Youth and Voting. Somewhere in our system, these don't go together always.There is always a percentage of youth population who believe that it is not cool to vote. There may be several reasons that govern this attitude like 'none of the political parties are good', 'what difference can I make?', 'I have some other important appointment' and so on and so forth.
But then why let less than half the population decide who will rule us. Ironically less than 50% forms the majority.
Automatically the questions arises,"How to inspire the youth to go and vote?".In this period of e-commerce where everything comes to you, it is rather a herculean task to not just inspire someone to vote but also make them go to the voting center to vote !
This task can be achieved up to an extent only by differentiating the crowd into groups and targeting the groups.As we are considering the youth here, the best medium for communication is through social media, social mobile apps to be precise.
Grouping of the audience and ways to target them can be something like this:
Stats people - Stats Approach
These are people who take statistics as the most important thing in life . These people also tend to ask questions and expect numerical answers.
"A simple example may satisfy these kind of people.
A and B are the candidates for election in an area where there are 100 people.50 go to vote.A gets 30 votes and B gets 20 votes. So A win by a margin of 10 votes, whereas A actually got only 30 votes from 100 people !
And they say majority !
30 people decide the future of 100 people? Wake up voters ! You can make a change !"
This can be sent through mails and messages using social apps (like wechat and Watsapp).
Message forwarding people - Bill Gates sharing fortune approach
This is an interesting scenario. Here, the task is to get a dumb person make a strong decision.
In our internet life time each of us has at least once come across the 'Bill Gates is sharing his fortune' mail, in which the more we forward that mail, the more chance of us becoming the successor for Bill Gates wealth.We all might even have forwarded this mail atleast once. That was when the internet was new.Well, there are still people who believe these and forward these kind of mails. Targetting those audience, a normal message like the following will suffice to get them to vote.
"Mukesh Ambani is sharing his wealth.All you have to do is forward this mail to atleast 10 people and also go and vote in the Indian General Elections 2014.Once the election is completed, a person is selected and if these criteria are met, a part of the wealth will be shared with you.There is already an accusation that Mukesh Ambani is running the government, so this campaign is a strong action from his team to prove the accusation false.Failing to forward this message will bring you bad luck. My friend ignored this message and was hit by an Aston Martini."
This again can be shared through all the messaging platforms.So this will be shared and shared among the target community and just the thought 'what if he actually shares his wealth ', might inspire many among these to go to the polling booth to caste their votes.
For the Gamers- The Game Approach
Create a game which is very addictive. May be a racing kind of stuff against the computer (mobile here) or something like Candy Crush Saga. When the user is on the brink to win level, a pop up comes "Pledge that you will vote".Here there are high chances that the user might even uninstall the whole game, that is where the first requirement of the game is so important. The game has to be addictive.
Now if the user pledges to vote and continue to play, give him another pop-up in the next level of the game ,'Have you voted in the past?'.
If the answer is yes, the game continues smoothly, but if the answer was NO, the user again should feel like he is winning till the last moment and at the last step suddenly the game crashes.A pop-up appears, 'The mobile chose not to play, just like you chose not to vote the last time.'
That will be an eye opener for the gamer where in he will understand that each individual is important in decision making of a country.
The same approach can be used for the group The shopping crazy girls / Share Market crazy men where in when someone attempts to enter a discount promo code before billing, a 'Don't hesitate to Vote' message appears and similarly when someone tries to buy or sell a share, a similar message appears !
There may be people in multiple groups or even some belonging to none.Social mobile media being the present mass communication platform , can be used for announcements and campaign to educate the youth to ensure that they cast their votes, and this part should target the entire audience.After all being a citizen counts and each decision can make a difference !
This is a submission for the 'Indian General Elections 2014 with social mobile apps' contest in Indiblogger.
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