Arshia Arya, Gazal Shekhawat, Joyojeet Pal
(Cite Arya, Arshia, Shekhawat, Gazal, Pal, Joyojeet. 2021. Twitter Influencing During the Second Wave Covid Crisis in India Online at https://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/twittercovid2)
We analysed the changes in following of Twitter accounts originating in India, to examine the patterns that help understand the role of influencers during this period. Here is a summary of findings.
First, we find that overall Twitter following activity increased in this period over the previous month by 67%, meaning on average, each influencer added two thirds more followers than they did the month before.
Second, cricket-related accounts continue to outperform most other accounts, and that IPL-related accounts such as those of teams gained more accounts than most news media. Virat Kohli added almost 60% more followers than the closest news channel. The top 10 cricketers added more followers than all but two news channels in India. For instance, cricketer Shreyas Iyer added more followers than the Times of India, and coach Ravi Shastri gained almost as many followers as India Today through the second wave of Covid.
Third, we find that the celebrities in general tweet very little, if at all, about COVID. The only sportsperson who added following this month with any significant COVID-related engagement was Wasim Jaffer among sportspersons, whereas among entertainers, actor Sonu Sood is the only major celebrity who gained substantial followers while also engaging significantly with content about the virus.
Fourth, we find that government and municipal accounts have gained a significant following in the last month, this suggests that citizens are turning to these as outlets while seeking information or assistance related to COVID.
Fifth, we find that a small number of accounts of businesses or business persons have seen increases in following during the COVID crisis, some of these through clever forms of advertising.
Sixth, media and journalist handles grew by almost 90% in terms of net following over the previous period, ie on average, most journalists added twice as many followers in April as they did in March. We two distinct patterns among media persons. Among journalists, the ones who have added the most followers in percentage terms are either Hindi or regional language journalists reporting on the ground. Most of these journalists took positions that were not explicitly pro-government. However, the journalists who added the highest aggregate following in numerical terms are overwhelmingly pro-government.
A look at the more detailed numbers.
Television Channels
We see that among news channels, the ones to add the most in terms of followers are all non-English channels. This signals a major change in the consumption of news by Twitter users who prefer non-English content. We see that Rajasthan-based news channels see the maximum increase in Twitter following. Overall, the news channel to get the highest increase in India, was a smaller channel (below the threshold of followers) called News Live Guwahati (@NewsLiveGhy).
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 | State of primary consumption |
| TV9Marathi | 45928 | 10.0% | 4.9% | Maharashtra |
| 1stIndiaNews | 59054 | 9.4% | 4.5% | Rajasthan |
| zeerajasthan_ | 55777 | 8.2% | 3.4% | Rajasthan |
| News18Rajasthan | 37584 | 6.5% | 4.2% | Rajasthan |
| DainikBhaskar | 82180 | 5.6% | 2.7% | Hindi Belt |
| rpbreakingnews | 26782 | 5.3% | 1.9% | Rajasthan |
| News18UP | 46811 | 4.9% | 1.3% | Uttar Pradesh |
| abpmajhatv | 43672 | 4.9% | 2.2% | Maharashtra |
| sunnewstamil | 32231 | 4.6% | 3.5% | Tamil Nadu |
| Otvnews | 30243 | 4.6% | 1.7% | Odisha |
Table 1: Top 10 News Channels with the highest percentage growth of following (min 500k followers)
If we look at the aggregated following increase in this month (increase in the absolute number of followers), we see that Aaj Tak added over 3 lakh followers in April alone, catching up with NDTV and Times of India, the two leaders in overall subscribers in India. We see that in percentage terms, the two accounts that have had the most significant increase are BBC Hindi and NDTV India, both Hindi-language channels whose coverage has been critical of the government’s handling of COVID. Aaj Tak is the channel that emerges as having the strongest comparative growth among the more followed accounts both in numerical terms and percent increase.
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 |
| Aajtak | 349614 | 2.8% | 1.3% |
| Ndtv | 191784 | 1.3% | 0.6% |
| ABPNews | 143638 | 1.3% | 0.7% |
| ZeeNews | 127389 | 2.7% | 2.1% |
| ANI | 126021 | 2.4% | 0.9% |
| BBCHindi | 102996 | 3.1% | 3.1% |
| Ndtvindia | 97372 | 4.4% | 3.0% |
| StarSportsIndia | 90360 | 1.9% | 1.0% |
| timesofindia | 88758 | 0.7% | 0.1% |
| the_hindu | 87333 | 1.3% | 0.6% |
Table 2: Top 10 News Channels with the highest aggregated growth of following in April 2021
Journalists
Dependent on their social media presence, we looked at journalists under three brackets of influence. The first category involves journalists with a relatively small following (5000 followers or more), the next has journalists with large following (50,000 followers or more). Finally, to identify journalists whose Twitter popularity has increased the most during this period, we considered the highest overall follower additions (with a threshold of journalists with at least 400,000 followers). We find a clear difference between the three.
The first category almost entirely includes journalists who were either on the field, reporting on the pandemic, or amplifying information and resources relevant to the crisis. The second category includes both frontline reporters and some senior journalists covering the 2021 assembly elections. In both of the these brackets, leading journalists in terms of proportional follower gains come from media houses known for their rebuttals to the establishment’s narrative, and the nature of their reportage highlighted critical vantages to the government’s handling of the crisis.
The third category, of the biggest gainers, is overwhelmingly one with popular anchors, who were not reporting on the ground. This category, of some of the most influential journalists, mostly includes broadcast anchors who are household names, indicating the prominence of audio-visual reporting over print coverage on Twitter. This groups of journalists, who added by far the most viewers in net terms, overwhelmingly has individuals who tend to take pro-government stances in their coverage.
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 | Organization |
| hemantrajora_ | 5365 | 57% | -3.0% | Hindustan Newspaper |
| Mithileshdhar | 2416 | 42% | 4.4% | Gaon Connection |
| NicolaCareem | 7767 | 38% | -0.2% | BBC |
| navneetmishra99 | 1704 | 37% | 10.8% | IANS |
| Nagarkoti | 3433 | 35% | 2.7% | Times of India |
| Yogital | 10355 | 29% | 0.7% | BBC |
| Bahardutt | 3251 | 28% | 0.5% | The Quint |
| Poonamjourno | 2778 | 27% | 0.5% | The Quint |
| PriyankaPulla | 1808 | 26% | 0.7% | Independent |
| Upmita | 1094 | 26% | 7.5% | Dainik Bhaskar |
Table 3: Top 10 Journalists with the highest proportional following increase (5000 +)
In Table 3 above, we see the journalists with relatively small following, above the 5000 threshold, are overwhelmingly individuals who have been on the frontlines of coverage. Both Hemant Rajaura of Hindustan and Mithilesh Dhar of Gaon Connection have been reporting on the ground as well as posting crisis information such as numbers, locations for services etc. Nicola Kareem and Yogita Limaye of the BBC were likewise important for their coverage of the scenes outside hospitals in Delhi which went viral. In this batch of journalists, we see the best evidence of increased public interest in their work through the dramatic uptick in following, two of the top three gainers in followers had actually lost followers in the previous month.
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 | Organization |
| Ranvijaylive | 11721 | 18.2% | 10.8% | Independent |
| Atanubhuyan | 8111 | 15.2% | 3.8% | Independent |
| Sonal_MK | 15192 | 14.5% | 2.6% | NDTV |
| sohitmishra99 | 10159 | 12.4% | 2.0% | NDTV |
| Sanket | 14501 | 11.8% | 3.0% | NDTV |
| Marathi_Rash | 7783 | 9.2% | 1.7% | ABP News |
| Sengarlive | 5954 | 8.9% | 1.4% | Independent |
| zoo_bear | 20421 | 8.6% | 6.1% | Alt-News |
| MnshaP | 8022 | 8.5% | 5.5% | Newslaundry |
| ShahbazAnsar_ | 7585 | 8.3% | 1.6% | ScoopWhoop |
Table 4: Top 10 Journalists with the highest proportional following increase (50,000 +)
In this second list of journalists, we see a slightly different pattern. The percentage increase in following is relatively smaller due to the larger scale of following, but the pattern here is a relatively higher number of journalists from independent and non-traditional news sources. The journalist with the highest increase in following in this category is Ranvijay Singh, whose work was largely the on-the-ground coverage of COVID in Uttar Pradesh, while the second most followed was Atanu Bhuyan, a political commentator from Assam, whose work focused less on COVID, and more on the assembly elections. The list has more coverage of the states – Rashmi Puranik and Gaurav Sengar cover Maharashtra and UP respectively. While this list includes journalists with frontline work, an interesting aspect here is that most coverage from this list of journalists tends to be confrontational of the central government’s narrative.
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 | Organization |
| RajatSharmaLive | 153396 | 2.1% | 1.3% | India TV |
| sudhirchaudhary | 46190 | 0.7% | 0.4% | ZEE News |
| RubikaLiyaquat | 44605 | 1.4% | 0.4% | ABP News |
| bhogleharsha | 40067 | 0.5% | 0.3% | Cricbuzz |
| DChaurasia2312 | 38922 | 4.3% | 2.9% | News Nation |
| abhisar_sharma | 37271 | 3.0% | 1.5% | The Live TV |
| Sakshijoshii | 32872 | 5.9% | 4.0% | Independent |
| Brajeshlive | 29748 | 6.8% | 1.6% | Bharat Samachar |
| SwetaSinghAT | 28854 | 0.9% | 0.4% | Aaj Tak |
| Chitraaum | 27656 | 2.1% | 0.9% | Aaj Tak |
Table 5: Top 10 Journalists with the highest aggregate following increase
The list of journalists who added the most followers shows two patterns. First that they are mostly television presenters, and second, that their coverage tends to be sympathetic to the central government. In general, because each of these journalists already has a very large following on Twitter, the proportionate increase in following has been smaller. Also these journalists generally tend to add large numbers of followers on a regular basis. The three journalists whose following increased the most in this period include Brajesh Mishra, Sakshi Joshi and Deepak Chaurasia. Brajesh Mishra of Bharat Samachar has been extremely active on social media, and in fact tweeted that he would not cover the May 2 election results. His account also saw the most dramatic increase in following. Sakshi Joshi, an independent journalist who runs a YouTube channel has also been very active on social media and critical of the government.
Celebrities and other Influencers
We see here that sportspersons are significantly more influential than entertainers during the last month. First, we find that the IPL has been an important sporting event as far as social media influence is concerned. The top 10 cricketers added more followers than all but two news channels in India.
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 |
| ishankishan51 | 39960 | 21.1% | 77.1% |
| surya_14kumar | 98469 | 18.3% | 20.8% |
| Sundarwashi5 | 67101 | 16.7% | 20.3% |
| deepak_chahar9 | 26403 | 16.7% | 5.2% |
| imK_Ahmed13 | 13587 | 16.1% | 2.6% |
| WasimJaffer14 | 47374 | 15.3% | 20.0% |
| imShard | 40218 | 14.0% | 8.6% |
| NitishRana_27 | 6861 | 13.7% | 4.8% |
| ShreyasIyer15 | 102066 | 8.3% | 5.1% |
| RishabhPant17 | 8022 | 6.1% | 5.2% |
Table 6: sportspersons the highest proportional increase in following (min 50,000 followers)
We see in the table anove that for two months, Ishan Kishan has been adding a very significant number of followers. Of the sportspersons listed above, all but one are actively playing in the ongoing Indian Premier League. That one is retired Mumbai Ranji Player Wasim Jaffer. He is also the only figure among these who engages significantly with content related to Covid 19.
A look below at the sportspersons with the highest aggregate number of followers also shows us the scope of just how important sportspersons are in the overall twittersphere when measured through sheer numbers. Virat Kohli added almost 60% more followers than the closest news channel. The top 10 cricketers added more followers than all but two news channels in India. For instance, cricketer Shreyas Iyer added more followers than the Times of India, and coach Ravi Shastri gained almost as many followers as India Today through the second wave of Covid. On one hand, these numbers point to the potential impact that sportspersons could have on the information ecology if they were more engaged in messaging related to COVID, on another, they point to the continued desire for engaging in other kinds of content irrespective of the pandemic.
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 |
| imVkohli | 571195 | 1.4% | 0.9% |
| sachin_rt | 177724 | 0.5% | 0.3% |
| virendersehwag | 145827 | 0.7% | 0.5% |
| ImRo45 | 168644 | 0.9% | 0.7% |
| ImRaina | 161233 | 0.9% | 0.5% |
| hardikpandya7 | 142768 | 2.2% | 1.7% |
| RishabhPant17 | 137160 | 6.1% | 5.2% |
| klrahul11 | 135993 | 2.5% | 1.6% |
| Jaspritbumrah93 | 112334 | 2.9% | 2.5% |
| ShreyasIyer15 | 102066 | 8.3% | 5.1% |
Table 7: Sportspersons the highest aggregate following increase
A look at entertainers also shows us one interesting pattern. The entertainer who added the highest number of followers during the second wave of covid was also the only entertainer who engaged significantly with COVID related messaging – actor Sonu Sood.
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 |
| SonuSood | 445493 | 7.7% | 2.9% |
| Akshaykumar | 267813 | 0.7% | 0.5% |
| SrBachchan | 187624 | 0.4% | 0.3% |
| Alluarjun | 122825 | 2.2% | 1.0% |
| iHrithik | 115464 | 0.4% | 0.2% |
| Ajaydevgn | 110064 | 0.8% | 0.5% |
| BeingSalmanKhan | 107776 | 0.3% | 0.1% |
| Iamsrk | 106563 | 0.3% | 0.1% |
| AnupamPKher | 104457 | 0.6% | 0.5% |
| Priyankachopra | 91441 | 0.3% | 0.3% |
Table 8: Entertainers with the highest aggregate following increase
A small number of celebrities lost followers, such as Anushka Sharma, Arjun Kapoor and Chetan Bhagat. Among spiritual leaders, handles such as @AvdheshanandG, @swamidipankar, and @SadhguruJV all gained significant numbers of followers – Swami Dipankar for put out messaging on breathing techniques for strengthening lungs during COVID. Other gurus like @yogrishiramdev, @SriSri and @Gurmeetramrahim saw relatively small increases or decreases, reducing in significance on social media compared to the other spiritual figures.
Figure 1: Swami Dipankar, one of the spiritual leaders with the fastest increase in followers during the seconf phase of COVID-19
A last category we considered was businesses. Here, we list the top five business persons by the number of followers added.
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 |
| NischalShetty | 44589 | 44% | 7.5% |
| Riteshagar | 10017 | 9% | 2.6% |
| Bhash | 11829 | 9% | 5.6% |
| kunalb11 | 23460 | 9% | 3.1% |
| gautam_adani | 20469 | 6% | 2.7% |
Table 9: Top 5 Business persons by percent following increase
The most interesting case is that of Nischal Shetty, an entrepreneur with an interest in cryptocurrencies, who has been gaining followers at a rapid pace for two months. During the second wave of COVID, he used two hashtags to further promote his company #IndiaWantsCrypto and #CryptoFightsCorona. Other entrepreneurs such as Ritesh Agarwal of Oyo Rooms and Kunal Shah of Cred were both able to monetize elements of Covid to enhance their brands through advertising.
Figure 2: Tweets from highly retweeted businesspersons in April 2021 which highlight the connection between the second wave of Covid-19 and brand management
Activists
We looked at individuals with well-known, consistent political stances who are highly engaged, highly followed and highly retweeted on either side, and looked at the gain in followers in both absolute numbers as well as in percentage terms. Our sampling mechanism for referring to an individual as an activist is based loosely on either them self-describing as activists or being referred to as activists.
We used a minimum threshold of 100,000 followers as an inclusion criterion. We noted an interesting trend. The biggest gainers were those who are critical of the government’s COVID-19 handling. In general, most of the activists, with the exception of Surendra Poonia and Anshul Saxena tend to dissent with the central government in their messaging.
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 |
| Swara Bhasker | 38531 | 2.7% | 2.2% |
| Dhruv_Rathee | 32463 | 3.0% | 2.2% |
| Actor Siddharth | 25880 | 0.6% | 0.1% |
| Prashant Bhushan | 22914 | 1.1% | 1.2% |
| Saket Gokhale | 17436 | 10.5% | 2.3% |
| Dr. Kafeel Khan | 15386 | 13.6% | 4.8% |
| Surendra Poonia | 14963 | 4.0% | 0.4% |
| Prof. Dilip Mandal | 11586 | 6.6% | 6.6% |
| Anshul Saxena | 9935 | 1.0% | 0.7% |
| Prakash Raaj | 9819 | 0.4% | 0.2% |
Table 9: Top 10 Activists with the highest aggregate following increase
From the accounts that are generally pro-government, Surendra Poonia saw a major increase in following compared to the previous period. Other accounts known for commentary on social issues such as those of Kangana Ranaut, who has of late been a vocal supporter of the central government and opponent of its detractors has lost following. She also recently put out a video asking people not to spread negativity, hinting at the criticism of the government on social media over the handling of the COVID crisis. She lost over 3000 followers, among the few celebrities who are showing a negative trend for two months consistently. Two other individuals who lost followers are Madhu Kishwar and Nupur Sharma (@unsubtledesi) who wrote an article in late April discouraging journalists from sharing pictures of dead bodies of COVID victims. (https://www.opindia.com/2021/04/reuters-picture-crematorium-covid-19-second-wave-india-journalism-vulturism/)
Politicians
However, these trends do not seem to continue once we compare the politicians themselves. On comparing the top 10 politicians each from the ruling party as well as the opposition, earlier trends
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 |
| Narendra Modi | 884562 | 1.3% | 0.8% |
| Amit Shah | 371023 | 1.5% | 0.8% |
| Yogi Adityanath | 349043 | 2.7% | 1.4% |
| Rahul Gandhi | 342316 | 1.9% | 1.2% |
| Arvind Kejriwal | 301580 | 1.4% | 0.6% |
| rajnathsingh | 167284 | 0.9% | 0.5% |
| yadavakhilesh | 160444 | 1.2% | 0.8% |
| ashokgehlot51 | 153524 | 6.3% | 2.7% |
| nitin_gadkari | 148721 | 1.8% | 1.0% |
| priyankagandhi | 128116 | 3.8% | 2.2% |
| ChouhanShivraj | 107256 | 1.5% | 0.8% |
| MamataOfficial | 106702 | 2.0% | 1.5% |
| drharshvardhan | 92973 | 3.3% | 1.0% |
| OfficeofUT | 82861 | 8.3% | 2.7% |
| yadavtejashwi | 76279 | 2.5% | 2.2% |
| NitishKumar | 72294 | 1.1% | 0.7% |
Table 10: Politicians with the high aggregate following increase
We see that among the most followed accounts, Ashok Gehlot features prominently, growing faster in both March and April, partly because his social media feed has been fairly focused on putting out COVID related information. Similarly Chief Ministers uniformly saw an increase in overall following – while Uddhav Thackeray grew at the fastest level in April, his twitter output was overwhelmingly on COVID. Likewise, Nitish Kumar, Yogi Adityanath, Shivraj Chouhan, Mamata Banerjee, and Pinarayi Vijayan all saw significant increases in Twitter following over the previous month. This suggests a greater reliance on state rather than national politicians in the time of COVID, even though in aggregate terms, Narendra Modi’s following is so large that it dwarfs all the other politicians’ increase in following. Thackeray’s social media presence was also important since it was used to relay messages during the state-wide lockdown, ramped up testing etc.
We also see increase in following among key BJP leaders including JP Nadda, Kailash Vijayvargiya, and Ramesh Pokhriyal. Some of this can be attributed to the elections in West Bengal in which both were very active. Bihar politician Tejashwi Yadav managed to secure a place for himself in the graph, coinciding with his proactive role in highlighting the policy failures leading to the Indian COVID spike aka the second wave.
| Twitter ID | N of followers added in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in April 2021 | Percent Increase in followers in March 2021 |
| VarshaEGaikwad | 73252 | 38.8% | 14.9% |
| srinivasiyc | 56493 | 20.4% | 0.3% |
| SupriyaShrinate | 20328 | 19.6% | 12.5% |
| shalabhmani | 29755 | 11.5% | 3.9% |
| mla_sudhakar | 13071 | 11.3% | 3.9% |
| pappuyadavjapl | 15716 | 11.2% | 0.2% |
| RealBacchuKadu | 21770 | 10.3% | 7.1% |
| AmitV_Deshmukh | 11888 | 9.6% | 2.4% |
| DrRPNishank | 103195 | 9.3% | 1.7% |
| NANA_PATOLE | 11902 | 9.3% | 7.3% |
Finally, we look at some of the important political accounts that are not key figures in the government. The highest gainers in percentage terms, among politicians with 10,000 or more followers, are listed in table 11 below. We see that Varsha Gaikwad, Maharashtra MLA from Dharavi and the state’s Education Minister is a key account in both months, though her increase in following was in large part due to the education-related issues, some specific to examination-postponements.
Besides Maharashtra, another state which has seen an increase in political Twitter use in the second wave of Covid is Karnataka. Karnataka Health Miister K Sudhakar has gained much following during this period, but possibly one of the most discussed accounts is that of Srinivas BV, IYC National President and key leader in Karnataka who has been leading up Covid relief efforts in Bangalore. In the last month, his Twitter handle has received mentions and traffic, since efforts such as sending oxygen and relief supplies have been organized through a war room centered around his social media presence.