Van Rompuy world leader on Twitter
Despite the fact that almost two-thirds of the UN membercountries are present on twitter, only 30 of them tweet personally.Predominantly, they use twitter as a way to transmit their messagesto friend and foe, but not to interact with them. Almost half ofthe world leader accounts analyzed don’t follow any of theircolleagues.
Remarkable, considering that direct interactions between worldleaders could have a lot of diplomatic advantages. On the otherhand, one man is followed by a quarter of all studied leaders:President Barack Obama. In return, however, Obama only followsthree of them: Medvedev, Cameron and Jens Scholtenberg, the PrimeMinister of Norway.
Van Rompuy achampion
While most people follow Obama, Herman van Rompuy is the bestconnected, with eleven mutual follows including many European headsof state. His popularity might be explained by his function, buthis habit of posting views and observations in haikus might alsoplay a role.
Germany and Italy are the only G8 countries whose leader is notactive on twitter. With the German elections coming up in 2013,however, @Angela_Merkel might revive. Or even better@Kanzlerin.
Different Twitter styles
The Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte (@minpres)does not follow anyone, not even Herman van Rompuy. This cuts himde facto out of all relevant leadership-conversations ontwitter.
Other leaders have a rather different style. Take, forexample, Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s President. His most re-tweetedtweet was not about politics or national crises, but a passionatecheer for his favorite football club EMELEC.
