How to Win Voters and Influence People: BJP to Train 10,000+ IT Cell Members, Influencers from August 27 – News18

Scaling up its preparation for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP is all set to hold a mega training camp for its IT cell and social media machinery. More than 10,000 volunteers, including influencers, are expected to take part in the special exercise.

Party functionaries told News18 said the workshop would start from August 27. “In the smartphone era, when almost every person is connected to social media, it becomes one of the most important aspects when it comes to woo the people and make them aware of the party’s achievements,” said Kamlesh Mishra, incharge of UP BJP IT cell.

Appealing to a new crop of social media savvy voters with both literacy levels and internet penetration going up significantly since the 2019 General Elections, the 2024 Lok Sabha battle will be the real test of technology as a key differentiator, said Mishra.

“On August 27, the party would organise a training session for social media influencers. Initially, in the state capital, a team of 500 volunteers would take part in the training session, after which a similar sessions would be held in other districts to increase public outreach,” Mishra added.

The volunteers would also be taught how to use apps like ‘NaMo’ and ‘Saral’.

“Both the applications are widely used by the party functionaries as a tool to make people aware of the party’s achievements and ideology. This time, the party has felt the need to improvise the strategy to stay ahead as other political parties too have expectedly turned to social media platforms as part of their public outreach,” another party functionary said.

The BJP has initially shortlisted 10 social media influencers, dubbed ‘IT Vistaraks’, to be deputed in each Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh.

Social media has been a critical component of the BJP’s election strategy since 2014, with PM Narendra Modi enjoying enormous popularity across platforms.

Earlier this month, reports quoting BJP sources had said PM Modi’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, received approximately 79.9 lakh engagements in the preceding 30 days. The account had approximately 2.77 crore engagements in the last three months.

On Facebook, Modi’s account received approximately 57.89 lakh engagements in the last one month. The Prime Minister’s Facebook account has received approximately 3.25 crore engagements this year.

On YouTube, Modi’s channel reportedly gained approximately 25.46 crore views in the past one month. This year so far, Modi’s YouTube channel gained approximately 75.79 crore views.