The Andhra Pradesh government headed by chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu is set to woo social media influencers to spread information about the state’s welfare schemes and initiatives.
This network of influencers will complement the existing wide network of employees working under the information and public relations (I&PR) department across the state. The state government also has the Andhra Pradesh Digital Corporation Limited (APDCL). The APDCL’s — which has outsourced hundreds of employees — objective is to use digital and social media to propagate government programmes and policies, post messages from the CM and his cabinet colleagues, issuing rejoinders to negative reports in the media and counter opposition propaganda against the government on social media. The Naidu government decided to bring in the social media influencers policy, which will also be overseen by the APDCL under I&PR Department, given their expanding and effective outreach to the younger generation. Influencers who consistently produce impactful and positive publicity for government schemes and initiatives may be given preference for paid campaigns. “They must disseminate official government information, clarifications and public-awareness material. Opposition YSR Congress party alleged that the Naidu government was indulging in paid social-media promotion to cover up its failures.
A new policy to formally engage social media influencers to disseminate information was issued on September 28, following a formal approval by the state cabinet. For audio-visual content created by the influencer and approved by the government, the remuneration will be ₹ 15,000, ₹ 7,500, ₹ 5,000 and ₹ 2,500 for these four categories. He said even if one influencer with over one lakh followers posted one video a day, the government would incur an expenditure of ₹ 4.5 lakh per month.
The policy’s objective is to strengthen its digital outreach and public communication by using influencers to “amplify” government communications and public-awareness campaigns, including the active promotion of welfare schemes, infrastructure development and other initiatives across the state. “The maximum amount to be paid to each influencer will be ₹ 75,000 per month,” the government order said. They are also required to help counter fake news and do fact-checking of posts against the government,” the order said. “The government has come out with the social media influencer policy after realising that people were no longer trusting its supportive media ecosystem,” party spokesperson Vangaveeti Narendra said. “It is not known how many influencers the government is engaging,” he said and demanded immediate withdrawal of the policy, as tax payers’ money should not be diverted to TDP social media activists and self-promotion.
