BELGAUM: As Belgaum prepares itself to cast votes for Lok Sabha elections, social media platforms and tech companies have also caught on the poll fever with many coming out and urging youth to cast their vote in the country’s biggest battle for the ballot.
No wonder, social media platforms, technology firms, e-commerce portals and telecom operators are using this opportunity to connect with users.
But in Belgaum the Social media scene is a bit damp when compared to other tier two cities.
A study carried out by the independent IRIS Knowledge Foundation suggests that social media usage is now sufficiently widespread to have the power to influence the outcome of the next elections to the Lok Sabha and consequently government formation.
A noteable point has been the activeness on social media before the election dates were declared. When there was a lot of activity on social media especially Facebook. We had pages like Progressive Belgaum which were professionally managed by PR agencies. But as the candidate did not get a ticket the page has gone into hibernation.
Suresh Angadi who opened a page recently before the elections has about 10,350 likes on the page and now each day the campaign trail images are being shared. However users say there is no interaction on the page. The page just updates the images and we just like and comment but we never get a reply.
Laxmi Hebbalkar’s page has only 64 likes but her personal profile has more than 344 friends. But no much updates and not promoted as well.
The AAP is also almost absent from social media in Belgaum which is almost the opposite for AAP where it has a great presence elsewhere.