How a political party can do advertising and marketing of an online political campaign

Social Media today is an important platform for communications and marketing in the digital world. Hence, it isn’t a surprise that political parties are also using this platform to campaign in favor of their parties. However, this campaigning must be done following some essential techniques. 

BASIC BENEFITS 

News Media is a most important platform to campaign. But nowadays, as the internet has reached almost every corner of the nation, many people are using smartphones or other digital devices to communicate. Thus, a considerable number of people have created their profiles in various social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp etc. A political party can create numerous profiles in social media channels so that their campaign, news updates and slogans can reach the social media users. If the users like the pages or join the group of these political parties, then they will always receive updates of new posts published on those pages and groups. 

During the time of election, the Election Commission of India regulates campaigns in mass media. Thus, to reach maximum people easily without much hassle, social media is the most suitable platform. 

Previously, political parties only used some static pages or groups to campaign. But, now they create and use various profiles to campaign among many people. For example, the 2008 U.S Presidential election and 2014 Parliament Election of India. In both of these elections, political parties used social media channels like Facebook and Twitter hugely and reached a large amount of people successfully. 

CLASSIFICATION AND USES OF SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS FOR CAMPAIGNING

Popular social media channels include Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram etc. 

In Facebook, as a campaigner, you can create groups and pages, make posts, share posts etc. You can send messages to individuals using Facebook Messenger. To promote your page so that your page can reach more people, you can avail paid services. Your page will get more likes, and your posts will reach to more people due to these paid services. You can also avail online advertising service of Facebook. You can choose a plan from various premium plans which are listed on the basis of validity and the number of audiences to be reached. 

In Twitter, you can create profiles and make short tweets with important hashtags about current issues so that people can easily find your tweets. You can also create a new hashtag and can make a series of tweets using that hashtag.  As a campaigner, you must follow the accounts of all reputed media houses and leaders of your party so that you can always keep yourself updated about their tweets. You can avail advertising services of Twitter by which you can determine your campaign budget, set your audience and can increase the number of followers. 

In Instagram, you need to create profiles and post images and videos. In the text descriptions, you can use popular hashtags or can create new hashtags so that people can easily find your images and videos. You can avail the service of paid advertisements by choosing any one of the services among Photo Ads, Video Ads, Carousel Ads (ad of multiple image or videos), Slideshow video ads and Stories ads. 

After creating a WhatsApp profile, you can send messages to multiple users at once. You can also create a group of 256 members and share the messages in there.