TS leaders plan media strategy for 2019 polls

Hyderabad: Leaders of all political parties in Telangana are bitten by the Facebook mania. The ruling TRS and Opposition Congress and TDP leaders and MLAs are trying their best to increase their popularity using the social media platform. With an eye on the 2019 elections, the leaders have intensified the image-building campaign to win the polls.

The leaders are not only posting the videos and photos regarding their regular political activities, but also uploading infographics on the developmental activities taken up by them in their respective constituencies.

They are also not hesitating to post the photos of their family functions like birthday parties, marriages, festival events and their visit to the functions conducted in their respective constituencies.

Going by the records, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, IT Minister KT Rama Rao and Telangana Jagruthi president and MP K Kavitha occupied the top positions in receiving huge response to their posts on Facebook. KTR has over 2.5 lakh followers on Facebook, while KCR has about 2 lakh supporters. The CM and IT Minister’s social media accounts are being maintained by the Telangana State IT department.

On an average, the posts updated on Facebook by these leaders got more than 1000 likes within two to three hours.
State Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao and TPCC president N Uttam Kumar Reddy also have about one lakh followers on Facebook. These leaders waste no time in posting their photos and videos on the social media. They update their daily scheduled visits and programmes in their constituencies and other places.

These leaders monitor the response to their posts regularly and closely analyse every comment posted by their followers. On some occasions, KTR and Harish have responded to the posts instantly depending on the situation.

Realising the importance of the social media, Uttam Kumar Reddy has advised all his party leaders to open Facebook accounts and update their political activity on the social media. He developed among his party leaders the habit of following his Facebook account by posting all the party programme details every day.

The TPCC president said his party was holding classes with digital experts to educate every party worker the use of Facebook and other social media networks. Recognising the importance of the social media in the political campaign, the leaders have created a special social media unit hiring digital media experts. Leaders said Facebook and other social media platforms would play a key role in the 2019 election campaign as youth and all educated people are addicted to the social media.

The political parties have already been preparing strategies to take up a mammoth campaign on Facebook in the next elections.

TDP Telangana unit working president A Revanth Reddy, Congress leaders Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy, Finance Minister Eatala Rajendar and Kalwakurthi MLA and Congress leader CH Vamshichand Reddy also have good fan following on Facebook and other social media networks. Most of Revanth posts targeted the Telangana government.

By Patan Afzal Babu