New Delhi, March 6: BJP President Amit Shah now has the second largest number of followers on social media sites for a political leader in India. The number one position is held by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Amit Shah's Twitter followers went over 1 crore and his followers on Facebook and Instagram also swelled in this period.

The most popular Indian leader Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still the most leader on social media. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has over 5 crore followers on Twitter alone. Amit Shah has also seen his Facebook page and Instagram account followers rise rapidly. This growth in increase of his followers on the social media can be attributed to his constant presence and opinions that he voices on the social media platforms.

There are reports that Amit Shah constantly keeps in touch with the social media managers of the party and even encourages other party leaders to be active on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been at the forefront of ensuring that he does not miss out on any chance to communicate or connect with the voters especially the young voters. It is general knowledge that the youth and mid-aged professionals have a high presence on these social media sites. The vote group between the age range of 20-45 years are an important section of voters due to their sheer numbers and the influence they have on the final outcome of any polls. Hence, almost all political parties have ensured that they have a strong social media outreach to attract voters.

Messages posted by leaders on social media sites and especially Twitter and Instagram give the followers a feeling of being informed and valued as the tweets are mostly about current topics and reflect the view of their leader. Also, the perception among followers of having no intermediary between themselves and the one they are following adds to the feel good factor among followers and encourages new ones to join the ranks. Due to all these factors, the trend of political leaders focusing on growing their social media followers and presence will only rise in the coming times.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 07, 2018 11:25 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).