PM Modi twice as popular on Facebook as Prez Trump: Study

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is far ahead of other world leaders, including US President Donald Trump, when it comes to popularity on Facebook, according to a study which said 43.2 million people follow the Indian premier on the social media platform.

Trump, who rules the other social media platform Twitter, is in second place with 23.1 million followers, according to the study "World leaders on Facebook" released today by Burson Cohn & Wolfe. 

The study analyses the activity of 650 Facebook pages of heads of state and government and foreign ministers from January 1, 2017 using aggregate data from Facebook's Crowdtangle tool, it said in a statement.

Over the past 14 months, the Facebook page of Trump had by far the most interactions of any world leader on Facebook, with a total of 204.9 million interactions (defined as the total number of comments, likes and shares), almost twice as many as Modi with 113.6 million interactions, the study said.

Modi, 67, has always encouraged use of social media platforms to stay in touch with the public.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has 46 million interactions and Cambodia's Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen and Argentina's President Mauricio Macri follow with 36 and 33.4 million interactions, respectively.

The study found that 175, or 91 per cent, of the 193 United Nations member states maintain an official Facebook page. In addition, 109 heads of state, 86 heads of government and 72 foreign ministers maintain personal pages on the platform.

 Facebook has become the key platform for world leaders and governments to engage with voters, supporters and citizens. As of March 15, 2018, all pages of world leaders combined had a total of 309.4 million followers. Since January 1, 2017, they have published a total of 536,644 posts which have garnered close to 900 million interactions, it said.

The findings revealed that, while more than half of the posts have photos, world leaders are increasingly sharing videos and a handful are going live to talk directly to their constituents.