Divya Spandana interview: How a 'novice' resurrected Congress party on social media

In May this year, Rahul Gandhi chose former actor and MP Divya Spandana to resurrect the moribund social media department of the Congress. Within four months, Divya has turned around Congress' social media strategy.

Initially criticised as too junior and as an interloper, Divya added teeth to the social media campaigns of the Congress.

Though junior in hierarchy and experience, she added spunk and substance to the team which has come to life. In an exclusive interview with DNA, Divya Spandana spoke to Kartikeya Sharma on her social media goals, trolls and Rahul Gandhi. Here are excerpts:

Q: What made you say yes to the social media offer. It was the weakest department in the organisation?
A: That was the best reason too. When you hit rock bottom, there's no other way but upwards. Challenges are fun and a great way to learn and experience life.

Q: Why did you decide to take up this challenge?
A:Social media is a very interesting space. I must admit when I initially took over I knew very little about it. Over the last few months, I've learnt a lot and I'm still learning. The digital space is like politics. You can never fully understand it and that is something I find very interesting, because it keeps changing and throwing up new and fascinating dynamics.

Q: What has been the biggest challenge for you in this department?
A: You will be surprised to know, that when I took over the department I had not been active on social media for nearly half a year. I felt that there was too much chatter and it wasn’t the platform I wanted to be on. I did not want to have an opinion on everything. I also never wanted to put my life on social media. Getting back online was the first challenge for me personally. I still don't have an opinion on everything and neither have I compromised on my private space.

The other thing was, when I joined there were less than a handful of women, no offence to men, but women can make a big difference by bringing in their perspective in any field. Now, 85% of our office is run by women. Best decision ever!

Not knowing much about social media was not a challenge or a deterrent, because I took this up to learn.

Q: What is the current challenge before the department you head?
A: When I joined Congress, we were already late on social media. Social media was dominated by one voice, a really loud voice, which was controlling the narrative. It had only one perspective. We wanted to bring in the other perspectives by getting more diverse voices online. Controlling the narrative is not our agenda.

Our agenda is to bring in balance where people can converse, engage with one another and contribute to the idea of India. A lot can happen over social media.

In all modesty, our social media contribution has been minuscule. Mood of the people has changed. Mr Rahul Gandhi has not gone back on his views on GST or demonetization. BJP called our narrative anti-national. Mr Gandhi after his address at Mt Carmel actually got trolled on social media for the comment he made on 'Make in India' and not enough jobs.

People earlier were not ready to listen to Mr Gandhi but now they are willing to listen to him and many are saying that he said the right thing. His older speeches on MSP, GST, demonetization, jobs; are doing well today. Earlier they wouldn’t get traction but today the response to them is on an altogether different scale.

His Berkeley speech was watched live on our website by 57,000 people at 7am.

Q: Twitter account of Rahul Gandhi is far more in news than other social media accounts?
A: You notice because you use Twitter a lot. He is on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Audiences differ from platform to platform. Our reach is organic and our followers are real. If you compare the followers of Prime Minister with that of actual engagement and retweets and compare it with the account of Mr. Gandhi, they do just as well sometimes more. Because there aren’t bots in our system. BJP has manipulated social media technology and social media companies tend to be far more predisposed towards PM which inflates his followers.

Q: You talk about discussion and interaction but social media does the opposite. It hardens opinions and elections in 2014 reflected the trend.
A: India voted a certain way because of the way social media was used. Sentiments moved towards BJP. Lot of non-right people voted for (Narendra) Modi. There is a large chunk today sitting in the middle and my focus is on that group. My messaging is geared towards that group.

Q: Can Congress match BJP’s social media team?
A: Yes. We may not have the resources and the money, but we have people.

Q: Social media campaigns need to be married to organsational campaigns. BJP has achieved the equilibrium. What about Congress?
A: I cannot speak on behalf of the organisation. We did create powerful campaigns and all of them were taken up either by the Congress organisation or civil society. Civil society appreciated it and participated too which made it a success. We don't work alone. It's an ecosystem that works in tandem.
Even Gujarat’s campaign of development going crazy, has worked well for us. There has been a marriage of social media and grass roots campaign. Everywhere Mr. Gandhi went in villages in Gujarat, he asked what has happened to Vikas and the public resonated the online campaign.

Q: Lastly, what was the brief you received from Rahul Gandhi when you were given the charge of this department?
A: His brief was simple and it has worked brilliantly for us. Focus on the truth.