PM Modi Trumps US President on Facebook His Facebook page has 43.2 million followers, almost twice as many as U.S. President Donald J. Trump
By Nidhi Singh
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Known for his back-to-back foreign tours and exemplary social media presence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has almost always been in limelight. And, undoubtedly, he is one of the most social media savvy ministers India has ever had. It all started with 2014 General Elections, where Modi made extensive use of social media in addition to more conventional campaign methods and addressed more than 1000 rallies via hologram appearances. After taking charge in May 2014, he has led many innovative campaigns like #Sandesh2Soldiers, #MyCleanIndia, #IncredibleIndia, #SelfieWithDaughter, etc. which have won him large following nationally and globally. Four years on, he is the most followed world leader on Facebook.
World's Most Followed Leader on Facebook:
According to the newly released 2018 "World Leaders on Facebook" study by Burson Cohn & Wolfe (BCW), a global communications agency, Modi's Facebook page has 43.2 million followers, almost twice as many as U.S. President Donald J. Trump who is in second place with 23.1 million followers on his personal page.
The study analyzes the activity of 650 Facebook pages of heads of state and government and foreign ministers from January 1, 2017, using aggregate data from Facebook's Crowdtangle tool. It further highlights that Queen Rania of Jordan is in third place (as of March 15, 2018) with 16 million followers, ahead of the institutional page of the Indian Premier, @PMOIndia, with 13.9 million followers. Additionally, Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen has shot into the fifth position of the most followed world leaders, with 9.6 million followers and a growth rate of 48 percent.
It's All About Charm:
Not only Indians but global leaders are bowled over by PM Modi's charm. Last year, US President Donald Trump described Modi and himself as "world leaders in social media". The term was a straight reference to their multi-million strong following on online platforms which has further enabled them to hear directly from their citizens. Both leaders have a massive following on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook has become the key platform for world leaders and governments to engage with voters, supporters and citizens. In terms of Facebook Interactions, over the past 14 months, the Facebook page of President Trump had by far the most interactions of any world leader on Facebook, with a total of 204.9 million interactions (defined as the total number of comments, likes and shares), almost twice as many as Narendra Modi with 113.6 million interactions.
The findings also revealed that Indonesian President Joko Widodo has 46 million interactions and Cambodia's Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen and Argentina's President Mauricio Macri follow with 36 and 33.4 million interactions, respectively.
As of March 15, 2018, all pages of world leaders combined had a total of 309.4 million followers. Since January 1, 2017, they have published a total of 536,644 posts which have garnered close to 900 million interactions.
