Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most followed world leader on Facebook, a study by Burson-Marsteller said. The study, which found seven heads of state, 70 heads of government and 55 foreign ministers on the world’s largest social media platform, said United States President Donald Trump was the second-most followed leader on Facebook.
Modi has 40 million followers while Trump has a 20-million following. Jordan’s Queen Rania and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan made it to the top five list, the study said. With 169 million interactions, the prime minister also had the most number of likes, comments and shares among all world leaders on Facebook in 2016. Cambodia’s Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen is a distant second with 58 million interactions.
“World Leaders on Facebook study demonstrates the effectiveness of political communications on the platform. It will be interesting see if business leaders take lessons from the ways world leaders use Facebook, such as bringing a personal tone to their communications,” said Don Baer, Worldwide Chair and CEO, Burson-Marsteller.
Modi succeeds former US President Barack Obama as the most followed leader on Facebook. Obama’s page makes it to the top five list of interactions with 30 million interactions for 2016. Obama had a 52 million following but a low interaction rates of only 0.15%.
The study also showed the White House as the most visited institution with 4 million check-ins on Facebook.
Burson-Marsteller is a global strategic communications and public relations firm.
In January, Modi became the most followed leader in the world on Twitter after Obama left office on January 20. Modi had joined Twitter in 2009. The prime minister had lost more than three lakh followers on Twitter a day after he announced the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. However, Twitter later said that it had been caused by a “social graph error”.
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