Political parties are trying every trick in the book in order to ensure a win in the coming elections. The latest tool these parties are planning to take is TikTok.
According to an official statement released by Naresh Arora, director of DesignBoxed, which managed campaigns for Congress, the party is considering the app very seriously for the upcoming campaigns. The decision was taken by taking into account the popularity of the social media app among the people nowadays.
Naresh Arora has also stated that TikTok’s credibility, which was previously under a cloud, has gone up. TikTok will be big in terms of influencing opinions in the upcoming elections. It’s all about how creatively advertisers and users leverage the platform.
The 200 million Indian users’ app also went through a brief ban passed by the Madras High Court earlier in 2019.
Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower said TikTok was the most downloaded app globally in the first quarter of 2019 with 188 million downloads. India accounted for 47% of the downloads.
During the general elections, the #myfirstvoteformodi hashtag on TikTok received over 1.5 million views. Also, many popular TikTok influencers made videos on BJP’s famous rap song which increased the popularity of the hashtag even more.
Rahul Jain, the founder of Social Rajneeti, which works on constituency-based campaigns for candidates in states like Maharashtra, said political leaders have been asking if something could be done using the platform.
Jain also said that they want to figure out ways of how to go about it since storytelling styles would work on a platform like TikTok, instead of hard-hitting political content.
However, TikTok as stated that it would not allow political ads on the platform because there’s a mismatch with the experience, digital agencies and marketers said there are ways of promoting the desired political content on the app.
