Social media handlers get fat sum, fail to do Naidu job

VIJAYAWADA: Despite spending vast amounts on Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s social media platforms and government’s image building agencies, improper handling of important issues has become a point of discussion among the bureaucratic circles.

Hubilo, a social networking agency, is being paid Rs 6 crore per annum to take care of the CM’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. The agency lacks a thematic approach and has been simply posting two to three tweets of Mr Naidu every day, which is not making much of a difference.

Group M, an image building agency, is being paid Rs 25 crore to promote the welfare activities and government schemes but no extra mileage has been noticed by the administration.

Unlike earlier, Mr Naidu doesn’t have any chief public relations officer. During his earlier stint as CM, media handling had led to enormous mileage for the government and Mr Naidu. This time, media handling and PR relations have been handed over to contract professional agencies such as Group M and Hubilo. 

As far as media approach is concerned, multiple agencies have been working despite having a separate adviser for communications.

Since June 2014, the information and public relations department was handling multiple tasks under the guidance of Mr Parakala Prabhakar and its response time to any query was just eight minutes. 

The tasks done by Mr Prabhakar was visible during the foreign visits of Mr Naidu and his team to attract investments. In fact, Mr Prabkahar used to interact with international media and several curtain raisers appeared in the media in different local languages of the respective nations about Mr Naidu’s efforts to attract investments for AP.

Apart from Group M and Hubilo, around 160 media professionals are working for the government on contract basis from different platforms. The results are not encouraging as they haven’t give up the conventional approach of attracting the media.

Hubilo has not projected Mr Naidu on social media in a novel approach, except posting online the crux of the messages from the CMO’s communication wing. Despite being paid huge amounts, both the agencies have not created much impact. Both the agencies don’t have a local flavour and deep understanding about AP’s issues.

Due to the presence of more non-Telugu speaking people in handling the FB and Twitter pages, both are dealing with adverse comments on the government and they are reflecting the CM’s image on wider social platforms.