DURBAN – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is by far the most popular world leader on Facebook, with more than 43.5 million likes on his personal page and 13.7 million likes on his institutional Prime Minister of India page, according to the 2019 World Leaders on Facebook study, part of the Twiplomacy series by leading global communications agency Burson Cohn & Wolfe. The study also found increased use of paid posts by world leaders.
US President Donald Trump is in second place, with more than 23 million likes on his personal Facebook page and Jordan’s Queen Rania is in third position with 16.9 million likes, reaching an Arabic and English audience well beyond the 5.8 million Facebook users in Jordan.
However, Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office on January 1, has dominated the rankings of World Leaders on Facebook over the past 12 months, taking the top spot in terms of interactions. His Facebook page has registered more than 145 million interactions, almost twice as many as Trump, who has 84 million total interactions and 2.5 times as many followers.
The most liked single Facebook post of any world leader over the past 12 months was the text update by Bolsonaro posted on the day of his election on October 28, 2018, reporting the congratulatory phone call he received from President Trump whom he tagged in the post. It garnered 549 899 likes.
The study, using aggregate data from Facebook’s CrowdTangle tool, analyzes the activity of 962 Facebook pages of heads of state and government and foreign ministers, 50 more than in the 2017 study. As of March 1, 2019, the pages have a combined total of 345 million page likes and published 449 739 posts in the past 12 months which have garnered a total of 767 million interactions (comments, likes and shares).
The governments and leaders of 182 countries – seven more than in 2017 – had an official presence on the social network, representing 94 percent of the 193 UN member states. Only 11 countries do not have a Facebook presence, including Eritrea, Laos, Mauritania, Nicaragua, North Korea, Swaziland and Turkmenistan and a small handful of Pacific island states. One hundred and eight heads of state, 83 prime ministers and 88 foreign ministers maintain personal pages and, in general, they are more popular than the pages of their respective institutions.
With Facebook’s change of algorithm, favoring posts from friends, family and groups, it has become more difficult for pages of governments and world leaders to reach their audiences. Followers of world leaders’ Facebook pages grew by 10 percent year on year but the interactions on their pages have dropped significantly. While world leaders registered 1.1 billion interactions in 2016, that number has decreased by 32.3 percent compared to their interactions in 2018.
To counter the changes to the algorithm, many leaders are promoting their posts and pages with Facebook ads. In early March 2019, 50 pages had been running ads according to Facebook's Ads Library, a new transparency feature which is now available on each page. President Trump’s Facebook page has posted more than 50 000 ads since its inception, while UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s page posted 74 paid ads in December 2018 to promote her Brexit plan.
Posts that show a personal and often lighter side of world leaders often perform well. Much like any other Facebook user, world leaders sometimes share information about their private lives on the platform, celebrating birthdays, sharing pictures of their children and announcing their latest offspring. These are generally the most popular.
Not surprisingly, the three-picture collection on the British Royal Family’s Facebook feed of the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has become the second most popular photo posted over the past 12 months, with 822,870 interactions including 186,170 expressions of love.
Other key findings include:
Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta is the most popular leader in Sub-Saharan Africa with 3.6 million likes, ahead of Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo with 1.6 million likes.
Jordan’s Queen Rania has been topping the list of the most popular leaders in the Arab world for several years. With 16.9 million likes she has twice as many followers as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (7.3 million likes) and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, with 3.8 million likes.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has become the most popular leader on Facebook in Latin America ahead of Mexico’s new President Andrés Manuel López Obrador with 5.6 million likes and Argentinian President Mauricio Macri with 4.4 million likes.
The page of the British Royal Family is the most followed of world leaders in the European Union with 4.1 million likes ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron with 2.3 million likes and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis with 1.8 million likes.
The Facebook page of the government of Botswana is the most prolific, with an average of 37 posts per day. The presidential administrations of the Dominican Republic and of Ghana both average more than 20 posts per day.
Video is increasingly becoming a way for world leaders to engage with audiences. The most watched video was Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s annual Ramadan message to Muslims in Canada and around the world posted in May 2018. The 55-second video has clocked up more than 10 million video views and 834 605 interactions, including 109 899 expressions of love.
Live feeds on facebook too are making an incresing presence with almost half of the 692 pages broadcasting either a press conference, an election rally or an official ceremony. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has generated 35 672 489 live video views on his 237 broadcasts. The White House is not far behind with 32 419 918 live views on its 172 broadcasts.
In early February 2019 German Chancellor Angela Merkel deleted her personal Facebook page @AngelaMerkel, which had 2.5 million fans, after stepping down as leader of the Christian Democratic Union, and in mid-March 2019, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta temporarily deactivated all his social media profiles including his Facebook page which has 3.6 million followers. It is highly unusual for world leaders to delete their social media pages during their life time. The page of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the page of Nelson Mandela continue to be managed by their respective foundations.