Congress brass elated by social media team performance
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state Congress leadership is all praise for the online campaign blitz carried out by the party’s social media wing, which got down to work only by early January. The team led by Anil Antony, son of Congress Working Committee member A K Antony, is said to have done a commendable job, earning the applause of the party brass.
It may be noted that the Congress in Kerala was the first off the blocks in setting up a special social media wing 12 years ago when Ramesh Chennithala was the KPCC chief.“The Congress’ war room was lackadaisical in approach until the team led by Anil came into the picture. Though the party had started the social media wing 12 years ago, it was not at all functional. In fact, we did not have any data or proper platform to start with. However, the new team did a commendable performance and matched with both the CPM and BJP in terms of the output,” a senior Congress told Express, on condition of anonymity.
The Congress social media team functioning from Indira Bhavan, the KPCC headquarters, started roping in people who were into social media for the party in an individual capacity. The party called upon all these volunteers and coordinated their outputs into a single platform and streamlined them.“We started off with several volunteers joining us and soon made our presence felt on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We received a positive response from the people through these platforms, which indeed boosted our confidence,” Anil Antony told Express.The chairman of the team, Shashi Tharoor, himself was making a mark with his active presence on both Twitter and Instagram. Later, with Anil and his team joining in, the party’s social media platform emerged as one of the main weapons of the party on the campaign front.
“The social media team led by Anil Antony did a commendable job within their limitations and, we are happy with their performance. The team was the backup support for the party leadership during the electioneering across the state,” KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran told Express.Initially, the social media team created a platform in the mode of a news portal and ensured proper division of duties among its members.
There were only three full-time members in the team and the rest were all volunteers who chipped in with inputs for creating the materials required for developing trolls and responses to opponents politically.