Shah Rukh Khan vs Shashi Tharoor?
In Odds & Ends
A couple of days ago ‘King of Bollywood’, Shah Rukh Khan’s announced his wish to overtake politician Shashi Tharoor at a function. “I had predicted this the day Shah Rukh joined Twitter. I will be happy rather than regret it,” Shashi Tharoor said in response. As the social strategy consultants for Shashi Tharoor, we thought we should offer our opinion.
While being two of the most followed Indian celebrities and share some similar fundamental objectives, Shah Rukh Khan and Shashi Tharoor are really quite different. They appeal to different audiences, are motivated by dissimilar ideals and their approach is starkly unalike. Comparing Shah Rukh Khan to Shashi Tharoor is like comparing Steve Jobs to Paris Hilton, there are surely more Paris Hilton fans than Steve Jobs fans. Shah Rukh Khan will be able to reach a much higher number of Twitter followers simply because of the potential in the vast number of Bollywood movie-goers compared to political aficionados. And looking at his popularity and the amount of hype he generated with his latest film “My Name is Khan” which I really enjoyed watching, overtaking Shashi Tharoor is definitely possible, but in my opinion hardly anything to shout about. What will be meaningful is the magnitude of the influence they will have on their really big groups of technology-savvy, educated and well-informed followers. It’s always good for people who have positive stories to tell to have a bigger audience.
Looking at the chart above which plots the growth of Twitter followers for both Shashi Tharoor and Shah Rukh Khan over the past three months, we can say Shah Rukh Khan is not going to catch up to Shashi Tharoor any time soon. So while Shah Rukh Khan tries to catch up we will work harder with Shashi Tharoor to extend his reach to as many as we can. Catching up is not going to be easy :)
Well said. How can there be a comparison? For christ sake,we are talkin of a dynamic, learned, intelligent ,highly qualified and able politician who has worked in the UN for 30 yrs viz a viz a bollywood actor who probably has some style & thats all. Shashi Tharoor is par excellance and he will always be ahead….India is with him !!!
Hello Jaishree, great to have you in this discussion. While we said the comparison of Twitter follower count between Shah Rukh Khan and Shashi Tharoor is meaningless, we do not mean that Shah Rukh Khan is in any way an inferior person or that he deserves less respect. We think both Shah Rukh Khan and Shashi Tharoor are both leaders in their respective fields who are equally capable to moving an motivating people, one with politics and the other with film.