What young people in Uttar Pradesh think and do ?
Once again, with Facebook Audience Insights, let us try to get into the minds of your Uttar Pradesh residents
If you have not read my previous article on Facebook Audience Insights, you need to read that first, as it will give you context for this one.
Let us go to Uttar Pradesh
And young people in the 18–25 age group
To get a more grassroots vibe, let’s focus on people who use Hindi
And let us confine ourselves to the hopelessly single
First, let’s take a look at the demographics that churns out. A well-expected gender gap. 80% of these people are men. But then overall on Facebook only 22% people are females. Sadly.
Contrary to any conclusions you might jump to about these people, let me remind you, it is more likely from an average person in this group to be a post graduate than it is for the rest of Facebook. Yes you heard me.
These folks are much more likely to be in community and social services, transportation, production — than other people on Facebook.
But not a lot of urban vibes in the occupation chart, because we see dismal showing in the fields of IT, Engineering, Mathematics or Management and Sales
The big cities generate the most Facebook users, of course starting from Lucknow. But surprising, even with its proximity to the capital, Noida fares below other hotbeds like Bareilly and Gorakhpur
On a more relative scale, we see Gorakhpur, Saharanpur and Mathura having a much much higher probability than other places to have young people on Facebook. The new Chief Minister from Gorakhpur has probably improved the fortune of the city a bit.
For Facebook’s revenue perspectives, these folks aren’t much useful, as they have a dismal average rate of 7 — for the number of times they have clicked on ads. For an audience of 2 million, this is 14 million ad clicks — not exactly a high number compared to better audiences like Europe or USA, or even urban India. Given that most of these users have had a short lifespan on Facebook (post Jio-effect mostly), the numbers are understandable.
99% of these people primarily use a Mobile phone. Again, an extremely obvious fact, because I am not sure how many of these people actually have ever even properly used full blown desktop computers. This is a generation that starts their digital life on smartphones powered by Jio. Interestingly, a respectable 20% are using mobile web, instead of the app. And we see close to zero penetration by Apple here.
Ok all that was just a precursory look at insights, that mostly just confirmed hunched, than show anything new.
Let us get to the gravy part of the analysis — the liked pages.
Among many groups of people I targeted and found insights on, this is definitely the only one where all the interest, is entirely focussed on politics, and politics and nothing else. Looking at absolute numbers, Akhilesh Yadav is killing it, at 20% off all these people having liked his page. Mind you though likes are not the same as approval rating. I have Rahul Gandhi and Modi both liked, because I want to stay abreast of what they say, not to show my affiliation to them. Consider these numbers as evidence of political awareness too, and not just approval ratings. Samajwadi Party and BJP are the only things visible from the top. Mayawati and Congress do not really exist, at least in the minds of the young Facebook-savvy UP walla anymore. As far as media presence goes, there is only Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala.
All the coverage of Yogi Adityanath’s atrocious name-changing policies, and all the discussion about UP politics on main stream media that you see from your urban media (Times of India, Times Now, NDTV, Hindustan Times… ) none of that matters in the scheme of things. These people aren’t reading the same shit we are reading.
Piyush Goyal, a definite urban man’s favourite, making a respectable appearance on this list means, if BJP stays on for more terms, you have a definite climber here. If not the PM’s office, this guy will definite land somewhere near. He has the urban and the rural bases covered, unlike Yogi Adityanath, who won’t sell in Bangalore or Mumbai or Chennai.
Once we take a look at relative numbers and affinity, SP makes more appearances than BJP, and that is because SP’s focus is on UP, while BJP is a pan-India party. Which means theres little chance of people outside UP to take interest in Samajwadi Party pages, so the correlation would be strong there.
Akhilesh Yadav should know that young people (80% of whom are male) are more likely to like Dimple Yadav’s page than his. Not sure how he would take that, but that’s what the data says.
If there is one thing people think of outside their narrow political-view centric lives — it is about getting a sarkari naukri. So everyone’s busy checking SSC job results on sarkariresult.com
Finally, let us look at page likes category wise. This starts throwing quite a few gems.
First off, these we already know (Kaam Bolta Hai is a Samajwadi Party campaign website). It is incredible that Akhilesh Yadav Fan Club is first of all listed as government service, and then it manages to find a place between sarkariresult.com and Sarkari Naukri. Listening to Akhilesh bhaiya is as important as a government job down there I guess.
It is just infinitely sad that “Meri Diary /Sad shayari” is most liked book. Because it is not a fucking book, it is a congregation of hopeless romantics of UP on the corniest page I have seen.
Fokat ka Gyan, Oyyy Pagal I Love U, Chitiyapa Unlimited. Ok I didn’t want to, when I started writing this, but 18–25 folks from UP, I am totally judging you right now. Totally. This is what happens from billionaire Ambani gets you internet via Jio before Yogi Adityanath can get you any education via schools.
Dumping the rest of the list here. Interesting Milind Gaba has a good fanbase in the hinterlands of UP. Congratulations to him. I am judging him now (although I never heard of him before today), because a man is defined by his fanbase.
Few tidbits of interest. XOLO is more popular here than Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi or Micromax. BB Ki Vines is truly ubiquitous — making an entry here. The moment I saw the spelling of Elvish in Elvish Yadav, I knew clicking that link will take me down a deep dark hole — and it did. A school boy making cringeworthy Youtube videos. (Wow I am totally judging everyone here now)
Another highly liked page is “Shayari Mohabbat”. What is with 18 year old UP folks with broken hearts ? Enough time to find other fish in the sea folks. Get on with it. Fucking losers.
Ok I think I have judged young UP people enough to warrant getting stabbed tomorrow when I am coming back from work. So I will just take a deep breath and stop here.
But yeah, thank you Facebook Audience Insights — you have been quite a help.
Addendum: I think the hopeless romantic theme kept on repeating because I selected only singles. Well, that’s some bias on my part. So now selecting people in a relationship we get some different insights.
First of all it changes the demographics. No shit, more women are in a relationship
Apparently singles haven’t heard of Oppo and Vivo, but people in a relationship have
We keep on getting more “shayari” dumpgrounds. But we have new entrant Aawww Mela Baby (god knows how much I cringed while typing that) and Oyyy Pagal I Love U got promoted in its category. Not sure why but people IN a relationship like “Breakup Diary”… whatever. And ofcourse the topmost consulting agency is a astrology page. Sure.
Among people in a relationship, we some have made time out of their politically charged lives to look at makeup and beauty product pages. Silver lining?
Ok alright folks, that’s it. Show’s over.
