s views will not only be just religious but will have some element of analytics and reasoning into it.
He is just 44 and have been elected 5 times as MP from Gorakhpur. He also has image of always approachable and helpful to the citizens of Gorakhpur.
Yogi will help BJP polarize the vote bank and consolidate the hindu votebank. Moreover, he will also help attract the strong SP Yadav vote bank. He will also attract Thakur vote bank.
In my views Yogi with help of Triple-Talak will also attract women Muslim vote bank.
The team UP is designed to win election 2019 as BJP has got itself a Thakur candidate and a strong Hindu face -Adityanath, RSS Pracharak and an OBC candidate – Maurya and a Brahmin face Dinesh Sharma as the face of its government in the state.
These three candidates will help BJP increase vote share in UP but the team have to work hard and demonstrate that they have not deviated from the development agenda. As of now, we can only hope that Team UP will be focused on the development and not on polarizing voters and popular-religious activities.
For all those who don’t believe in team UP, remember we as of now have no other option but to believe what Adityanath promised. He promised to follow Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ agenda, and strive for “good governance”.
TV Channels, and newspapers for long have been perceived as strategic for political communications, and for voters’ decision making processes but in recent times, Internet and mobile has changed the dynamics of political communication, political campaigns and party management processes drastically.
In recent times the impact of digital marketing in the political campaigns have also increased as the engagement level of voter on web and mobile devices have increased over years. This change has happened as the smart phones, tablets and laptops have penetrated both, urban and rural space. Moreover, politicians and political parties have experienced that mobile is very effective communication device in the media dark markets. It will not be wrong to say that smartphones, tablets, and laptops are the most important and powerful screen that connects and provides platforms to engage voters and politicians.
In my opinion, politicians and political parties have start seeing traditional media as a mode of entertainment. Moreover, for them it is no more relevant as it used to be a decade back. I am not saying that TV Channels, and newspapers have completely lost its relevance. It is still relevant and help political parties influence voters and form opinion but the relevance of new media such as web presence, blogs, social media, news portals and aggregators, mobile campaign, influencers engagement, bloggers outreach program has increased.
Traditional media is not seen as the preferred tool to win voters and serve the purpose of politicians and political parties.
New age media is seen as a rich source of information. Moreover, the digital ecosystem is effectively used to manage and keep voter’s attention. Ubiquitous reach is one of the exciting part of the digital marketing. It has also made it easier for political campaigns to reach target audience at a lesser cost compared to that of traditional marketing and that is why New Age campaigns ‐ digital marketing, mobile marketing, and social media have already become a key communication tool in political strategies. In recent past we have seen major success of online political campaigns be it Obama, Modi, or any other global powerful politician, their success can be attributed to a successful new age campaign.
The success of global leaders like Obama, Trump, Modi, etc. can be attributed to new age campaigns.
The Digital Marketing Journey
The success of global leaders like Obama, Trump, Modi, etc. can be attributed to new age campaigns. The first big digital marketing success was Obama campaign. Though the Obama campaign was first global success the first Indian success of political digital marketing was Modi Campaign.
The Obama campaign became successful not once but twice in a row. In my views, the dynamics of the Obama Campaign was different from the dynamics of the Modi Campaign. The influencing factors viz. geography, demography, internet and mobile penetration were different in both campaigns but one thing which was common in these campaigns were treatment of the campaign. I believe each campaign is different and we need to find our own parameters to influence and engage voters.
The journey of designing a successful new age communication is not easy. For a campaign to be successful, online presence of political party and politician must be thoroughly planned. In my views, and in simple terms, an effective online presence means being where your audience is in the digitally connected world. There are many ways to do this, such as web presence, blogs, social media profiles, social media engagement with influencers and voters, owning and co‐owning content spaces, and interaction on third‐party channels, etc. The effective online presence is not enough to win the game of political digital marketing, but definitely is the first step towards the success of the voters and politicians engagement.
An effective online presence means being where your audience is in the digitally connected world.
It is important to focus on the empowerment of voters. Indian voters now have seamless access to news, and information required to become active participants in the country’s democratic process. Moreover, we are witnessing vibrant and connected voters who are demanding explanations for all the acts of the political party, politicians and government and also advising political parties, politicians and government. It makes engagement with voters the most important element in the political communication. The issue of how to proceed further in order to achieve high level of engagement with the public can be addressed by answering several questions:
Is the Political party and Politician ready to engage on the new age media platforms?
Are they ready to change with changing media dynamics?
Is there a willingness to interact with the public on the new age media platforms?
Are they prepared to deal with criticism on the new age media platforms?
Do they have time to devote to what is created on the new age media platforms?
At first the answers of the above questions will help digital marketer understand the seriousness of the political party, or candidate towards digital marketing journey. It will also help digital marketer structure the digital marketing campaign based on the level of seriousness and engagement of the political party, or candidate. Once digital marketers have the understanding of the interest level of politicians and political parties in the digital marketing campaign and the level of engagement they want on the digital marketing platforms, designing a successful digital marketing campaign roadmap becomes easy.
Digital natives are the biggest influencers and their interest needs to be taken into consideration when developing digital political campaigns.
The digital marketers also need to understand that there are millions of voters – native digital voters who have developed a certain digital sense that helps them filter information better and faster. Digital natives are the biggest influencers and their interest needs to be taken into consideration when developing digital political campaigns. It is important to monitor behaviour of the digital natives on web, mobile, and social media on real time. The objectives of campaign monitoring initiative can be classified in following activities: Identifying influencers, identifying the voters who are in favour and voters who are against the political party or politician, creating relationships with voters and influencers, managing grassroots mobilization initiatives, crisis management, obtaining insights for content engagement, interaction and engagement with fans and followers, conversations with candidates, politician, and spokesperson of the party, evaluating for strategic information. The campaign monitoring helps us understand the voters’ sentiment and hence helps us design the political communication.
A successful digital marketing campaign can help us identify the individual who will cast vote for the candidate.
The engagement of the voters, social listening, and analysis of their sentiments is most important element in the success of campaign. We all know that digital marketing is mostly engagement driven and provide us with huge data for analytics. The data which we get form the digital marketing campaign can be mapped with historic data on voting habits and other relevant parameters to get sentiment analysis. The result of the sentiment analysis is used to define the course of political communication.
It is an established fact that the race of communication can only be won by mastering the art and science of content development and dissemination. The organizations across the globe are working hard to win the arts and science of content development and dissemination with very strong focus on digital communication.
Organization to win the digital communication war is amalgamating search, social and content into their digital marketing strategies. They are busy developing the content maturity model in order to streamline the communication plan and process for the organization. In my views, communication consultants, content experts, and digital marketing evangelists are trying to figure out how to make this transition as a stepwise journey across a series of maturity phases.
Organizations across the globe is trying their best to win the race. This race is not only about core issues viz., Revenue, Operations, Productivity, Innovation, Human Resources Index, but also about issues like marketing, communication, etc.
The content maturity model is not developed by accident. Content maturity model provides – insights on a company’s current content marketing plan, design the content road-map, optimization strategy for better content road-map, etc. In my views a well-defined content marketing maturity model helps businesses establish where they are and how can they reach the desired destination – where they need to go.
To capitalize on a content maturity model, communication experts must first identify at which stage of content maturity model they fall. Then, they can figure out what must be done to move up the value chain.
Soul Searching is the first step of content maturity model. In this step, organization or brand define their features, offerings, basic communication statement, etc. In this stage brand owners decide brand promise and start establishing relationship with audiences. Mostly in this stage the communication is more monologue than dialogue.
As this is the initial stage of content maturity model the focus is on status quo. Most often content is created because it is basic or necessary and not good to do things. The activities at this stage includes – website content, press releases, social media presence and content seeding, web site content update when products and services are launched and occasional blog post. In a few organizations, we can also witness that dedicated resources are allocated for the content marketing efforts.
At times, some experimentation with brand centric blogging, social networks engagement, and search engine optimization work focus on promotion, distribution of brand messaging are also done for visibility and engagement. At the stage of Soul Searching, marketers are not looking beyond the basics of content marketing. They are mostly satisfied with their efforts until they start to see competitors overcoming them on all media channels – earned, owned and shared media.
Once organization has clearly defined and documented their capabilities, they tend to move to next stage of maturity – storytelling. At this stage the Storytellers takes the simple architecture of literature to a meaningful and engaging story. They convert their product attributes, and value propositions into storylines for deeper brand engagement.
Marketers, with the help of storytellers focus on growing their footprint on the web, increase their engagement on social media with specific story line. The increase in engagement with brand however, do not always indicate an increase in leads and sales. At this stage content is developed according to defined customer segments and their information needs.
Storytelling help marketers start the journey of investigation into more specific opportunities from the customer point of view and shows empathy to the buyer journey.
Organizations at this stage of content maturity journey, start focusing on dedicated and specialized team. They see the need of dedicated resources to produce content for search engine optimization and social media optimization. At this stage, processes and tools are used to make the content ideation, creation, management, optimization, distribution, and measurement efficient and effective.
In the next stage of content maturity, marketers work on differentiating the product with strong point of view that sets them apart from the competition. The best content marketers have brands that stand for a higher purpose.
Differentiation help marketer reveal a rich vein for storytelling.
The storytelling is taken to the next level of customization and sophistication at this level. Marketers develop distinct customer segments, and customize the communication for each customer segment. At the stage of Differentiation, content is mature and optimized as per characteristics and information needs. Marketers also focus on content planning and monitoring, and focus on answering specific customer queries as they move through the sales cycle.
At this stage, we also witness that content is optimized for search and social media discovery and promoted through multiple channels. Moreover, building connections though social networks and use of influencers relationships is a key component for content promotion.
Now that content marketing process for the organization is maturing and communication team has started developing content with brand guidelines, customer segments, and the sales cycle. The content marketers are ready to take the content marketing journey to the next level of maturity. The next phase of content maturity reaches beyond the rhetoric and focuses on changing the prevalent buying criteria in respective market. The prime goal of marketing experts here is to get customers to think about a problem, and a solution – differently. This is the stage when marketers start working on category creation.
The best Category Creators combine product and service innovation with effective content marketing that helps bridge the consumers’ imagination gap.
At this stage of content maturity marketers start focusing on the creating category specific content, and growing social communities. In order to develop a meaningful connection with community, buyers and the brand, marketers start to tap into emotional appeals in their content. At this stage, storytelling once again help marketers in maturing content marketing beyond features and benefits and incredible usefulness means connecting with customers on an emotional level. The difference in storytelling at this stage is that the users at times, become part of the story telling in form of brand advocate, influencers, or a character who is role-playing.
This stage also witness customer’s growth as brand authority and subject matter experts from a brand advocate, or influencer. It is observed that most companies are satisfied with the growth rates in community, engagement, customer acquisition and revenue at this stage and they don’t want to graduate to the next level. But the growth hungry organization, who want to establish themselves as the authority in the industry work on the process to evolve their publishing capabilities and keep evolving the content marketing process. The ultimate phase of content maturity is Thought Leadership. Brands at this stage deliver more value, engage emotionally and demonstrably walk their talk. Thought leadership is attained by achieving excellence along the three dimensions: product, content and operations.
Achieving and mastering the content maturity model is not an easy task. In my views one must take the first step with all honesty and commitment and follow the basic steps of success: At first, it is important for the communication experts to identify organization’s current position on the maturity model. Once it is clear to the communication experts as to where the organization stands in the maturity curve, the next step is to determine the technology that will help bring organization at desired level and continue to form ideas for developing technology bundles. It is also important to break down the isolation, build relationships, and find opportunities of engagement so that all stake holders can work together as team. The communication head also needs to establish goals in order to reach successive levels.
