Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most followed world leader on Facebook: Study

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emerged as the most followed world leader on Facebook, according to a study conducted by strategic communications and public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. 590 Facebook pages were analysed for the study, from 169 governments around the world. Both personal and institutional profiles were considered for the study. 87 heads of state, 70 prime ministers and 55 foreign ministers have accounts on the social networking platform, and in general the personal pages tend to be more popular than the official pages.  What makes Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Facebook engagement so spectacular is that his personal profile is first on the list with close to 40 million followers, and his official profile is third on the list with 13 million followers. Narendra Modi is the most popular world leader on Facebook by an incredibly wide margin, having more than twice the number of followers as the next most followed world leader on Facebook. Coming in second place is US President Donald Trump, with close to 20 million followers. Donald Trump is one of the world leaders known to have effectively used the social networking platform to his advantage.

The most popular Facebook post by a world leader in 2016 was an Easter Greeting by then President of the United States, Barack Obama, which was a family picture. The second most popular post was a series of three pictures of Modi with his mother. Even when it comes to interactions, Modi’s Facebook profile attracts more reactions than the profile of any other world leader. Over the course of 2016, Modi’s profile on Facebook attracted over 169 million interactions. Cambodia’s Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen comes in second place with 58 million interactions.