Donald Trump became the most followed world leader in October 2017 when he passed Pope Francis (@Pontifex) who is the second most followed world leader with more than 47 million followers on his nine language accounts. Indian Prime Minister @NarendraModi takes the third and fourth spots, with 42 million followers on his personal account and 26 million followers on his institutional account, @PMOIndia. The official Twitter account of the U.S. President, @POTUS ranks fifth and @WhiteHouse ranks sixth, with 23 and 17 million followers, respectively.
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta is Sub-Saharan Africa’s most followed leader with 3 million followers, ahead of Rwanda’s and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari (), with more than 1 million followers each, at the time of the research.
As of May 18, 2018, the heads of state and government and foreign ministers of 187 countries had a presence on Twitter, representing 97 percent of all 193 UN member states. The governments of only six countries, namely Laos, Mauritania, Nicaragua, North Korea, Swaziland and Turkmenistan do not have an official presence on the platform. Even the Chinese government’s State Council Information Office maintains a presence on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Facebook is the second-most popular network among government leaders, and it is where they have the biggest audience. Instagram has become the third-most popular social network for governments, with 81 percent of all UN member states having set up an account and many of them are sharing daily Instagram stories.
The BCW Twiplomacy study analyzes the activity of 951 Twitter accounts of heads of state and government and foreign ministers from May 19, 2017 to May 18, 2018 using aggregate data from Crowdtangle.com.