Top 10 Rankings 2012

Research Note: World Leader Rankings on Twitter December 2012 5 #8 #9 #10 COLOMBIA’S PRESIDENT JUAN MANUEL SANTOS was new to the Top 10 in 2012. At number 8, President Santos’ had grown his followers by well over 1 million since 2011. When the previous president Álvaro Uribe handed on the presidency to Santos, he expected his former defense minister to continue his policies. Uribe became a fixture on Twitter, proclaiming his record on security, education and helping the poor. As President Santos began to make it clear that he had his own agenda for Colombia in 2012, the tweets got tougher -- today the president must stay attuned to Uribe’s tweets and respond to his citizens accordingly. Remaining in the top ten in 2012 even though the country elected a brand new leader, is PRESIDENT ENRIQUE PEÑA NIETOIN OF MEXICO, in December. His tweet on election day, “Now is the time to start a new stage of work, for the good of Mexico,” was widely shared. HIS HIGHNESS SHEIKH MOHAMMED, PRIME MINISTER OF THE UAE AND RULER OF DUBAI ranked #10 of the world leaders using Twitter. In 2012 His Highness Sheikh Mohammed gained 910,000 followers in just one year to surpass 1 million followers. In a recent study, he was ranked as the second most connected Twitter user in the country. He regularly shared his thoughts, future plans, attended events and various achievements. Some saw his tweets as “an image of equality, encouragement and comfortable interaction with citizens.” On the sixth anniversary as Ruler of Dubai he tweeted: "I don’t wish to be celebrated personally. Instead, each year, a deserving group in our society shall be recognised. Last year, we celebrated the orphans. This year, we shall celebrate mothers, the force behind all our successes.” State Fragility Now Less of a Determining Factor The DPC's analyses showed that 61% of the countries on the list are considered politically stable, reconfirming that heads of state who are confident in their leadership role and assured of their political legitimacy are most comfortable with social media -- regardless of the form of government whether they serve in democracies, autocracies or monarchies. However, this percentage fell since 2011 when 80% of the tweeting countries were politically stable. In fact, out of the total that tweets, there were 42 countries that are “non-democratic” in 2012, up from 16 countries in 2011. Tellingly, 87% of democratic countries had a leader utilizing Twitter in 2012. The political leadership of most fragile nations, or those with a high degree of political instability, continued to view social media as a threat, though. Notable new exceptions to this included the fragile nations of Ghana, India, and Egypt all with Klout1 scores above 68, exhibiting that people interacted regularly with the leaders’ content. 1 Klout is a company based out of San Francisco, USA providing social media analytics. The Klout Score measures influence on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being the most influential. Social influence measurement is an evolving field with standards yet to be agreed upon and the scores currently remain volatile.

Top 10 Rankings 2012

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