Top10 Rankings 2013 Summary Report

Research Note: World Leader Rankings on Twitter December 2013 7 Confident Leaders Tweet Whether They Serve in Democracies, Monarchies or Autocracies The DPC’s analyses indicated that 67% 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, monarchies, or autocracies. This percentage fell since 2011 when 80% of the tweeting countries were politically stable, but rose from the 2012 figure of 61%. Out of the total that tweets, there were 58 countries that are “not fully democratic” in 2013, up from 42 countries in 2012. Moreover, 87% of fully democratic countries had a leader utilizing Twitter in 2012, but in 2013 this figure retreated to 80%. It’s often the case with some countries that accounts have been opened in a leader’s name or government, but then lay dormant. The political leadership of the most fragile nations, or those with a high degree of political instability began experimenting with social media in 2012 conceivably viewing this medium as an opportunity rather than a threat as they did in previous years. However it appears that they opened accounts but could not maintain them due to lack of resources, poor public response or a limited understanding of how they could employ Twitter effectively as a means of strategic communication. This is especially evident in countries with lower Internet penetration and lower levels of digital literacy. Notable exceptions to this included the fragile nations of Iran and Sri Lanka, all with Klout3 scores above 50, exhibiting that people interacted regularly with the leaders’ content. National Offices In addition to a head of state using Twitter, many countries also had their national office represented with a Twitter account such as the White House, “@KremlinRussia,” France’s @Elysee, and the United Kingdom’s @number10gov, among many. Also of note, out of the 133 tweeting “heads of state,” 37 of these were national offices. However, for some countries, their national office Twitter account was the main or even sole Twitter voice for that government, including the accounts in the top half such as Germany, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, and Uruguay. 3 Klout is a website and mobile app that uses social media analytics to rank its users according to online social influence via the Klout Score, which is a numerical value between 1 and 100, with 100 being the most influential. In determining the user score, Klout measures the size of a user's social media network and correlates the content created to measure how other users interact with that content. Social influence measurement is an evolving field with standards yet to be agreed upon and the scores currently remain volatile.

Top10 Rankings 2013 Summary Report

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