The Voices Within

Indian politicians need to make the most of today’s technology. L K Advani did the right thing by starting his own blog. His team has made the most of the Google Adwords program. His ads appear even on a technology blog! How immensely popular has he gotten! Well, this is just an example. Our beloved politicians, rather than sticking only to blogging, should be instrumental in Tweeting, too, just to prove that they aren’t Luddites. Twitter is the “in” thing right now. Everybody tweets! Why not our national heroes?  I am compiling a list of 5 reasons why Indian politicians should start Twittering soon. Are you an aspiring politician or are you already a well established one? Follow my tips to become a Twitter Power user.

Popularity

Barack Obama made the most of social media and you now know where he stands. He was a prolific Twitter user during the election time. He has 4,99, 873 followers, as on date. Just think how many people Lalu Prasad Yadav would have if he had his own Twitter account! The followers list will cross 10 million. Incredible, right! Leave alone Indians, he will have a strong fan base internationally! More popularity=More talks= More votes! To gain popularity, start following people like crazy. And interact. That’s the golden mantra.

They can be direct yet concise

It’s a very well known fact that our Politicos are the best when it comes to attacking their counterparts. Rather than straining their wonderful voices, they may start restricting their calumny by being concise.  140 characters is more than enough to point out their counterparts’ vices or start singing their own virtues. Also, unlike a blog wherein comment moderation becomes necessary, Twitter lets you know what people speak about you. Thanks to Twitter search! Thankfully, others wouldn’t know if they get obscene replies(unless or otherwise they mention the party’s name )

Those golden words will stay eternal:

Words, once spoken lose their charm. They don’t have an everlasting effect. The endearing words used by our Politicos should be carved in history, or at least embedded in precious stones. But sadly, no sane human understands their strategy. Humans think that our ‘friends’ are cunning. Have they ever seen a politician in action when he delivers a speech? My blood surges and my jaws tighten when I hear those poor creatures shouting at the top of their voices. Dear politicians, please don’t worry! Those golden words you uttered and still do, will be treasured in the form of Tweets. I am sorry I haven’t found a strategy to carve your words in precious stones, but I am at least trying to help you this way.

Writing isn’t as dangerous as speaking

Supposing we consider a particular time where you foolishly uttered something something against your own beliefs. You become a prey to the media and they start stalking you over the issue. There’s no way to escape. You can do nothing. But in the case of Tweets, you can revert to your old beliefs just by letting people know that you weren’t in your senses when you said that. Tweople are nice folks!  Be prolific with your words! But don’t over do it! You will be taken for a spammer and Tweople might unfollow you.You may even create sympathy with your words.

You can donate to charity and still brag about it

In real life, when you donate to a charity service, not many people know about it unless or otherwise you create an advertisement on television and radio. Most people wouldn’t care if you did that. Or even if people did, that would be soon forgotten. But in the Twitter Wonderland, there’s this concept of retweets that stay in people’s minds forever. Say, a tweet like “I gave INR 50,000 to this organisation today” or ” We(some party) donated half of the event’s revenue to our Nation’s greatest patriot *some name* who died for his country today”. The power of retweets is underestimated. Such heart-wrenching tales could give them the publicity+ retweet juice they badly want. On other interesting aspect of Twittering is they may create a controversy by responding only to Tweets of a particular sect. The people of that sect will of course brag about it and ask their relatives to join Twitter just for following you.

Actually, there are a million reasons why Indian Politicians should join Twitter. But delineating them all would be beyond the scope of this blog.

I would like you all to contribute to the article by letting me know in the comments section,  your own reasons.