Modi is one of the most followed leaders of the world with 45.9 million followers on Facebook, while Rahul Gandhi only has 3.5 million.
Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has gone from an intermittent social media user to a regular critic of the government and has left Narendra Modi behind in terms of engagement.
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Gandhi’s Facebook page has seen 40 per cent more engagement than Modi’s from September 25 to October 2, said Congress.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, Congress assessed Facebook analytics’ data during this time and found a spike in likes, shares, and comments on Gandhi’s posts.
Facebook Analytics allows monitoring of 5 pages and the 4 others were BJP, Narendra Modi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, and the Congress.
Modi is one of the most followed leaders of the world with 45.9 million followers on Facebook, while Rahul Gandhi only has 3.5 million. However, during the said period, Gandhi’s posts saw 13.9 million engagements whereas Modi’s were only 8.2 million, as per Congress’ assessment.
One of Congress’ functionaries told HT that the increase in engagement “is a key indicator of how audiences are relating to the content.”
The functionary added that the increase in traction is witnessed during the time when Rahul Gandhi led protests against the alleged rape and murder of 19-year-old Manisha Valmiki of Hathras.
“I met Hathras victim’s family and understood their pain. I assured them that we will stand by them in this difficult time and help them get justice. UP [Uttar Pradesh] government will not be able to do whatever it wishes even if wants to, because now the whole country is standing to get justice for the daughter of this country.” This post has over 4,50,000 reactions on Facebook as of Monday morning.
Dilip Cherian, a communications consultant, noted the following observations with regards to the surge in engagements. “The first is what we call the issue factor. The prime minister has not spoken on Hathras issue and engagement on the same has been very high on Facebook. The second is the ‘newbieness’ factor, which works for Rahul as we have not seen this level of activity from him before; it tends to attract a wider audience. And the third is ‘anti-establishment’ aspect, wherein people gravitate towards a discourse against the ruling dispensation,” he said. “The prime minister is very consistent in his social media posts. Perhaps, his lack of engagement on the issue has led to the surge.”
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