Social media campaign behind PTI rally success
Ammar Shahbazi
KARACHI: One of the most powerful forces behind Imran Khan’s stunning rally on Sunday at the Minar-e-Pakistan was the presence of urban, apolitical youths in the crowd, who, according to observers, mobilised by the social media websites, came out in droves to endorse the “manifesto of change”.
Independent observers estimated that at least 100,000 people participated in the party’s “save Pakistan” rally in Lahore on Sunday.
Intelligence agencies confirmed the participation of over 80,000 people, mostly youths.
The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) is perhaps the first political party in the country that has reaped the benefit of websites like Facebook and Twitter at such a scale.
The credit for such a successful social media campaign goes to the meticulously-thought out strategy that the party executed to yield the desired results.
“Our party has a social media cell comprising 15 to 20 volunteers based in various cities of Pakistan and abroad,” said Arsalan T Ghumman, the secretary-general of the Karachi chapter of the PTI and one of the members of the social media cell.
The volunteers had divided the time zones to keep updating the websites round the clock.
“The volunteers in Pakistan worked in the days and the ones abroad – in the Middle East, the US and the UK – worked in their working hours when it’s night here,” said Ghumman.
For the Minar-e-Pakistan rally, the PTI had chalked out a detailed social media strategy about eight months ago with four official pages on Facebook and twitter account that was run side by side with the official website.
The volunteers got themselves involved in online discussions, sent invitations, highlighted burning political issues and kept the followers updated on the stand of the party on every issue.
And the result is out. “We are overwhelmed by the response. We worked hard, and it paid more than we expected,” said Ghumman.
Source: Dawn
Date:11/1/2011
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