How
social
media
wins
elections

Text and research: Jayadevan PK
Visuals: Rajesh Subramanian
Tech: Gautham Sarang

Both BJP and Congress
invest heavily in social media marketing

The parties set up
social media war rooms,
recruit volunteers and
spend a lot of money
to fight the battle online.

The idea is to show you
targeted advertisements…

Or

…push content that

shows them in good light.

But can social media

win elections?

It’s a matter of debate
but let’s take a look.

Take the upcoming elections
in Karnataka. It goes to poll on
May 12, 2018.

Since 1985, Karnataka has never
elected an incumbent back to power.

But, this time around,
that might change with
some pollsters reporting
the public sentiment is
favourable to the incumbent Congress.

The Karnataka elections, ahead of the
national elections next year,
is expected to be a bellwether election.

Top leaders from
both parties – as also
the Deve Gowda-led
Janata Dal (Secular) – have been
campaigning hard in the state.

The two national parties
have also stepped up their
social media game.

BJP has set up a social media
war room in Malleswaram,
a neighbourhood in
northeast Bengaluru.

The Congress has
former Kannada actor
Divya Spandana leading
its social media efforts.

When victory
margins are thin,
the role played by
social media
becomes crucial
– it can change
electoral outcomes.

That’s because
when margins are thin,
fewer voters decide
winners and losers.

 

When one party
wins a vote, another party
loses a vote.
The effect of a
swing vote is double.

Back to social media.
The ability of targeted advertising
to influence buying
decisions or
improve brand perception
is well documented in studies.

Facebook says it has 1.4 crore users
who are above 18 years old in Karnataka.
That’s nearly one in four voters in the state.

You can even
show ads to, as
Facebook ad manager says,
“people who have expressed
an interest in
or like pages related to
Bharatiya Janata Party
campaign for Indian
general election, 2014”.

There are 5.5 lakh
of them from Karnataka
on Facebook.
That’s as targeted as it gets.

So the question
really is:
How tight will be
the contest in Karnataka?

The 2013
state election
holds some
answers.

The state has 225 seats, for which
224 members are elected and one
member is nominated.

In 2013 assembly elections,
51 seats were won by a
margin of less than 5,000 votes.
In 11 seats, the margin was
less than 1,000 votes.

Source: Election Commission

Which means,
to win in each of these seats,
you only need to influence 2,500 voters.

51 seats or a subset will give
any one party a clear lead
over other parties in the house, where
to have a simple majority you
need 112 seats.

Here are the predictions for the 2018 elections:

Source	BJP	Congress	JDS

Here are the predictions for the 2018 elections:

Source	BJP	Congress	JDS
Public TV	85-95	90-100	40-45

Here are the predictions for the 2018 elections:

Source	BJP	Congress	JDS
Public TV	85-95	90-100	40-45
TV9-CVoter	96	102	15

Here are the predictions for the 2018 elections:

Source	BJP	Congress	JDS
Public TV	85-95	90-100	40-45
TV9-CVoter	96	102	15
CHS	73-76	77-81	64-66

Here are the predictions for the 2018 elections:

Source	BJP	Congress	JDS
Public TV	85-95	90-100	40-45
TV9-CVoter	96	102	15
CHS	73-76	77-81	64-66
Creative Center for Political and Social Studies	113	85	25

Here are the predictions for the 2018 elections:

Source	BJP	Congress	JDS
Public TV	85-95	90-100	40-45
TV9-CVoter	96	102	15
CHS	73-76	77-81	64-66
Creative Center for Political and Social Studies	113	85	25
Cfore	70	126	27

So the average of these predictions,

BJP	Congress	JDS
87-90	96-99	34-35

Even if the social media efforts of the parties are
able to influence electoral outcomes in just 25 seats,
it could decide who will form the government.

The results of the Karnataka
elections on May 15 will tell us
how much social media influenced voters.