Chennai: With social media emerging a big tool to reach out to the masses instantly, putting it to maximum use are new-age politicians from Tamilnadu. Though they are actively involved in physical campaigning by canvassing for votes door-to-door, they are equally busy on social media, to attract the youth.
For instance, AIADMK’s Theni candidate O P Raveendranath Kumar, son of Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, has made more than 300 social media posts across all his official pages in the recent weeks. He has covered diverse topics like education, employment, infrastructure, etc.
Not only that, he has also created over 40 digital videos on YouTube along with 60 videos on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn within 30 days.
“Through these videos, he has showcased the work he has been doing across constituencies in Tamilnadu. The biggest gratification of this social media surge of OPR has been the fact that he has been leading and winning almost all the polls on television as well as on social media platforms such as Twitter,” says a campaign manager of Raveendranath.
He adds: “This strategy has surely worked for him as his number of followers has increased by over two lakh organic people across all his social media platforms. Not only have more people started following him but have also started liking, sharing and commenting on all his posts. His pages have seen a huge jump of over 100 per cent in the past one month itself.”
PMK’s Central Chennai candidate and entrepreneur Sam Paul is also super active on social media.
“I was active on SM even before the polls and I am just continuing it now. It is good to interact with people and to answer to their questions. Even after the elections, I will be very much available on social media.”
Kalanidhi Veeraswamy, DMK’s North Chennai candidate, regularly update his Twitter page about his campaigns and other activities. While V V R Raj Sathyan, AIADMK’s Madurai candidate, is himself the AIADMK’s IT wing secretary. J Jayavardhan, AIADMK’s South Chennai candidate, is another young candidate actively involved in social media campaigning.