Rajasthan polls: Govt announces ads for social media influencers

Jaipur: The Rajasthan government has announced to give ads worth Rs 5 lakh to social media influencers in the state in wake of upcoming of assembly election.

A notification issued by the Department of Information and Public Relation states that any influencer with more than 10, 000 followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube can have ads from as low as Rs 10,000 to Rs 5 lakh per month.

Officials said that DIPR will make empanelment of such influencers soon and the process will get started in a week or so.

DIPR has prepared four categories for the influencers depending on the number of followers in which followers’ six months history is being evaluated.

Fluencer CEO Bhupendra Singh told IANS that its official that the next elections will be contested via social media.

“It’s not a new phenomenon. The 2014 and 2019 elections were also contested via social media. Now, in 2024, social media influencers will play a significant role. After IT Cell, you may see a separate ‘Influencer Cell’ within the parties in upcoming years,” Singh told IANS.

He said that earlier political parties used to induct Bollywood stars, TV celebrities and sportsmen and they used to campaign during the elections. The same thing has shifted to social media influencers now main reason being is their follower base and audiences.

He said that not only the Congress government in Rajasthan but the BJP too is planning to woo comedians, bhajan singers, food vloggers, dancers and influencers with sizable online followings.

“The aim is to give a boost in next year’s Lok Sabha election campaign, as well as upcoming assembly polls,” Singh told IANS.

He said that BJP is looking beyond existing ideological sympathisers, to court social media icons with public reach and to promote work done by the Narendra Modi-led government.

Singh said that today every party wants to get associated with the social media influencers as a majority of the young population is no longer watching TV channels but are spending more time on social media watching reels or YouTube videos or OTT.

“Political parties want to reach out to a larger audience, especially the young population through these influencers,” he said.

Singh said that India has 240M+ Instagram users and 252M+ YouTube users. An average Indian spends about 2.36 Hours everyday on social media.

“Engaging with social media influencers is the greatest way to reach out such a large audience within a short span of time and hence comes this change of trend,” Singh said.