Dubai: His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice- President, Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has been ranked the ninth most followed world leader on Instagram, according to a global report.
With 3.365 million followers, the number of Shaikh Mohammed’s followers increased by 23 per cent compared to the previous year, said a report issued by Twiplomacy.
Shaikh Mohammad was ranked the second most followed Arab leader on Instagram, after Queen Rania of Jordan, while she was also ranked fifth in the list of the most followed world leaders by nearly 4.8 million followers.
The number of interactions on Shaikh Mohammed’s posts reached more than 8.3 million, which received about 48,400 interactions for each post during 2018.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the most followed world leader on Instagram with 14.8 million followers up until October 2018, followed by Indonesian President Joko Widodo @Jokowi with 12.2 million followers. The study also ranked US Donald Trump in third place with 10 million followers.
Pope Francis, who joined Instagram on March 19, 2016, was in fourth position with 5.7 million followers, ahead of Queen Rania of Jordan, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the White House account.
“The UK Royal Family has almost tripled its followers over the past 12 months in large part thanks to the pictures of the #RoyalWedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle which increased the followers by 570,000 on May 19, 2018,” read the report.
Shaikh Mohammad and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev made it to the list in ninth and tenth place as part of the most followed world leaders on Instagram.
What is Twiplomacy
Twitter diplomacy, also "Twiplomacy" or "hashtag diplomacy", is the use of social network and microblogging website, Twitter, by heads of state, leaders of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and their diplomats to conduct diplomatic outreach, engage with the public, disperse information and even leverage global influence.
As the use of social media expanded, so has the interest of the organizational body Twiplomacy, which extended its analysis to include Instagram accounts of world leaders.
Over the past 12 months, data was collected until October 1, 2018 to analyze the Instagram accounts of 426 world leaders.
“World Leaders on Instagram is BCW’s [Burson Cohn and Wolfe] latest research into how world leaders, governments and international organizations communicate via social media. The research builds on BCW’s highly acclaimed annual Twiplomacy study,” according to the study.
“Initially focused solely on Twitter, the study has been expanded to other social media platforms including Facebook and Instagram.”
