Sushma Swaraj, PM Modi are most followed world leaders on Twitter

We have all heard a lot about PM Modi's social media presence and because of which Prime Minister was at the third spot in the list of top 10 leaders in the world. According to the "2016 Twiplomacy” study by the global communications firm Burson-Marsteller the US President Barack Obama still leads of the digital world with 75 million followers. Similarly, he also leads the rankings on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Google+ with his campaign accounts.

What was surprising was a new entrant in this list, our very own External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj who broke into the list for the first time. Not only that, @SushmaSwaraj also becomes the most followed female world leader with 5 million followers at the 10th spot, ahead of Jordan’s @QueenRania who has 4.7 million followers.

PM Modi with his Twitter handle @NarendraModi has close to 20 million followers on his personal account and 11 million followers on his institutional account @PMOIndia, which is at the fourth place. Last year as well Modi was at the third place with more than six million followers.

While the second most followed world leader is Pope Francis (@Pontifex) with more than 28 million followers on his nine language accounts.

The study revealed Twitter was used by world leaders or governments in 173 nations — equal to 90 percent of United Nations (UN) member states. If we were to compare this with other social networking sites, Facebook was being used by 169 governments (87 percent) , while video-streaming website YouTube comes third, used by 78 percent of all UN member states, photo-sharing website Instagram is used by 70 percent.

Jeremy Galbraith, CEO of Burson-Marsteller EMEA said, “This cross-platform study shows that world leaders are increasingly taking an integrated approach across several social media channels, an indication of where more and more business leaders are likely to move as well.”

He further added, "we are seeing that world leaders are allowing people to ‘meet’ the personality behind the official title and that today, much more than words, creative or personal images get messages across most powerfully, a tactic that corporate leaders can use just as effectively."

When it comes to  foreign ministries, the US State Department (@StateDept) is the most followed with 3.3 million followers on its multiple language accounts, ahead of the Indian Diplomacy with 1.3 million followers on its two accounts.