I&B ministry utilising new media like never before

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading from the front, social media outreach of I&B ministry and its associated bodies has got a major boost with over 16 lakh followers on Twitter, nearly 90,000 YouTube subscribers and around 30 lakh likes on Facebook.
Senior officials say the Information and Broadcasting ministry has utilised the new media to disseminate information in an unprecedented manner.
"The celebration of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee's birthday on December 25 as the Good Governance Day is just one of the examples of how I&B ministry utilised the new medium aggressively. On Facebook, the ministry posted 35 times, including around 22 plates with Vajpayee's poetry written on them.

"And as per our information, in a single day, the reach of these posts was approximately 7.5 lakh people," a senior official told PTI.
On the same day, officials of the I&B ministry also posted another 43 posts on twitter which reached another 4,82,000 people approximately, officials added. These posts were retweeted in one day more than 8,460 times, they added.
The Ministry of I&B and associated bodies like Press Information Bureau, All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan have established a sophisticated strategy to lead online coverage of important events live, an official said.

And this strategy is evolving and the ministry is now planning to extensively use 'Whatsapp' and develop mobile applications to expand its reach in the social media space.

Citing instances, where the ministry's use of social media has been quite successful, officials named PM's address at Madison Square Garden, IFFI opening and closing ceremonies, launch of flagship programmes etc.
"The kind of impact this social media strategy has can be assessed from the fact that the total number of impressions of I&B Ministry's Twitter account during the period when International Film Festival was held was a substantial 26 lakhs," a senior official said.