Narendra Modi the most popular world leader on Facebook: Study

NEW DELHI: India's Narendra Modi is still the most popular world leader on Facebook, with more than 44.7 million likes on his personal page and 13.7 million likes on his official page as the prime minister of India, which is in fourth position, according to a study conducted by global communications agency BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe).

The report, in its fourth edition, titled "World Leaders on Facebook”, said March witnessed a significant spike in the following of state leaders, specifically because of the coronavirus outbreak.

US president Donald Trump is the second most popular world leader on Facebook, with more than 26 million likes and Jordan’s Queen Rania is in the spot with 16.8 million likes, although she has registered a slight decline over the past 12 months.

For the first time, the study has incorporated the true reach per post for each of the Facebook pages of world leaders defined as a prediction of the number of real views an influencer gets per post rather than the volume of followers alone.

Modi reached on average 1.7 million of his fans, which represents 3.8% of his Facebook community. Brazil’s president reached on average 956,000 of his 10 million fans and the US president reached 877,000 fans, only 3.3% of his massive community.

However, Trump dominates the rankings for the most interactions with 309 million comments, likes and shares on his Facebook page over the past 12 months, ahead of Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro with 205 million interactions.

Modi, who has more than four times as many page likes, is at the third place with a total of 84 million interactions over the past 12 months.

The study analyzes the activity of 721 Facebook pages of heads of state and government, and foreign ministers, 29 more than in the 2019 study, using aggregate data from Facebook’s CrowdTangle tool. As of 1 March, the pages have a combined total of 362 million likes and published 435,256 posts in the past 12 months, which have garnered a total of 1.383 billion interactions - comments, likes and shares.

During March, the 721 pages of world leaders analysed in the study, part of the Twiplomacy series, have added 13 million new likes, a 3.7% increase, which is almost half of the growth these pages enjoyed over the past 12 months.

BCW's chief innovation officer, Chad Latz, said, “The significant increase in followers of world leaders on Facebook is a logical result of two primary drivers, populations seeking definitive answers on Coronavirus issues and their country’s definitive policy on managing the pandemic, but also the fact that studies are showing that time online generally has increased in some cases up to 36% and on Facebook more than 20%."

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo is the most popular leader in sub-Saharan Africa with 1.6 million likes, ahead of Rwanda’s Paul Kagame. Jordan’s Queen Rania has been topping the list of the most popular leaders in the Middle East and North Africa for several years.

Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro is by far the most popular leader on Facebook in Latin America with more than10 million page likes, ahead of Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador with 6.4 million likes.

As of 1 March, French president Emmanuel Macron was the most liked leader in the European Union, with 2.5 million likes ahead of Italy’s foreign minister Luigi Di Maio and Romanian president Klaus Iohannis with 2.2 and 1.8 million Facebook likes respectively.

Italy’s prime minister Giuseppe Conte, who has seen a healthy growth of 26% over the past 12 months, looks poised to become the most followed EU leader.