How Modi’s Social Media Skills Earned Him a Spot on Time’s Internet Influencers List

How Modi’s Social Media Skills Earned Him a Spot on Time’s Internet Influencers List.

Since Narendra Modi took office nearly two years ago, his social media might has helped cultivate his international profile as an Indian prime minister who receives rockstar welcomes at concert venues and sports arenas overseas, shares smiling selfies with other heads of state and boasts among the biggest banks of Twitter followers of world political leaders.

This week, he burnished that image by winning a spot for a second consecutive year on Time magazine’s list of the 30 most influential people on the Internet.

The roundup of online luminaries describes Mr. Modi as an “Internet star,” noting that the prime minister, unlike other world leaders, uses social media to break news and conduct diplomacy. With 18.7 million followers, Mr. Modi ranks second only to President Barack Obama among political leaders.
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The magazine’s picks of Internet A-listers also includes U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump, who has nearly 7 million Twitter followers, artist Kanye West and the author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling.


Mr. Modi used Twitter to announce Mr. Obama’s visit to India last year as the guest of honor at India’s Republic Day parade, and signaled a breakthrough in tense relations with neighboring Pakistan by tweeting that India’s foreign secretary would travel to that country. He tweets in several languages, shouting out to other world leaders on their birthdays and congratulating them on election victories.

The digital-savvy leader and his Bharatiya Janata Party’s social media team runs a full-time, data-driven operation. It coins hashtags and uses what one member called “online volunteers”–a digital army to retweet and comment on posts relating to the prime minister and his policies–to keep him trending.

They also use specialized software to study social media behavior and track the ebbs and flows of online sentiment to Mr. Modi’s speeches and actions, funneling their analysis to help craft his message–and to tweak it when traffic turns unfavorable.

Mr. Modi appears to have become a regular on Time’s rankings. Last year, he was on its “100 Most Influential People” list where Mr. Obama called him India’s “reformer-in-chief.”