Mediaboss Marketing

With over 100 million users in India, social networking giant Facebook is seeing a strong response to the several initiatives and features relating to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections that have been launched on the platform over the past few months.

Among others, Facebook's 'I'm a Voter' button has seen around 2 million clicks at the end of the recently concluded Phase III of LokSabha 2014 elections.

The 'I'm a Voter' button, which is only visible to voters in regions and constituencies on the day polling in their area, allows users above 18 years of age who access Facebook through the mobile phone to post a story to their Facebook timeline sharing that they are voting in this election.

"Politics and elections is a global priority for Facebook," said Ankhi Das, public policy director, Facebook India & South Asia. "At the time of last Lok Sabha elections, we were not that big a community, but this time we are playing a vital role because the number of users has grown dramatically. We are a 100 million strong community today and that's a very substantial chunk of voters.

In the 24 hours following the announcement of the election in March this year, mentions of election among Facebook users went up by 561 per cent. The social networking platform currently has 52,000 political pages, of which 100 are verified by it.

Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has is the most popular Indian leader with 12 million fans, globally second only to US President Barack Obama. The second most popular Indian politician is Arvind Kejriwal of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) with 5 million followers.

Among others, Facebook has launched features such as 'Register to Vote' whereby users can add an update about having registered to vote to their timeline as a life event. The social networking website has also launched features like 'Election Menu - Facebook on USSD' which provides up-to-date information on candidates, and 'India Election Tracker' where users can watch livestreams of candidates, take polls about issues that matter and compare how much the Facebook community is talking about leading candidates and parties over time.

With the success of these online initiatives, Facebook has also launched a series of town halls across several cities in India. These town halls are interactive platforms where 50-60 citizens of a city get together and talk about issues that are most relevant to them when it comes to elections. Facebook recently concluded its first town hall in Amritsar on Friday, which saw participation from students, academicians and farmers, among others, who discussed issues such as unemployment, crime, drug addiction and corruption.

Similar town halls will be hosted in Vadodara and Varanasi in the following weeks.

"Our global mission is 'building an open and connected world' and all these initiatives are aimed towards the same," Das said. "The town halls will generate a multi-platform effect by getting Facebook users in a room."

Original post:
Facebook's election initiatives see active response from users