(Image source from: PM Modi more popular than White House on Twitter})
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged more popular than the White House among Twitter users. Mr. Modi stands fourth among world leader in terms of most "followed" on Twitter, according to Twiplomacy that conducts an annual global study of world leaders.
United States President Barack Obama has the largest number of Twitter followers among world leaders. Obama is followed by Pope Francis, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indian's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the White House, according to global public relations and communications firm Burson-Marsteller.
PM Modi has 4,981,777 followers on Twitter, making him the fourth-most followed world leader in the microblogging site. Modi's followers on Twitter has rapidly increased after his election in late May 2014.
The Indian PM's Twitter followers surpassed the United States White House account (4,980,207) today. Modi is using Twitter as a power tool to communicate his messages to the people of his country, said the updated study of world leaders.
Earlier the study had said that Mr Modi may soon surpass the US White House account (4,973,061 followers), in the next few days as he is using Twitter to convey his messages. Later the study was updated with today's figures.
Barack Obama has 43 million followers, Pope Francis has 14 million and Yudhoyono has five million followers, according to the study by Twiplomacy.
Pope Francis is the most influential world leader on the microblogging site. He tweets in Spanish, each of which are retweeted more than 10,000 times on an average. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's tweets are retweeted around 2,000 times. Compared to them, Obama's tweets are retweeted only 1,400 times on an average, inspite of his massive following on Twitter.
The purpose of the study was to identify the extent to which world leaders use Twitter as a communication tool and how each of them stay connected on the social platform, said Twiplomacy.
Most countries of the world have Twitter presence, according to Burson-Marsteller. Earlier this month, the global public relations firm analysed 645 government accounts across 161 countries. They found that except 32 countries, mostly from Africa and Asia-Pacific regions, most countries in the world have a presence on Twitter.
Besides, over 83 % of the members of United Nations had a Twitter presence. The study also revealed that 68 % (around two-thirds) of all heads of state and government have their own Twitter accounts. Among them, eight world leaders' tweets were retweeted more than 24,000 times. These were mainly related to major government decisions and other historic events.
Narendra Modi's tweets like "India has won! The conquest of India. Good days are ahead", trivial tweets related to Sochi Olympics bet between Canada's Stephen Harper and Barack Obama and Malaysian PM's tweet on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are some of the twitter posts that have been retweeted many thousand times over.
(AW: Pratima Tigga)
