Study: Obama most popular world leader on Twitter

{mosads}In 2011, the same survey identified 69 actively tweeting heads of state, while in 2012 the figure stood at 123. That is out of 164 countries monitored, putting the number of state leaders on Twitter at 75 percent.

One new user in 2012 was U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, who joined after some reluctance in October. Cameron did not make the survey’s list of the top 10 leaders on Twitter, ranked by their popularity.

The list reads:

1. Obama
2. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez
3. Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul
4. Jordan’s Queen Rania
5. Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev
6. Brazil’s President Dilma Rouseff
7. Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner
8. Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos
9. Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nietoin
10. United Arab Emirates Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed

A study of world leaders on Twitter released by Burson-Marsteller in July confirmed Obama’s popularity on Twitter, but noted that Chavez, the second most popular leader on Twitter, has a much higher engagement rate with his followers. The study found that 99 Twitter accounts attributed to heads of state have never sent a single reply.

That study also reported that about 30 of the leaders studied appeared to do their own tweeting.