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Deputy Lifestyle Editor
More and more world leaders have taken to the social media to reach large audiences with key messages and images now filtering through Twitter in African, American, European, Asian and Papal bureaucracies.

According to a recently released study by Burson-Marsteller titled Twiplomacy, Twitter has over the past four years become the social media of choice for world leaders for key messages and sound-bites as governments become more savvier to connect with large audiences around the world.

In Zimbabwe, Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo early this year joined the craze and now has close to 10 000 followers on Twitter and regularly interacts with people on national and ruling party issues through his @ProfJNMoyo handle.

The move came as governments are putting more effort into their social media communication and are including more visuals and videos in their tweets.

Some, such as the @Elysee Palace, are regularly posting six-second Vine videos to summarise state visits or to cheer their national team, as the German Foreign Ministry did during the World Cup.

A handful of leaders, including the Elysée Palace and the Kremlin, are also early adopters of Twitter’s new live streaming application, Periscope. Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos has recently gone live on Periscope to announce the resumption of air raids against the FARC rebels.

The study analysed 669 government accounts in 166 countries and revealed that 86 percent of all 193 United Nations governments have a presence on Twitter. Up to 172 heads of state and government have personal Twitter accounts and only 27 countries, mainly in Africa and Asia-Pacific, do not have any Twitter presence.

“The Burson-Marsteller Twiplomacy Study has become an essential gauge of the power and reach of social media,” said Donald Baer chief executive of Burson-Marsteller.

As of March 24 2015, the five most followed world leaders were US President Barack Obama (@BarackObama), 57 million followers of the US president’s campaign account, Pope Francis (@Pontifex) with 20 million followers on his nine different language accounts, India’s Prime Minister @NarendraModi, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an (@RT_Erdogan) and the @WhiteHouse.

However, the most followed world leaders follow few other peers, and they are hardly conversational. @BarackObama and the @WhiteHouse only follow four other world leaders, namely Norway’s Erna Solberg, Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev, the UK government and Estonia’s Foreign Minister Keit Pentus.

While @BarackObama is the most followed world leader, he is also dwarfed in terms of retweets per tweet by Pope Francis who averages almost 10 000 re-tweets for each tweet sent on his Spanish account, against 1 210 for each tweet sent by @BarackObama.

Rwanda’s @PaulKagame has become Africa’s most followed president with 842 260 followers ahead of Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta (@UKenyatta). The Rwandan president is also the most conversational world leader with 86 percent of his tweets being @replies to other Twitter users.

European foreign ministers also use Twitter to establish mutual connections, creating a virtual diplomatic network. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (@LaurentFabius) is the best connected foreign minister, mutually connected to 100 peers.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry is in second position maintaining mutual Twitter relations with 93 other world leaders. The Foreign Ministry in Paris is in third place with 90 mutual connections. These mutual connections among foreign ministers allow for private conversations via direct messages on Twitter.

“This study illustrates that governments are becoming savvier and more professional in the use of social media,” said Jeremy Galbraith, CEO of Burson-Marsteller Europe, Middle East and Africa and global chief strategy officer.

More than 4 100 embassies and ambassadors are now active on Twitter.

In New York, Washington, London and Brussels, most diplomatic missions use Twitter to have a voice at the digital table. Canada, the EU, France, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK and the US have put most of their embassies and missions on Twitter.

The UK Foreign Office in London also encourages personal engagement by its ambassadors, and it is virtually impossible to become a Foreign Office diplomat without using digital tools.

Other key findings include:

All but one of the G20 governments have an official Twitter presence, and six of the G7 leaders have a personal Twitter account. However, few world leaders are tweeting themselves. Notable exceptions include Estonian President Toomas Henrik Ilves (@IlvesToomas), European Council President @DonaldTusk, Latvian Foreign Minister @EdgarsRinkevics and Norway’s Prime Minister @Erna_Solberg, who admitted to suffering from dyslexia and makes the occasional spelling mistake.

Barack Obama was the first world leader to sign up to Twitter on 5 March 2007 (at the time as Senator Obama) as user #813 286. Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN), Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (@PMHarper) and the US State Department @StateDept are among the early adopters, all having joined later in 2007.

As of 24 March 2015, all world leaders combined have sent 2 653 876 tweets, posting on average four tweets each day. The Venezuelan presidency (@PresidencialVen) has sent close to 60 000 tweets, averaging more than 41 tweets each day.

Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto @EPN is the most followed Latin American leader, slightly ahead of Colombia’s President @JuanManSantos and Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner @CFKArgentina, with well over 3,6 million followers each. Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff @dilmabr and Venezuela’s @NicolasMaduro complete the Latin American top five, with 3,3 and 2,4 million followers respectively.

The Mexican presidency (@PresidenciaMX) is the most prolific, posting on average 68 tweets each day. The Mexican governmental account (@gobrep) is not far behind with 60 tweets each day. Both institutions often repeat their tweets several times over several days to capture different audiences at different times.

All 669 accounts combined have an audience of 212 283 753 followers. The median average number of followers is 14 207.

Quite a few politicians use Twitter only during election campaigns. Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo (@Jokowi_do2) abandoned his 2,7 million Twitter followers once elected in August 2014, as did Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet @PrensaMichelle once elected on 11 March 2014.