mercredi 24 juillet 2013

*The Best connected World Leaders on Twitter...*1

Twiplomacy Study 2013
The Best connected World Leaders on Twitter

Two thirds of world leaders are engaged in diplomatic relations on Twitter, the latest Burson-Marsteller Twiplomacy study finds.

"Twiplomacy is the leading global study of world leaders on Twitter. The governments
of more than three-quarters (77.7%) of the 193 UN member countries have a
presence on Twitter: Almost half of the 505 accounts analysed are personal accounts
of heads of state, heads of government and ministers of foreign affairs; a third of
these world leaders tweet themselves, but very few on a regular basis.
This study shows that Twitter has become
a formidable communication tool allowing
the broadcast of short messages to
millions of followers. At the same time the
social network invites direct interaction
between users and two-thirds (68%) of
world leaders have made mutual
connections with their peers.
A quarter of world leaders and
governments unilaterally follow President Barack Obama and the White House, but
@BarackObama and the @WhiteHouse have established mutual Twitter relations
with only four other world leaders.
Swedish Foreign Minister @CarlBildt is the best connected world leader, mutually
following 44 peers. Ugandan Prime Minister @AmamaMbabazi is the most
conversational world leader with 96% of his tweets being @replies to other Twitter
users.
Many governments also use Twitter as an automated news feed from their website or
Facebook page. As of 1 July 2013 the 505 accounts enjoyed a combined following of
105,733,356.
More than two-thirds of African governments have a presence on Twitter and African
leaders are generally among the most conversational Twitter users. Twitter is very
popular among Latin American leaders where almost all governments have a Twitter
presence with very large numbers of followers.
Most Latin American presidents have personal accounts and they frequently
communicate with each other publically on Twitter such as Argentina's President
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner @CFKArgentina, who is Latin America's most
followed leader with over 2.1 million followers
Twitter is also becoming the communication tool of choice for three-quarters of Asian
governments. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono @SBYudhoyono
has enjoyed phenomenal follower growth over the past 2.5 months. Australia’s Prime
Minister Kevin Rudd @KRuddMP is among the most conversational leaders,
frequently sharing personal moments on Twitter.

Executive Summary
Over the past five years, Twitter has become a new way to communicate with world
leaders and a way for these leaders to communicate with each other. On the one
hand, it allows heads of state and government and foreign ministers to broadcast
their daily activities to an ever-growing audience; on the other, it allows citizens direct
access to their leaders. Anyone can @mention a world leader on Twitter. Whether
the world leader answers is another question, although a select few do actually reply
to their followers’ @mentions.
“Using social media channels is a way for a country to punch above its weight” said
former Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
@AlecJRoss in February 2013. Indeed a number of governments are using Twitter to
put themselves on the proverbial digital map, to broadcast their messages to a global
audience and to connect with their peers around the world.
Three quarters of all governments are on Twitter
The study found that more than three-quarters (77.7%)
of world leaders have a Twitter account. Presidents,
prime ministers, foreign ministers or their respective
administrations in 153 countries have a presence on
Twitter. All 45 European governments and all South
American countries except Suriname now have an
official Twitter presence. In North America, Asia and
Africa 79%, 76% and 71% of all governments are
using the micro-blogging service. In Oceania
governments in only four out of the 14 countries (i.e.
38.4% of governments) have a Twitter presence.
U.S. President @BarackObama is still the most
followed world leader on Twitter with 33,510,157
followers as of 1 July 2013 and is the fourth most
popular account in the Twitterverse, just behind Lady
Gaga. Pope Francis is the second most followed world
leader with 7,200,332 followers on his nine different
@Pontifex accounts. The White House is in third
position with 4,018,510 followers - @WhiteHouse and
the @LaCasaBianca accounts combined. Turkish
President Abdullah Gül (@cbabdullahgul) and Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (@RT_Erdogan) are
among the top five most followed world leaders with
3.4 million followers each.
Queen Rania of Jordan (@QueenRania), Indonesia's
president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
(@SBYudhoyono), Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussia &
@MedvedevRussiae), the UK government (@Number10gov), and Argentina's
Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) complete the top 10 list of most followed leaders
with more than two million followers each. Twenty-two world leader accounts have
more than one million followers. As of 1 July 2013 all 505 accounts of world leaders
together had 105,733,356 followers.

Barack Obama is the Least Connected
More important than the number of followers are
the connections between these world leaders on
Twitter to allow which allows for direct private
interactions. @BarackObama was the first world
leader to join Twitter, he is the most followed, the
most listed and following a record 661,084 other
Twitter users, but he is only following two other
world leaders. The U.S. president and the U.S.
government accounts might be among the most
followed but they are the least connected.
@BarackObama, the @WhiteHouse and the
@StateDept are followed by 148, 132 and 99
peers respectively, however they only follow four
world leaders, namely Russia's Prime Minister
@MedvedevRussiae, the UK government
@Number10gov, Norway's Prime Minister
@JensStoltenberg and Chile's President
@SebastianPinera. Interestingly the State
Department @StateDept does not follow any other
foreign service.
Two-thirds (68%) of world leaders have
established mutual connections with their peers
on Twitter. Swedish Foreign Minister @CarlBildt is
the best connected world leader, mutually
following 44 peers. The European External Action
Service (@eu_eeas), the EU's Foreign & Security
Policy Service led by Catherine Ashton comes
second with 36 mutual connections to other world
leaders; the Polish Foreign Ministry is third with 31
mutual connections, followed by the Foreign
Office and the French Foreign Ministry with 27
and 26 mutual connections respectively. Of the
505 accounts analyzed, 161 don't have any mutual connections on Twitter.
Twitter is sometimes used by small nations to increase their global visibility and tweet
on a level playing field with other nations. Several governments have recognized the
power of Twitter relations, actively seeking to connect with their peers around the
world. The Croatian government (@VladaRH) unilaterally follows 195 other world
leaders' accounts. The Foreign Minister of Iceland, which started its Twitter journey
on 19 March 2013, follows 142 peers. The Foreign Ministries of Norway, Sweden and
Kosovo unilaterally follow more than 80 other leaders and foreign ministries in hopes
that they will return the favour. Twenty-two accounts don't follow any other world
leaders and are not followed by any other world leader. The Pope is only following
the other papal accounts. On average, world leaders follow eight other peers.
All world leaders combined are following 2,058,109 other Twitter users. 
The majority
of this figure, 78%, can be attributed to the five accounts that follow most other
Twitter users, namely @BarackObama (661,084), @KRuddMP (420,311),
@Number10gov (371,578), @bluehousekorea (96,886), @GH_PARK (65,229) all of
which had at some point automatic following enabled and were automatically
following anyone who followed them. This practice has been disused as it didn’t
improve the quality of the followers or the interaction.3

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