Modi Leaves Trump behind with almost double facebook likes
With elections kick-starting on Thursday, April 11, 2019, the Prime Minister of India – Narendra Modi has emerged as the ‘Most Popular World Leader’ on Facebook.
The report holds significance as it highlights the increasing admiration Prime Minister Narendra Modi is getting on social media. Earlier, the Prime Minister of Pakistan – Imran Khan has also said that there will be better chances of peace talks between India and Pakistan, if Bhartiya Janta party (BJP) forms the Government.
With more than 43.5 million likes on his personal Page and 13.7 million likes on his official Page on Facebook, he is well ahead of President of United States (U.S.) – Donald Trump, who stands at 2nd position with 23 million likes. Trump is followed by Queen Rania of Jordan at number 3 with 16.9 million likes.
The report, ‘2019 World Leaders on Facebook’, is a part of ‘Twiplomacy’ study, which is prepared by the leading global communications agency Burson Cohn & Wolfe (BCW).
The newly elected President of Brazil – Jair Bolsonaro, who took office on January 1, 2019, has been declared as ‘Most Engaged World Leader’ on Facebook. His Facebook page recorded more than 145 million interactions, which is almost double than those of Donald Trump, who registered 84 million interactions.
Speaking on the occasion, Chief Innovation Officer, BCW – Chad Latz said, “Our latest ‘Twiplomacy’ study confirms that even among political figures who easily attract the attention of the public in social media, a paid strategy is still essential to secure reach and make a serious impact. Additionally, we see how some leaders are very successful by being personal and approachable on the platform using all the tools at their disposal, from Facebook Live to Facebook Stories, to engage their audiences.”
The Changing Trend
To make the most of recent changes in Facebook algorithms, various world leaders have started promoting their posts and Pages with Facebook ads. According to Facebook’s Ads Library, as on March 2019, 50 Pages of world leaders were found to be running ads.
Trump’s Facebook Page has more than 50,000 ads posted since its creation. The Prime Minister of United Kingdom (U.K.) – Theresa May posted 74 paid ads in December 2018 to promote her ‘Brexit’ plan.
How was the study conducted?
The aggregate data from Facebook’s ‘CrowdTangle’ tool, was used to carry out the study.
For the records CrowdTangle is a tool that publishers use to track how content spreads around the web.
The tool analysed the activity of 962 Facebook pages of Heads of States, Government and Foreign Ministers. As of March 1, 2019, Facebook Pages have a combined total of 345 million likes and have published 449,739 posts in the past 12 months which have garnered a total of 767 million interactions (comments, likes and shares).
It was also observed that followers of world leaders’ Facebook pages grew by 10% on the Year-on-Year (YOY) basis but the interactions on their Pages have dropped significantly. While world leaders registered 1.1 billion interactions in 2016, that number has decreased by 32.3% as compared to their interactions in 2018.
