In net-savvy Kerala, online poll campaign strategists are much in demand

In internet and mobile phone-savvy Kerala, candidates are seeking the services of online campaign strategists to reach out to voters.

High penetration of internet and smartphones in India’s ‘first digital State’ has only boosted the appeal of online strategists.

Kerala has the highest mobile penetration in the country with more than 30 million connections for a population of 33 million. Use of smartphones too is rising exponentially.

At least 20 per cent of households access the internet through broadband, and another 15 per cent through mobile, as per TRAI figures. The State is also among the top five in terms of teledensity – 95.70 persons with telephone connections for every 100 individuals.

Other compelling statistics include 34.71 internet subscriptions for a population of 100; 12.31 million internet subscriptions; a 2.68-million wireline subscriber base, of which 65 per cent is rural; 31.13 million wireless subscribers.

Many voters turn to Google and other search engines to learn about candidates, says K Jayakumar, CEO of Cearsleg Technologies, a digital marketing services provider based in Thiruvananthapuram.

No wonder, candidates have realised the need to increase their online presence. At least six have approached Cearsleg to plan their online strategy.

While Cearsleg is open to service all parties, it takes up only one candidate from a constituency, Jayakumar reveals.

For candidates, data from Google Trends is the most important resource to plan their online campaign strategies. The data in turn depends heavily on what is called the Search Engine Manipulation Effect.

This is a ‘completely ethical’ way of manipulating the search engine to ensure that client candidate names and their data pop up in maximum number of searches.

Recent changes in AdWords, Google’s advertising programme, have helped this cause, Jayakumar says.

(AdWords allows advertisers to bid on certain keywords in order that their clickable ads appear in search results. Advertisers pay for these clicks – this is how Google makes money from searches.)

In changes effected on February 23, Google removed the right column ad. It was replaced with snippet data and integrated content; this is now a ‘very effective’ space for displaying campaign-related data.

Cearsleg consults the candidate and decides on suitable poll-related keywords and content that will help generate the searches.

Social media profiles of the candidate on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or YouTube could be integrated into the search result page.

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