New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has topped the list of most social media savvy-ministers in the present Cabinet while External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj ranked second among eight other top union ministers, according to a joint study by ET Magazine and California-based Frrole Inc.
Citing the study, the Times of India said that both Swaraj and minister of state with independent charge for power, coal, new and renewable energy Piyush Goyal, occupied the second slot. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ranked sixth.
However, according to the study, PM Modi led from the front in the social media department.
Frrole Inc is a social intelligence company based in Palo Alto, California, which analysed and ranked the ministers based on their social media activity.
The "sentiments distribution", which analyses an individual's social media activities and is split into positive, negative and neutral, puts the PM in a different league. He scores 78% positive and 14% negative. That puts him way ahead of Swaraj (59% and 33%) and Rajnath Singh (59% and 30%), the report said.
"This shows that Modi's social media presence is mostly about positive, feel-good messaging -more representative of PR usage than operational, unlike some of his ministers," TOI quoted Amarpreet Kalkat, co-founder of Frrole, as saying.
Following is the complete list of social activity score of our ministers:
Narendra Modi: 8.5
Sushma Swaraj: 7.3
Piyush Goyal: 7.3
Smriti Irani: 7.2
Rajnath Singh: 7.2
Arun Jaitley: 7.1
Suresh Prabhu: 7
Ravi Shankar Prasad: 6.9
Harsh Vardhan: 6.7
Nirmala Seetharaman: 6.7
The BJP-led NDA government is perhaps the first time that political parties tried to tap the virtual world so relentlessly. And the trend continues. From issuing routine press releases, addressing citizens' complaints to seeking opinions, NDA ministers have been active users of social media, the report added.
