Two weeks ago, Meta’s new social network Threads was finally rolled out to users in the EU, almost six months after launching in the US. Within an hour of the midday launch the European Commission posted a “Hello Europe” in all 23 European languages. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and Belgium Prime Minister Alexander de Croo became the first EU leaders to post on Threads.
By the end of the day 16 accounts had set up shop on Threads. Two weeks since the introduction of Threads 33 EU leaders, governments and foreign ministries now have a presence on Threads but only half of them are active and have posted their first Thread. The uptake has been somewhat sluggish.
Among the 127 leaders who signed up in summer 2023 only 37 are somewhat active, the vast majority have either been dormant for weeks or haven’t posted anything yet. Some of the biggest world leaders on Instagram such as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, and Ukraine’s Zelensky are still standing on the side lines. While the Princely Palace in Monaco and the Dutch Royal Household have activated their accounts, the British Royal Family isn’t present yet although fan accounts for the royals are proliferating on the platform.
Although many social media managers are unhappy with the changes on X, they are not ready to jump ship just yet. There are several reasons for the sluggish uptake of Threads:
🔵 Despite some users having large follower numbers – automatically imported from Instagram – the number of followers on Threads is only a fraction of their followers on Instagram. 🔵 Despite inspiring first threads, governments tend to share the same content on X and Threads. Some have even started posting screenshots of their posts on X. 🔵 Many social media teams are also waiting for Threads to become available on social media publishing tools such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social so that they can easily schedule their posts on the platform. 🔵 Most governments simply don’t have dedicated community managers to service a new social network, even if it only means cutting and pasting posts from X to Threads. 🔵 Most importantly, the engagement on Threads is far behind that on other platforms.
In a way Threads feels very much like Twitter in the early days, where users are trying to find and engage with new audiences. On the other hand, it also feels like Google+ where users had large artificial audiences but without any meaningful engagement.
Threads is unlikely to replace X for digital diplomacy anytime soon and it is more likely that both platforms will co-exist side by side.
The past twelve months haven’t been easy for social-media managers worldwide. The rebranding of Twitter to X, the changes on the platform – from the loss of the blue badge, to paying for verification and Tweetdeck – have kept community managers on their toes to say the least.
There is a palpable uneasiness with the tone of the platform. While organizations are wary of the antics of its new owner Elon Musk, there hasn’t been any notable X-odus yet. However, it is fair to say that social-media teams are seeking alternatives. With every change on X, new platforms such as Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads have gained traction as organizations try to re-build their community and re-engage their audience on a different platform.
In this study, we analyse the social-media activity of 106 international organizations and the personal accounts of their leaders on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, X and YouTube as well as Bluesky, Mastodon, Snapchat and Threads. The study includes multilateral organizations, leading non-profit and non-governmental organizations, and their chief executives.
The Most Followed International Organizations
The 10 most followed organizations are in a league of their own. Almost all have more than 10 million followers across all platforms combined.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is by far the most followed organization, with 73 million followers and subscribers on all platforms combined. UNICEF is in second position with 57 million followers, followed by the main United Nations account which clocks up an audience of 40 million followers and subscribers. The World Economic Forum and the UN Refugee Agency complete the Top 5 list with 26 and 13 million followers respectively.
Given the potential size of the audience, Facebook is one the most important social networks for international organizations. The 102 institutional pages have a combined following of 150 million followers and the median average of followers per page stands at 330,000.
X remains the second most important network. The 106 institutional accounts have a combined following of 124 million, with a median average of 212,319 followers per account. LinkedIn is not far behind: 97 organizations have an official LinkedIn page and all pages combined have a total of 55.8 million followers and a median average of 194,415 followers per page. The combined total number of followers on Instagram is higher at 71.7 million, but the median average per account is only 75,789. All institutional and personal accounts combined have a combined following of 440 million on all networks.
The 10 Most Followed Leaders of International Organizations
Dr Tedros Adhanom, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), is the most followed leader of any international organization with 4.17 million followers on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X combined. Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank is in second position with 3.76 million followers.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Director General of the World Trade Organization and António Guterres, the UN Secretary General are in third and fourth position with 2.88 and 2.24 million followers respectively.
The outgoing UN Youth Envoy, Jayathma Wickramanayake is present on all social-media platforms and makes it into the Top 10 of the most followed leaders.
Data was captured on September 1, 2023, using Audiense.com for X and Crowdtangle.com for Facebook & Instagram with data going back 12 months; and a manual count on Bluesky, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok and YouTube.
A month after the Twitter rebrand, only nine organizations had updated the social-media boilerplate on their websites, adding the new X logo. Interestingly, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is the only one which has put the social networks in alphabetical order. The World Economic Forum is the only organization to add he Threads logo to its social-media boilerplate.
Facebook
With the exception of the European Central Bank, almost all international organizations have a page on Facebook. All 102 pages combined have an audience of 150,683,211, a figure which has registered a modest growth of 1.73% over the past 12 months.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF are topping the Facebook ranking, with more than 38 and 30 million followers respectively. The WHO was consistently boosted during the pandemic as reputable source on COVID-19.
The World Economic Forum (WEF), the United Nations and the UNHCR complete the Top 5 list of the most followed pages.
Interestingly, UNICEF, which often boosts its best performing posts, has clocked up more than 8 million interactions on their 1,329 posts, compared to only 2.4 million interactions on WHO’s 768 posts. Ove the past 12 months UNICEF has an interaction rate of 0.05%, compared to 0.02% for the WHO.
It pays to be consistently active on Facebook several times per day. The WEF posts on average 32 posts per day on Facebook, garnering 1.64 million interactions over the past 12 months.
UNICEF attracts the most likes and shares as well as love, sad and care reactions. The WHO, on the other hand, attracts the most comments, laughs and angry reactions which speaks volumes about their respective audiences and the amount of criticism the WHO is facing. The World Economic Forum leads in terms of total video posts and the number of wow reactions.
Facebook does not necessarily come to mind as the platform of choice for executive communications, but 24 leaders of international organizations have personal pages or profiles on Facebook.
WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom, leads the group with 1.31 million followers well ahead of the WTO’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg, each with more than 414,000 followers.
Dr Tedros followers represent 40% of the 3,287,195 followers of all 24 leaders combined. The median average number of followers of the 24 personal pages and profiles stands at just 12,174.
However, the interaction rate of personal pages often trumps that of the larger institutional pages, which goes to show how important personal engagement of executives on social media is. The UN Youth Envoy Jayathma Wickramanayake, the Secretary General of the Nordic Council Karen Ellemann and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi might only have between 12,000 to 15,000 followers and not be very active, but their interaction rate is well above 3%.
Among the institutional pages, UNESCAP, NATO and WIPO have the best interaction rates of between 0.30% and 0.25%. The median average of followers of the 101 institutional pages is 330,148, which makes Facebook the prime social media-platform given the size of the community.
In terms of post interactions, photo posts tend to perform best followed by videos, link posts and text-only status updates.
“When it comes to children’s rights, there’s only one team” The one-minute video posted by UNICEF ahead of World Children’s Day 2022, which also coincided with the start of the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar, has become one of the most successful Facebook posts from any international organization in the past 12 months. This post performed well because it was cross-posted on other UNICEF national pages –more effective than simply sharing the post.
A fifth of the surveyed Facebook pages have “cross-posted videos” which helps amplify videos natively through other pages. Setting up a cross-posting relationship with another page is a cumbersome process, but is very effective for amplifying videos on Facebook.
Instagram
Instagram has become one of the prime audiovisual platforms. The platform combines three distinct channels: the main feed where pictures and videos are displayed in the traditional square format, the reels feed where videos are displayed in vertical format, and the stories feed with full vertical pictures or videos. It is important to choose the cover picture wisely when sharing a reel (video) on the main feed.
While the audience of all Facebook pages of international organizations have witnessed only a modest growth of 1.73%, their Instagram audience has increased by 6.72% year-on-year.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF are crushing it on Instagram, with 12 and 11 million followers respectively. The United Nations, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Greenpeace complete the Top 5 list of the most followed accounts, with 7.8, 4.7 and 4 million followers respectively.
In terms of interactions (comments and likes) UNICEF is once again leading the ranking, with close to 10 million interactions over the past 12 months. The United Nations is in second position, followed closely by the European Space Agency (ESA) with 8.8 and 8.7 million interactions respectively . The World Economic Forum (WEF) and NATO have garnered more than 6.3 million interactions over the past 12 months.
The WEF is killing it with its videos shared on Instagram. The videos, often posted as part of an album for maximum interaction, have generated 108 million views over the past 12 months. To put this in context, this is 1’ times as many views as the second runner-up, the European Space Agency (ESA) with 11.18 million views.
The picture of the UN General Assembly shared by the UN on the opening day of the 77th session has become the Instagram post with the most interactions by any international organization over the past 12 months. The post has amassed 1,23 interactions, including 285,111 likes and 947,648 (often negative) comments.
The album video shared by the WEF in July 2023 has become the most viewed video, with 4.58 million views. The video shows turnstiles transformed into mini turbines in the Paris metro, claiming that the energy produced could power an entire metro line.
Sixty leaders of international organizations have an Instagram account. However, 14 of these are private accounts and 25 are inactive, leaving only 21 active accounts.
UN Secretary General António Guterres is the most followed, with 406,338 followers – this is almost twice as many as the WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom, with 228,335 followers.
NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the ECB’s Christine Lagarde, and the UN Youth Envoy Jayathma Wickramanayake complete the Top 5 list of the most followed leaders accounts.
All leader accounts have a combined following of 1,365,706 followers and have been growing on average by 11% year-on-year which is exceptionally good.
The best way to make an impact on Instagram is to ‘collaborate’ with other large accounts and influencers. The ‘breaking news’ announcement of the end of the COVID-19 global health emergency, shared by Dr Tedros in collaboration with the WHO has become his most popular post.
UNICEF has co-shared posts with Indian actress Priyanka Chopra (89 million followers), British actress Millie Bobby Brown (63 million followers) and Leonardo di Caprio (60 million followers). Since July 2023 Instagram users can add up to three collaborators in one single post, hence we might be seeing more collaborative posts in the future.
LinkedIn
“LinkedIn Is Cool Now”, wrote Sarah Frier, San Francisco Tech Team Lead at Bloomberg. The professional social networking platform has clearly benefitted from the slow decline of X.
Ninety-seven of the 106 organizations in this report have official company pages on LinkedIn and are active on the platform. All LinkedIn pages combined have a total of 55.8 million followers and a median average of 194,415 followers per page.
The WHO is the most followed organization with 5.4 million followers, slightly ahead of the United Nations page with 5.2 million followers. The WEF, UNICEF both have more than four million followers and among the Top 5 pages is that of the United Nations Volunteers organisation.
LinkedIn – self-proclaimed “the world’s largest professional network” – is the perfect fit for the leaders of international organizations ; 74 have personal LinkedIn profiles.
Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), is by far the most followed leader with 2.6 million followers. Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director, and Dr Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the WHO, are in second and third place with 777,649 and 621,432 followers respectively.
UN Secretary General António Guterres, who joined LinkedIn at the end of March 2023, makes it into 8th place.
Embarrassingly, many executives have not created a custom URL for their LinkedIn profiles and have kept the number combination at the end of their profile URLs.
Twelve executives are part of the Top Voicesprogram, an invitation-only group of experts across the professional world who are being promoted on the platform. It is no surprise therefore that the first nine leaders on the list below have the Top Voices label. The three other top voices are UNEP’s Inger Andersen, HRW’s Tirana Hassan and UNV’s Toily Kurbanov. LinkedIn’s top voices are encouraged to be personally active and post original personal posts and articles. And finally, the Top Voices badge cannot be bought. LinkedIn is currently rolling out a Community Top Voices label for users who share their expertise and point of view in collaborative articles.
Sixteen organizations have created newsletters on LinkedIn with smashing results. The newsletters have a median average subscription of 230,000 and the WHO’s Health for All newsletter counts 1.5 million subscribers.
X
Whether you like it or not, X (formerly Twitter) remains the dominant social-media platform for most international organizations. X is notably listed as the first or second social network after Facebook on the social-media boilerplates on the websites of three-quarters of the 106 organizations. One month after the rebranding of Twitter to X, the bluebird still graces the websites of most international organizations as if they were secretly it will somehow revive.
None of the international organizations commented on the sudden rebranding, but some used it to their advantage. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) put it squarely: “Twitter’s iconic bird isn’t the only one disappearing.👉 Today, one in eight bird species are at risk of extinction.” The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) asked its followers: “What other single-letter logos do you know?”
The relationship between international organizations and Elon Musk has soured since the sale of Twitter in November 2022. In early November the United Nations Human Rights office shared an eight-part thread from Volker Türk, the UN Human Rights Chief, reminding Elon Musk of the human rights responsibilities of companies to stop disinformation and ensure privacy and transparency and access to the platform’s data. “#FreeSpeech is not a free pass. Help us stop the viral spread of harmful disinformation, such as we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic in relation to vaccines. Don’t amplify content that results in harm to people’s rights” the organization said.
Elon Musk has repeatedly attacked the United Nations and UN agencies on his platform; few have reacted to his antics. In June 2023 he claimed, without further proof, that “The UN is more likely to cause, rather than prevent, disinformation”. When Elon Musk stated in June 2023 that “Countries should make their own decisions and not rely on UN bodies like WHO”, Dr Tedros, the WHO Director-General, shot back a couple of hours later: “Countries aren’t ceding sovereignty to @WHO.”
The United Nations @UN account, with 16 million followers, is the most followed international organization on X. The World Health Organization @WHO is in second place, with more than 12 million followers. Both organizations also top the ranking of the most listed organizations, appearing on 45,699 and 35,381 lists respectively which is a probably the best gauge of influence on the platform. UNICEF, Human Rights Watch and the WEF complete the Top 5 list of the most followed organizations on X.
The 106 institutional accounts have a combined following of 124,428,511; the median average number of followers standing at 212,319 for each account. The WWF has been the most prolific organization on X, with over half a million posts since inception in February 2008. The WEF has posted 179,000 times, often repeating posts up to 10 times to reach new audiences in different time zones.
Almost all leaders of international organization have personal or branded personal accounts on X. Only a handful of leaders are still resisting to engaging personally on social media. Obviously, most leaders have outsourced their social media activity to their social media teams, but some are taking matters into their own hands.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, is the most followed leader with 2.27 million followers ahead of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus with 2.14 and 1.97 million followers respectively.
The 101 personal accounts have a combined following of 16,322,955 and the median average stands at 20,197 followers for each personal account.
Most leaders have staff taking pictures of their activities and ghost-posters preparing their personal social-media posts. But some also know how to take matters into their own hands. Dr Tedros Adhanom occasionally shares pictures playing with his grandchildren to show a more personal side of the WHO’s Director General.
On April Fools Day 2023, Dr Tedros posted a selfie showing himself wearing a T-shirt with the inscription: “When this virus is over, I still want some of you to stay away from me.” The post went viral, with many of his critics and anti-vaxxers replying that the feeling was mutual. You need to be thick-skinned to take the amount of abuse on the platform.
At the end of April 2023 all previously verified accounts, including international organizations lost their blue tick. The ICRC was quick to promote its 48 regional and country accounts which are no longer marked as official. Organizations such as Eurocontrol, GAVI, ISO, IUCN and the United Nations Foundation also lost the precious verification badge.
A couple of days later, verification was re-instated for most organizations with a grey badge denoting a multi-lateral organization or a gold badge for other international organizations and companies. Organizations sporting grey, or gold badges do not subscribe to the premium service, although the time will undoubtedly come when they too will have to pay for the service or lose their badge.
The Organization of Ibero-American States (@EspacioOEI), the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (@OPCW), the Union for the Mediterranean (@UfMSecretariat), the WHO and its Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom have also subscribed to the premium service. This allows them to share longer posts and videos, highlight top posts on their profile, get priority ranking in replies, among among other smaller perks. But these accounts haven’t created any list of affiliates yet.
It remains to be seen whether other organizations will follow their lead and succumb to paying to play on Elon Musk’s platform.
TikTok
Almost half of the 100 organizations surveyed have set up shop on TikTok, the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform which had its heyday during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, TikTok helped onboard international organizations through the Elevate programme and their videos would reach millions of views making the platform a must for international organizations.
Fast forward to 2023. Only 29 organizations remain active on TikTok and many struggle to produce sticky, viral videos for the platform. The UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) has registered 230 million views on its 89 videos this year so far thanks to several viral hits in the run-up to World Refugee Day, such as: this video recalling the appalling refugee figures worldwide ; this one with refugees explaining what gives them hope away from home ; and this one on how to help refugees.
However, the median average views of UNHCR’s videos stands at only 4,227. The World Food Programme is the most successful, with their TikTok videos generating on average 35,000 views. The WHO, which has a median average of 99,400 views on all its videos, is only getting 5,100 median average views on the 58 posted in 2023. The same is happening to the IFRC and UN Migration, two organizations which originally championed the use of TikTok.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is still the most followed international organization on TikTok, with 3.2 million followers and 12 million likes. WHO is in second place with 2.9 million followers and the World Economic Forum is the third most followed organization, with 1.7 million followers and a record 18.4 million likes.
The number of followers on TikTok is rather meaningless and doesn’t automatically guarantee video views. The algorithm analyses each video and the engagement, meaning even accounts with few followers can score a viral hit.
The World Economic Forum is also the most active of all international organizations on TikTok, with a total of 1’835 and 297 in 2023 alone. However, the median average view count of each video stands is only 2,700.
Few organizations produce quirky content, tailored to the platform. Most tend to post professionally produced clips which they also share on other platforms. These videos look good but are not viral TikTok material.
YouTube
YouTube is still an important channel to host videos and all but five of the 106 organizations have a dedicated channel. All channels combined have over a billion subscribers and the median average number of subscribers is 18,400.
The United Nations channel is the most popular, with 2.7 million subscribers and has clocked up a record 372 million views on its 15,000 videos.
The UN live streams public events from the Security Council and has a live broadcast from the annual UN General Assembly in September. The UN also has dedicated channels in all five official UN languages, namely Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish, featured on its page.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has the second most-followed channel, with close to a million subscribers. ESA often shares videos from its astronauts on the international space station. The WHO, the WEF and UNICEF complete the list of the Top five most subscribed channels.
Greenpeace gets the best average views per video, with more than 100,000 average views for each of its 975 videos. Greenpeace is known for its impactful viral video campaigns. Its latest video posted at the end of August 2023 accuses the French oil company Total Energies of greenwashing as the main sponsor of the Rugby World Cup 2023.
The UN’s most watched video, with 85 million views, is the clip of the Korean boy band BTS dancing in the General Assembly Hall. The clip, posted in September 2022, is by far the most watched video of any international organisation.
All but 16 channels have posted Shorts, YouTube’s 60-second vertical videos. Shorts were released worldwide in July 2021 and are a great way to recycle vertical videos produced for Instagram or TikTok. However, many channels are posting square videos, which is sub-optimal given the vertical format.
A third of the 101 channels are verified by YouTube which requires at least 100,000 subscribers. Seven channels have the precious grey badge without having the required threshold.
Snapchat
Only 12 international organizations have a presence on Snapchat and only three of these have created public profiles, namely the UN, the WHO and UNEP, the UN Environment Programme which boasts 249,000 subscribers. It definitely makes sense for organizations to set up a public profile on Snapchat and become active to reach a younger audience.
Bluesky
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is the only international organization to set up shop on Bluesky, a new federated social media platform which has so far refused to onboard large organizations.
The platform – a spin-off from Twitter – is funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. HRW has set up separate accounts in English, Arabic and Spanish and counts 1.500 followers on the platform which is still in private beta and has 856,508 users. Ping @DigiTips if you need an invite.
Mastodon
UNEP is one of a handful of international organizations to set up an account on Mastodon at the end of 2022, including a personal account for Executive Director Inger Andersen.
Only three organizations, namely Human Rights Watch, the IEC, and UNEP are actively posting on Mastodon, although engagement seems to be close to zero. Despite the abysmal engagement rate, Human Rights Watch has attracted more than 10,000 followers.
Since Mastodon is a federated social network, the organizations have set up on three different instances (servers) which makes finding and following them a challenge.
Threads
So far only 42 of the 106 institutions and eight of their leaders have signed up to Threads. Most European-based organizations are not yet registered given Threads is not available in Europe.
Despite the geo-fence, Geneva-based WHO is the most followed organization on Threads with 893,460 followers. The WHO is also the most active with a post a day. It is followed by UNICEF and the United Nations with more than 600,000 followers. The WEF and the European Space Agency complete the list of the Top five most followed accounts.
The WHO and the UN are also the most active, posting daily on the platform. All other organizations in the Top 10 list post at least once a week.
However, half of the organizations have only posted once and are not currently active on Threads. Despite having posted only once, the WEF has amassed 444,921 followers. Since Threads is linked to Instagram, some of their 4.8 million followers on Instagram automatically follow them on this new platform.
It remains to be seen if Threads will become a serious competitor for X once users in the European Union can access the platform.
Conclusion
Fifteen years after having set up their first presence on social media, international organisations are now faced with a daunting choice of platforms to chose from. There are the top five – Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and YouTube – which need constant attention and community management. The question is whether they have the resources and bandwidth to engage on other niche networks or to invest time into new networks challenging the predominance of X.
While organizations have seen their audience grow year-on-year, one thing has remained constant over the years: the size of social-media teams. It is time for organizations to recognize the essential work of social media managers and understand that digital-media relations are no longer an after thought, but a key business function with the direct involvement of all employees including the chief executive.
The full study including the data tables is available here for €9.99. Matthias Lüfkens Geneva, 10.09.2023
Twitter is dead. The social network that many of us have come to love over the past 17 years is no longer. It was killed by its new owner Elon Musk and renamed X in what might go down in history as one of the most fateful corporate rebranding.
Many social media managers have been put off by the transformation of the platform into a subscription platform over the past year and by the antics of its new owner. But what are the alternatives?
Threads, the social networking platform launched in July 2023 by Meta has seen explosive growth since as it is integrated with Instagram and counted 124 million users. However, the app is only available in 100 countries and has not been rolled out in the European Union yet. The platform could become a serious competitor to X if it increases engagement and builds more functionalities as it is rather basic for the moment. In any case, it is probably wise to set up a Threads account if you haven’t done so yet.
Mastodon is a crowdfunded social media network which was launched in 2016. The decentralized platform has tripled its users since Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter in November 2022. The 10 million registered users are accessing the network from 10,000 different nodes/servers which makes finding and following other users challenging to say the least. Posts on Mastodon are called “toots” and reposts are called “boosts”. The founder of the platform has vowed to keep Mastodon free, open source and ads-free.
Koo is an Indian social network platform which was released in early 2020 and has grown partly as an alternative to Twitter namely in India, Nigeria, and Brazil. The Bangalore-based network counts 60 million users including official accounts of the governments of Brazil, India, and Nigeria. Its logo is a small yellow bird, and its mission is “to unite the world despite its language barriers”, according to its co-founder Mayank Bidawatka.
Bluesky was born in 2021 as a Twitter spinoff with the aim to build a decentralized social network protocol. The platform, funded in part by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is still in private beta but has grown to 500,000 users. The platform feels very much like Twitter in the early days. The Bluesky team is often requesting user input as they build the platform but has so far refused to onboard large accounts. (If you need an invite, contact us)
T2 Social is a social network started by two former Twitter employees and launched in late April 2023. The platform, which is still in private beta, has only 14,000 users and is growing as each user can invite their friends. Posts are limited to 280 characters, and you can only post pictures but no videos. (If you need an invite, contact us)
Hive promises to “bring back what you used to love about social media in a new way” with “all friends displayed fairly in chronological order”. The app also profited from the Twitter exodus in late 2022 and made headlines for being run by a three-member team managed by 24-year-old founder Kassandra Raluca Pop.
Spill is the most fun and creative platform, launched in June 2023 by two former black Twitter employees. Users spill the tea and sip the tea from people they follow. The brew on the platform is visual-led with pictures, gifs, or videos and 90-character captions. The platform aims to create a safer and more inclusive space compared to traditional social media platforms and caters specifically to the black and queer community. The app is still invite-only but has garnered several hundred thousand users. (If you need an invite, contact us)
Among established platforms LinkedIn has clearly benefitted from Twitter’s slow decline with more governments and organisations becoming active on the professional social network which is approaching the billion-subscriber mark. TikTok, the hugely popular video-sharing platform now offers text-only posts, but the new feature hasn’t been widely adopted yet.
It is unlikely that any of these new platforms will ever replace X. X is not dead, X has become a subscription platform where users need to pay to play. Despite these changes it remains one of the most influential social networks with 350 million subscribers. X is still used by almost all governments in the world and for many international and multilateral organisations X is still the first social media platform listed on their websites.
However, X is no longer the sole actor in the microblogging space which has become fragmented and compartmentalized. The key challenge for social media managers is to build or rebuild an engaged community on these new platforms. One thing is clear, it is important to set up accounts on these channels to protect your brand name and please add them to the boilerplate on your website.
Threads is barely a week old but has taken the internet by storm with more than 100 million users. Among them are 103 heads of state and government and foreign ministers from 53 countries who have switched to the new social media platform.
Latin American leaders are the most popular, occupying six places among the 10 most followed accounts. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele leads the pack with 366,000 followers. Brazil’s President is in second place with 306,000 followers and Colombia’s Petro Gustavo is in third place with 182,000 followers.
Sheik Mohammed, the leader of Dubai is in fourth place with a respectable 174,000 followers but he hasn’t posted any thread yet. Nigeria’s new President Bola Ahmed Tinubu completes the top 5 list of the most followed leaders with 136,000 followers.
The most followed world leaders on Threads and their followers on Instagram (July 13, 2023)
Among the early adopters are 24 presidents, twelve prime ministers and twelve foreign ministers who have switched their personal Instagram profiles to the new platform. Their follower numbers are still low but are rising daily as new users join the platform and many leaders already have millions of followers on Instagram.
Nayib Bukele’s first post on Threads
Nayib Bukele posted a simple wave emoji as his first thread on July 6 and then told his followers: “I love you, but it’s time for you to go to sleep…” Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness posted a video selfie: “Looking forward to making friends and having greater engagement with you. Let’s talk.”
This personal approach seems to work also for Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu who posted a challenge to his followers: “Who is worth for me to follow? Someone interesting or funny in all areas of life. I have had enough of politics. I will try to respond from time to time 🎉”
So far, no EU government has adopted the platform since the Threads app is not available in the app store in the EU. While the UK Foreign Office and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly have embraced Threads, no G7 leader has yet established an account on Threads.
The welcome post on Threads from the UK Foreign and Development Office
Most of the 660 Instagram accounts of heads of state and government and foreign ministers are still standing on the side lines, evaluating whether it is worth engaging on yet another social media platform.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is the most followed world leader on social media, topping the rankings on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
On LinkedIn Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is still in the lead ahead of the Indian Prime Minister. Surprisingly many elected officials seem to ignore the professional social network, which has seen double digit growth for those who are active on the platform.
Ukrainian President leads the rankings on Telegram and catapulted into the top 10 on many social media channels over the past year.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele is the most followed world leader on TikTok.
Twitter
For the third year running, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most followed world leader with 88 million followers on his personal Twitter account @NarendraModi and 53 million on his institutional account @PMOIndia set up by his predecessor. With a total combined following of 141 million followers on both accounts the government leader of the most populous nation has slightly more followers than Elon Musk.
U.S. President Joe Biden is in second position with 37 million followers on his personal account and 30 million on his institutional account which he had to build from scratch since his inauguration in January 2021.
Pope Francis is in third place with a total of 53 million followers on his nine language accounts. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and India’s President Droupadi Murmu complete the top five list with 24* and 21 million followers respectively.
The 1,164 Twitter accounts of heads of state and government and foreign ministers have a combined audience of 753 million followers with a median average of 42,563 for each account.
Four hundred of these official accounts have the coveted grey badge verification for government institutions and government officials. Two hundred and eighty accounts have lost their blue badge and join the army of unverified official accounts. So far none of them have dared calling out Twitter or Elon Musk publicly on Twitter.
Some 20 leaders have subscribed to Twitter Blue, including governments and their leaders in Africa and the Middle East but also the Polish President @Prezydentpl and the @PremierRP. After having lost their verification, many are now living in fear of losing their followers with the announced cull of inactive accounts.
Facebook
The 820 Facebook pages of world leaders have a combined audience of 435,267,643 followers and the median average number of followers stands at 69,501 per page.
Hun Sen, https://facebook.com/hunsencambodia the Prime Minister of Cambodia is a surprise third place with close to 14 million followers, more than there are Facebook users in his country. Another leader who reaches beyond his borders is El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele who has 6.6 million followers while there are only 4.7 million Facebook users in El Salvador.
The President of the Philippines Bong Bong Marcos who took office in June 2022 has witnessed a 28% growth of his page year on year. He is also in third place with 57 million interactions behind Brazil’s President Lula and Narendra Modi with 64 and 108 million comments, likes, and shares respectively.
Instagram
The 668 Instagram accounts of heads of state and government and foreign ministers have a combined audience of 375 million followers with a median average of 25,051 per account.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also the most followed world leader on Instagram with 74 million followers on his personal Instagram account @NarendraModi. Indonesian President Joko Widodo is in second place with 51 million followers ahead of U.S: President Joe Biden who has a total of 37 million followers on his personal @JoeBiden and his institutional account @POTUS.
Since the start of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy (@Zelenskiy_official) has become the fourth most followed world leader on the platform. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has registered 187 million interactions (likes & comments) and 256 million video views on his 1,948 posts. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (@LulaOficial), the President of Brazil has seen his numbers more than double as he was elected president in October 2022.
El Salvador’s President @NayibBukele who is in 11th place with 4.8 million followers has literally wowed his followers with 192,224 wow-reactions on his 390 Instagram posts over the past year.
LinkedIn
Surprisingly, LinkedIn is one of the least used social platforms by heads of state and government. No wonder since these leaders are hardly looking to get a new job. Canadian Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau leads the LinkedIn list with 5.5 million followers ahead of Indian Prime Minister @NarendraModi Narendra Modi with more than 4 million followers.
French President @EmmanuelMacron and the Sheikh @MohammedBinRashid the Prime Minister of the UAE are on the third and fourth places with 2.8 million followers each.
Eight of the 10 most followed world leaders are part of LinkedIn’s Top Voices program, an invitation-only group of experts across the professional world. The Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte are not part of this exclusive club since they are not overly active on the platform.
We have identified 423 LinkedIn pages and profiles of world leaders. The 183 personal profiles combined have a total of 21 million followers and the 240 organisation pages only clock up 8.4 million followers. However, the median average of company pages is 2,327 compared to only 1,085 for personal accounts.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who is in fifth place with 1.7 million followers organized his first ever LinkedIn live in May 2023 answering prepared questions from selected members of the UK business community. The event about his plans to grow the economy was watched by 91,000 users on the platform.
YouTube
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has 14.6 million subscribers on YouTube, four times as many as each of the runners up, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo who have 3.7 and 3.1 million subscribers respectively.
What is even more impressive his 19,000 videos have been viewed 3 billion times with an average of 160,000 views per video. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador AMLO has registered 1.4 billion views and an average of 450,000 average views per video.
The 449 channels of world leaders have a combined audience of 48 million subscribers and a median average of 3,360 subscribers per channel. In total these accounts have more than half a million videos which are viewed on average 1,648 times.
Most channels only registered minimal growth Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and South Korean President Yoon have seen their subscriber numbers grow by more than 5% over the past 12 months.
TikTok
The heads of state and government in 57 countries have an official presence on TikTok and quite a few are still active on TikTok despite a creeping public sector ban of the Chinese-owned platform in a growing number of Western capitals.
TikTok is widely popular among Latin American leaders and most presidents and governments have an official channel on the platform. El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele has become the most followed world leader on TikTok. With his 5.7 million followers he is reaching a large Spanish speaking audience far beyond the 6.3 million population of his country. Showcasing his #GuerraContraPandillas (#FightAgainstGangs), his team has started to subtitle his videos in English for a global audience.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is in second place with 4.3 million followers and French President Emmanuel Macron is in third place with 3.9 million followers on the platform. Four other Latin American presidents make the Top 10 list, namely Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, Ecuador’s Guillermo Lasso, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Chile’s Gabriel Boric.
Bong Bong Marcos the President of the Philippines is the only Asian leader and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni is the only woman in the Top 10 TikTok ranking.
Ukrainian President is the most followed world leader on Telegram but he has lost a third of his follower since May 1, 2022. Many other world leaders in the top 10 have seen their numbers decrease significantly. The only newcomer in the ranking is Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen whose followers have grown tenfold to 717,679. He is closely followed by Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei with 181,861 followers.
Heads of state and government and foreign ministers in only 50 countries have set up channels on Telegram which is particularly popular in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
As Twitter is morphing into a subscription-based network under its new owner Elon Musk, governments have started to look for other options. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Nigerian government and the Indian government have set up accounts on Koo, an Indian social media platform. The European Commission and the European External Action Service have created accounts on Mastodon. But so far, no current world leaders are on Bluesky, a social media platform funded by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey which is in private beta and has publicly refused to onboard high-profile government accounts.
Who are the most followed foreign ministers and foreign ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube?
🟦 Foreign ministers and foreign ministries tend to have less followers than heads of state and governments. But there are exceptions.
🟦 Colombia’s Marta Lucía Ramírez stands out since she is one of the few women foreign ministers and consistently among the top 10.
🟦 The foreign ministers of Colombia, Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, and Turkey are among the Top 10 on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
🟦 The US State Department is the most followed foreign ministry on all platforms. The foreign ministries of France, Israel, and Russia are consistently among the top 10.
Most Followed Foreign Ministers on Twitter 2022
🟦 Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Foreign Minister of the UAE has been the most followed foreign minister for several years. He is closely followed by the new and young Foreign Minister of Pakistan Bilawal Bhutto Zardari with 4.7 million followers.
🟦 The foreign ministers of Mexico, Turkey and Secretary of State Antony Blinken complete the top 5 with 2 million followers each.
🟦 Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was catapulted into 7th place with his occasional Twitter livestreams in English.
Most Followed Foreign Ministers on Facebook 2022
🟦 Italy’s Luigi Di Maio is by far the most followed foreign minister on Facebook with 2.6 million followers, four times as many as the runner-up, Pakistan’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
🟦 Hungary’s Péter Szijjártó is only active on Facebook but has a sizeable audience of 350,000.
Most Followed Foreign Ministers on Instagram 2022
🟦 Luigi Di Maio, the foreign minister of Italy also tops the Instagram rankings with 870,000 followers ahead of Germany’s Annalena Baerbock with half a million followers.
🟦 Indonesia’s Retno Marsudi is in fourth position and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is in 10th place with 110,000 followers.
Most Followed Foreign Ministers on LinkedIn 2022
🟦 LinkedIn is somewhat of a niche social network with foreign minister from a range of smaller countries embracing the professional social network.
🟦 Swiss Foreign Minister and current President Ignazio Cassis is the most followed foreign minister on Linkedin with 18,000 followers. Togo’s Robert Dussey and Belgium’s Sophie Wilmès complete the top 3 with more than 11,000 followers.
Most Followed Foreign Ministries on Twitter 2022
🟦 The leading foreign ministries maintain Twitter accounts in several languages to reach the widest possible audience. We have summed the different language accounts marked with a *.
🟦 The US State Department has by far the most followers on Twitter with 8.7 million, more than twice as much as the Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia with 3.5 million followers. The Foreign Ministry of Russia is in third place.
🟦 However, since the Trump administration the State Department does no longer follow any other foreign ministry or foreign leader, whether ally or foe.
Most Followed Foreign Ministries on Facebook 2022
🟦 The US State Department leads the Facebook rankings with 3.4 million followers ahead of the foreign ministries of India, Egypt, the Philippines, and Mexico.
🟦 Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry is in eighth place among the most followed foreign ministers with 600,000 followers.
Most Followed Foreign Ministries on Instagram 2022
🟦 The US State Department leads the Instagram rankings with 1.5 million followers ahead of the foreign ministries of India, Israel, and Russia.
🟦 Instagram diplomacy is widely popular in the Middle East namely the foreign ministries of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar.
Most Followed Foreign Ministries on LinkedIn 2022
🟦 LinkedIn, was mainly used as a recruiting platform by the State Department hence the name DOScareers of its page which has 638,000 followers.
🟦 The UK Foreign Office, and the foreign ministries of France, Canada and Argentina engage in economic diplomacy on what is seen as the professional social network.
Most Followed Foreign Ministries on YouTube 2022
🟦 The US State Department leads on YouTube leaderboard ahead of the two channels of the Indian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Foreign Ministry.
🟦 Of note the good showing of Uzbek’s Foreign Ministry in eighth place.
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Who are the most followed EU leaders on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube as of May 1, 2022?
🟦French President Emmanuel Macron tops every single social network among EU leaders.
🟦All but one EU heads of government have a presence on the three main platforms Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
🟦Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi is the odd man out having no personal accounts on social media and neither does Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
🟦Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is among the Top 10 on all five social networks.
🟦Slovakia’s President Zuzana Čaputová and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are the most followed EU women leaders.
Top 10 Most Followed EU Leaders on Twitter 2022
🟦French President Emmanuel Macron has more than 8 million followers on Twitter far ahead of Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in 2nd and 3rd position.
🟦Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz who set up the @Bundeskanzler Twitter account has close to a million followers on both accounts combined.
🟦EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is the only woman in the Top 10 of EU leaders on Twitter.
Most Followed EU Leaders on Twitter
Top 10 Most Followed EU Leaders on Facebook 2022
🟦Central European leaders make a strong showing in the Facebook rankings.
🟦Romanian President Klaus Iohannis is the second most followed EU leader on Facebook followed by Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
🟦Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev is in 6th place and Slovakia’s Zuzana Čaputová clocks in at N°8.
Top 10 Most Followed EU Leaders on Instagram 2022
🟦Four women leaders are in the top 10 of EU leaders on Instagram.
🟦Finland’s Sanna Marin is most followed EU female leader followed by Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Slovakia’s President Zuzana Čaputová, and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Top 10 Most Followed EU Leaders on LinkedIn 2022
🟦Relatively few EU heads of state and government have an active presence on LinkedIn.
🟦French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are both LinkedIn influencers with 2 and 1 million followers respectively.
🟦Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheal Martin makes it into the Top 10.
Top 10 Most Followed EU Leaders on YouTube 2022
🟦Only a handful EU leaders maintain personal channels on YouTube.
🟦French President Emmanuel Macron tops the YouTube rankings and recently released a two-part series about his first 5 years in office
Who are the most followed leaders on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok & Telegram as of May 1, 2022? Here is what you need to know about the most followed world leaders on social media in a nutshell.
🟦 They are mainly men and very few women leaders and most of them are part of the G20.
🟦 They have accumulated armies of followers with several millions of soldiers.
🟦 But quantity does not always mean quality. Many of their followers may be bots and fake accounts.
Top 10 World Leaders on Twitter 2022
🟦 Leaders of the most populated countries have a clear advantage to garner millions of followers.
🟦 The Prime Minister of India has 126 million followers on his personal and institutional accounts (@PMOIndia @NarendraModi) twice as many as @POTUS @JoeBiden.
🟦 Pope Francis tweeting @Pontifex clocks up 53 million followers on his 9 language accounts.
Top 10 World Leaders on Facebook 2022
🟦 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden also lead the Facebook rankings.
🟦 Strangely, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has 13 million followers almost as many as Cambodia has inhabitants (16.7 million).
Top 10 World Leaders on Instagram 2022
🟦 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky almost doubled his followers year-on-year and has become the fifth most followed leader.
🟦 Zelensky’s Facebook page has registered the most interactions of all world leaders with 280 millions likes, comments & shares since the start of the 2022.
Top 10 World Leaders on LinkedIn 2022
🟦 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leads the LinkedIn rankings by far.
🟦 Two women, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern make it into the Top 10 of the LinkedIn world leader influencers
🟦 South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is in 10th place and the only African in the top 10 of any social media.
Top 10 World Leaders on YouTube 2022
🟦 YouTube is a useful video repository, but many world leaders neglect YouTube as a social media platform and their channels are dormant for months.
🟦 Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads the YouTube rankings.
🟦 Queen Elizabeth is in 6th place with the Royal Family channel which covers global family events live worldwide.
🟦 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s personal videos shot on hand-held devices in the presidential palace have catapulted him into 8th position of the most followed leaders on YouTube.
Top 10 World Leaders on TikTok 2022
🟦 TikTok is very popular among Latin American leaders.
🟦 El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele’s skits have made him a TikTok star.
🟦 Chile’s young President Gabriel Boric has already half a million followers.
Top 10 World Leaders on Telegram 2022
🟦 Telegram is mainly used in the countries of the former Soviet Union.
🟦 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s war communication and personal videos have made him the most followed leader on the messaging app.
🟦 Many leaders have recently lost followers as Telegram deletes bot accounts.
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An increasing number of governments, foreign ministries and world leaders are signing up to Telegram one of the last remaining social media platforms accessible in Russia.
Telegram has become the frontline in the information war between Russia and Ukraine.
First Telegram post from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy working out in a gym.
It is on Telegram that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dressed in military fatigue, posts his daily video messages, encouraging his citizens to #StopRussianAgression.
It is also the platform where Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, lends support to his troops on the ground in Ukraine from the comfort of his gilded office in Grozny.
Thousands of Ukrainians have flocked to the platform for the latest official government news about the war; Russians have massively migrated to the app after the ban of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in their country.
Since Telegram is the last open window into Russia, NATO and a handful of foreign ministries have opened Telegram channels over the past month in the hope of reaching ordinary Russians.
Western media outlets, namely The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian have activated or re-activated their Telegram channels to offer Russian users an alternative perspective to the official government propaganda.
And finally, foreigners are signing up in droves to follow the war in Ukraine live as reported by the key actors. Telegram has reported an average of 2.5 million new users daily in the last three weeks, a 25% increase from the weeks prior.
Contrary to WhatsApp, which is less suited for mass communication, Telegram allows users to create groups with up to 200,000 users and set up public channels.
Initially Telegram founder Pavel Durov considered blocking Telegram in the warring countries given Telegram channels and groups are often used to spread disinformation; it is also physically impossible to confirm the veracity of each publication. But after massive pressure from users he decided against the closure.
The messaging app, which has more than 550 million monthly users globally, is widely popular in Russia with 67 million users or 65% of all internet users in the country according to data from eMarketer. It is reportedly the most popular messaging service in Ukraine. The adoption of the messaging apps Telegram and Signal has surged by almost 200% in both Russia and Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s invasion according to a report by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
With the ban of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in Russia, tens of thousands of Russians have moved over to Telegram which is still freely available in Russia. Reuters reported on March 21 that Telegram had overtaken WhatsApp to become Russia’s most popular messaging tool.
Telegram is especially popular in the countries of the former Soviet Union, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. It comes as no surprise that the governments in these countries maintain active channels on the platform.
Russian authorities have embraced the messaging app, which was created in 2013 by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, the founder of VKontakte (VK), Russia’s Facebook clone.
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s first Telegram post
In 2018 the Russian government attempted to block Telegram for not cooperating and handing user data to the Russian security services. However, the ban was ineffective and was lifted in summer 2020. Even the Russian Foreign Ministry posted on the platform during the ban. Given the Russian government and many ministries maintain public channels on the platform, experts believe it is unlikely that Russia will ban Telegram which has been dubbed ‘the last app standing’.
Digital Diplomacy on Telegram
Telegram has been part of the Russian digital diplomacy toolkit since 2016. The Foreign Ministry created its official Russian and English channels @MID_Russia and @MFARussia on November 1, 2016.
In March 2022 both channels grew exponentially, doubling and quadrupling their subscriber numbers which now stand at 102,234 and 19,367 respectively. At the same time the Foreign Ministry in Moscow set up separate channels in Arabic and Spanish, becoming the leading foreign ministry on the platform to total 127,000 subscribers on all four channels. However, that number pales compared to the 321,280 subscribers of the personal channel of Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman @MariaVladimirovnaZakharova.
The Most Followed Foreign Ministries on Telegram (April 2022)
The Foreign Ministry of Israel is the second most followed foreign ministry on Telegram with more than 53,000 subscribers on its Russian, English, and Farsi channels; @IsraelinRussian is its most followed channel.
The Telegram channel of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry @Ukraine_MFA was initially set up in March 2020 to spread information about the coronavirus pandemic, but it has since changed tack to share “information about the Russian invasion and the operational situation on the diplomatic front”. It is in fourth place of the most followed foreign ministries with more than 16,000 subscribers.
The U.S. State Department was an early adopter of Telegram when it created an official channel in Farsi on December 4, 2015, to counter the ISIS narrative under the Obama administration. However, the channel @USAdarFarsi which still has 14,709 subscribers, was mothballed in December 2021: it asked its community to follow @USAbehFarsi on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter instead to receive “the latest news and cultural content about the USA”.
The foreign ministries of Armenia, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Singapore, Kazakhstan, and Moldova complete the top 10 list of the 28 foreign ministries on the platform.
How do you reach the Russian population in Russia?
On February 27, three days after Russia’s attack on Ukraine the State Department created a bespoke Russian-language channel on Telegram @USApoRusski. It only has 2,159 subscribers.
The US State Department announces its arrival on Telegram in Russian
The EU External Action Service followed suit on March 2 with a video from the EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Josef Borrel on the @EUinRU channel managed by the EU Mission in Moscow: “We know that millions of Russians do not want war. And I sincerely wish your leader stop this fratricidal war.”
“We must keep communication channels open”, said EU External Affairs spokesperson Peter Stano via email of the decision to create a Telegram channel. “Since the Kremlin imposed heavy restrictions on most of the social platforms and international media, which are not accessible in Russia anymore (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram), Telegram seems to be one of the very few remaining and accessible channels”, he added. In short succession foreign ministries from the leading G7 countries took to Telegram to stay in touch with Russia’s social media users.
The French Foreign Ministry announces its arrival on Telegram
The French Foreign Ministry launched its bilingual French and Russian channel @FranceDiplomatie on March 11, the @EuropeanCommission created its channel on March 23 and the German Foreign Ministry tasked its Embassy in Moscow with the creation of the @Germania_Online channel on March 24. In a service tweet in Russian the German Foreign Ministry explained the purpose of the account: “to continue to provide our subscribers in Russia with factual information.”
The European Commission promised: “regular EU updates on our latest announcements, our support to Ukraine, our sanctions against Russia and our practical information for refugees.”
Within the first week of operation the EU Commission shared 54 posts mainly in English and a few in Ukrainian to its 2,321 subscribers.
NATO has become the latest international organization to set up shop on Telegram on March 4. @NATOpoRusski fired its first Russian-language post on March 12, promising: “the truth about our activities, deployments, summits and more.”
NATO announces its arrival in Russian on Telegram
NATO’s counterpart, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan started their Telegram channel on January 12, 2022, with the announcement of an extraordinary meeting of the CSTO Council of Defence Ministers to discuss the peacekeeping operation in Kazakhstan. The @ODKB_CSTO channel has close to 6,000 subscribers.
Few international organisations have set up shop on Telegram. Human Rights Watch maintains channels in Chinese, English, and Russian since early 2018 but with few subscribers. The World Economic Forum which has always been leading on social media, has been sharing its popular videos since June 2018 with an audience of 2,365 subscribers.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) opened his personal Telegram channel on March 24 and within a week it had almost 1,600 subscribers.
Probably one of the most impactful uses of Telegram was the arrival of Arnold Schwarzenegger on the platform @AASchwarzenegger. The Austrian bodybuilder, American actor and former Governor of California shared a very personal and heartfelt 10-minute-long video message to his “Dear Russian friends”. Speaking about his affection and respect for the people of Russia he compared his father’s fight in the Wehrmacht during the siege of Leningrad in WWII to Russia’s war in Ukraine. “When my father arrived in Leningrad he was all pumped up on the lies of his government. And when he left Leningrad, he was broken, physically and mentally. He lived the rest of his life in pain”, he said.
Arnold Schwarzenegger on Telegram
The Russian Ministry of Defence has been active on the social media platform since December 10, 2016, and the @MoD_Russia channel counts 175,000 subscribers. On March 5, it added an English language channel for foreign audiences @MoD_Russia_en with 41,000 followers.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence only joined Telegram on March 8, 2022, in an attempt to #StopRussia and counter Russian propaganda, but so far it only counts 20,000 subscribers. However, the Ukrainians can count on Mykhailo Fedorov, the Minister of Digital Transformation who is credited with having raised a 300,000 strong IT army of Ukraine, a Telegram channel which aims to take down Russian websites in concerted DDOS attacks.
Governmental Channels on Telegram
At the start of Russia’s aggression, the Ukrainian government repurposed its @COVID19_Ukraine Telegram channel and started to share important information about the war. The Ukrainian-language @UkraineNow channel has 1,186,793 subscribers is available in Russian (1,080,665 subscribers), English (subscribers), French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Polish with a combined number of 2.4 million subscribers making it the biggest government channel on Telegram.
The Indian government has 1.1 million subscribers on its @MyGovCoronaNewsdesk , making it the single largest government channel, set up in March 2020 to provide information about the pandemic.
Most Followed Governments on Telegram (April 2022)
The Ukrainian presidential administration, which started on Telegram on July 4, 2019 as @OP_UA has become the third most followed government channel on Telegram with more than 640,000 subscribers, almost six times as many as the Russian Government channel @Government_rus which counts 117,944 subscribers. Neither the Kremlin nor Vladimir Putin have an official presence on Telegram.
The Telegram channel of the Singapore government @GovSG was set up on April 1, 2020, to share “updates on the latest information about COVID-19” and two years later it nearly 300,000 subscribers. The @SyrianPresidency has been sharing official photos of meetings of Bashar al-Assad since October 2015 and has over 105,000 subscribers.
On February 24, the day of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine the government of Moldova inaugurated its bilingual Moldovan-Russian Telegram channel aptly entitled: “First source/Original Source”@Prima_Sursa_MD, designed to debunk fake news and urging“the media not to share unconfirmed information.” Telegram is used by the governments in 34 countries. The channels of the governments of Brunei Darussalam, Brazil, and Togo are among the 10 most followed.
World Leaders on Telegram
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has become the most followed world leader on Telegram with 1,460,812 subscribers. According to Time Magazine, his channel saw an “explosive growth” from 65,000 followers on February 23 to 1.5 million by mid-March. More recently, his account has been losing followers, but he remains ahead of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro with 1,337,872 subscribers. The Brazilian President is heavily promoting his Telegram channel on Twitter.
Most Followed World Leaders on Telegram (April 2022)
Zelenskyy set up his personal Telegram channel @V_Zelenskiy_official on July 30, 2019, two months after becoming president with a post showing himself working out in a gym. Over the past years he has maintained a very personal presence on Telegram, often addressing his community directly from his laptop.
His defiant video-selfie recorded on February 25 late in the evening outside the presidential administration building and surrounded by his leadership team, has become one of his most watched videos with 5.3 million views. Occasionally Zelenskyy speaks in English and even in Russian to address his target audience. His team has started posting subtitled versions of his videos in English for his growing foreign audience.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posting a video selfie on Telegram
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed complete the Top 5 list of the most followed world leaders. Moldova’s President Maia Sandu makes it into the Top 10 and she is the only female leader on Telegram.
Over the past years some governments have abandoned Telegram. The Italian Foreign Ministry started an Italian language Telegram channel in 2016 but stopped a year later after having shared 3,274 posts and only garnered 627 subscribers.
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro looking at his Telegram channel on a mobile phone.
Telegram is the 10th most used social media platform worldwide, but it is still a nascent app in the world of digital diplomacy and government communications. As of April 1, 2022, the heads of state and government and foreign ministers of 56 countries had a presence on Telegram. DigiTips has identified 121 public Telegram channels of heads of state and government and foreign ministries, 36 of which have been verified.
It is interesting to witness the digital diplomacy activity of international organisations and foreign ministries in recent weeks, adopting a new channel to reach new audiences. As the iron information curtain has descended on Russia it seems the use of Telegram is the only way to reach and connect with the Russian population.
QR code for the @DigiTipsCH channel on Telegram
However, two weeks after inception the NATO channel and most foreign ministries have less than 500 subscribers. Reaching the Russian population to change hearts and minds promises to be a long and arduous battle.
For more information about world leaders on Telegram follow @DigiTips on Telegram.
Germany has a new Foreign Minister. Annalena Baerbock is Germany’s first female foreign minister and she hit the road running with trips to Paris, Brussels, and Warsaw on the day of her nomination.
On social media she decided to start from a clean slate: archiving her personal Twitter account with 419,000 followers (@ABaerbockArchiv) and creating new @ABaerbock account for her new role as Foreign Minister. The new account is growing fast and already counts 80,000 followers barely a week after inception.
In line with digital diplomatic etiquette, she has made digital overtures, unilaterally following all G7 and many EU foreign ministers as well as the foreign ministers of Andorra, Australia, Israel and Norway on Twitter. In total she has extended a digital welcome to a group of 30 peers, mainly men with a few female foreign ministers.
Guess how many have reciprocated? So far only seven foreign ministers, namely the foreign ministers of Austria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Latvia, the Netherlands, and Slovenia have reciprocated. The UK Foreign Secretary @TrussLiz, Norway’s @AHuitfeldt, Andorra’s @MubachFont, Finland’s @Haavisto and Belgium’s @Sophie_Wilmes follow her archived account.
Her first overtures on Twitter were for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Josep Borrell Fontelles, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, these three men have not reciprocated, despite having met physically with Annalena Baerbock in her first days in office. To put it into diplospeak not following her on Twitter is like refusing to shake hands, a clear case of a diplomatic affront.
Josep Borrell and Jean-Yves Le Drian would be well advised to have a closer look at who they follow. There might not be much point in following the archived accounts of former @SecPompeo and the @WhiteHouse45 nor the former foreign ministers @KonoTaromp @PavloKlimkin and @SigmarGabriel. It pays to keep on top of your followers and those you follow.
It is unlikely that Antony Blinken will ever reciprocate and follow @ABaerbock. Not because he doesn’t like Annalena Baerbock or Germany, but because he doesn’t follow any other peer. While @SecBlinken and the @StateDept promised to “revitalize our ties with our allies and partners” in early 2020, neither account follows any other foreign minister, foreign ministry, and not a single world leader, nor ally or international partner.
Screenshot of U.S. Secretary of State declaring: “We will revitalize our ties with our allies and partners.“
Is Digital Diplomacy dead?
The State Department is the most followed foreign ministry with 6.2 million followers and over 200 world leaders and foreign ministriesfollow the @StateDept, but it does give all of them the cold shoulder or is it the middle finger? Not following friends and allies on social media is a digital diplomatic faux pas, considering that the State Department once followed some of its allies and foes and has unfollowed them under the Trump administration.
Top 10 Most Followed World Leaders on Twitter (Data: December 2021)
Over the past decade world leaders have build armies of followers on Twitter. Nine of the 10 most followed current world leaders have more than 10 million followers on Twitter but they are not connecting with their peers. President Joe Biden, Pope Francis, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of India, Prime Minister Imran Khan, Sheikh Mohammed, Queen Rania of Jordan and King Salman of Saudi Arabia don’t follow any other users Twitter user. The Indonesian President Joko Widodo follows one other leader, namely Narendra Modi and Modi in turn does follow a host of other leaders, and tellingly he doesn’t follow Joe Biden.
Whether it is digital sloppiness or diplomatic ignorance, it does spell the death knell of digital diplomacy as leaders are no longer interacting on social media as they once did.
For the record, Bulgaria’s new Foreign Minister Teodora Genchovska joined Twitter this week. So far she is only followed by her counterparts from Austria, Latvia, Romania and Slovenia and her account isn’t verified yet.