Last week, Anand Mahindra, one of India?s high-profile business leaders, posted a couple of tweets about Chennai Express, the latest Bollywood blockbuster. The first one said; ?Saw Chennai Express. SRK has a love for life that the pharma industry should market as an anti-depressant.? His next was: ?Worn lungi at home since Ooty schooldays. Kids called me a Scotsman with an oversized kilt.Thanks rohitshettyfilm for making the lungi cool!? The chairman and MD of Mahindra & Mahindra was one of the first Indian businessmen to adopt the social media as a way to reach out to customers (many of his tweets are about the company?s plans and events) as well as the expanding Twitter universe. Being articulate, witty and quick on the Twitter draw has enhanced his profile considerably, given him credibility and added a new dimension to the power of individuals and leaders to exert influence. Indeed, he belongs to a new group of leaders who are being labelled the New Influencers.
The traditional definition of influence was the power to shape policy or ensure favourable treatment from someone, especially through status, contacts, or wealth. Each day?s newspaper headlines give us a new example of influence in terms of reach and impact, some positive, but mostly negative. However, the moot question is whether today?s celebrities, industry or political leaders exercise clout in the traditional sense or does social media add a new element of influence? Twitter has over 300 million users globally and is the fastest growing social media platform on the planet. Those who rule Twittersphere have a major influence on others mainly because they speak the language of the 21st century. A recent survey by Burson-Marsteller shows that technology is indeed propelling influence. The report concludes that an individual?s image on the Internet is increasingly an asset worth preserving and developing and the opinions of these individuals will soon be something you can tangibly measure.
Agencies like Klout and PeerIndex are already doing that using a social scoring system that assigns individuals and corporates a grade based on data points from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Instead of calculating individual authority by the number of followers, they use the social media currency of retweets, likes and comments to measure online reputation. The Burson-Marsteller survey, using a similar matrix, found that the most influential world leaders on Twitter are President Obama and Pope Francis, with the latter having a clear edge. His humble approach, liberal views and conduct since becoming Pope have been enhanced by his regular tweets expressing his views on a range of issues. Obama, with 34.5 million followers, was ranked high for ?twiplomacy?, the use of Twitter for diplomatic relations. In fact, one of the more significant findings of the survey was that more than three-quarters of world leaders are on Twitter.
That?s in stark contrast to India where only a handful of corporate and political leaders use the medium. Despite low Internet penetration in India, there are approximately 20 million Twitter users, and crucially, those are upwardly mobile Indians and the elite, a section of society that carries considerable collective clout. Judging by surveys done overseas and prevailing trends, the digital platform is already playing an increasingly powerful role in expanding individual profiles, company profiles and for marketing and research, which makes it paradoxical and puzzling why so few corporate leaders are taking advantage of the social media to broaden their profiles and reach. Currently, the most active Indians on Twitter, outside of Bollywood and the media, are Anand Mahindra, Digvijay Singh, Narendra Modi, Omar Abdullah, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Jay Panda, Naveen Jindal, Derek O?Brien, Shashi Tharoor, Sushma Swaraj, Subramanian Swamy, Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal and Chetan Bhagat.
Vijay Mallya used to be hyper active but now rarely tweets, for obvious reasons. In the corporate arena, businessmen who are active on the digital platform are really the New Influencers. A presence on social media is seen as a major image builder and marketing tool: A business leader like Mahindra gets an expanded profile and influence, gains credibility and, more importantly, can get a positive spin on his company and its products by leveraging positive customer feedback. Analysts predict that online reputation and influence will become increasingly significant for consumers, brands and marketers alike. If we in India follow the trends that are shaping opinion and spreading influence in other countries, the use of platforms like Twitter will be a necessity, not an option.
Currently, with the exception of Suriname, all Latin American countries have Twitter accounts as do all 45 European countries. In North America, 79% of senior government officials have Twitter accounts. The instant connect of the platform can prove invaluable. Panama?s President Ricardo Martinelli scored a recent Twitter scoop when he sent out the first picture of Cuban missile equipment found aboard a North Korean-flagged vessel that was seized before it could transit the Panama Canal. ?Panama captured a North Korean-flagged vessel coming from Cuba with an undeclared cargo of weaponry. The material was hidden under a shipment of sugar,? he tweeted. In contrast, Manmohan Singh?s Twitter account reads like a series of press releases from the Press Information Bureau. I doubt if he reads any of them himself. A majority of Indian politicians and businessmen are just too conservative, secure in their traditional comfort zones, which is why digital warriors like Mahindra are being called the New Influencers.
The writer is Group Editor, Special Projects & Features,
?The Indian Express?