December 4, 2018
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most followed world leader on Instagram with 14.8 million followers. He is closely followed by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, with 12.2 million followers, who more than doubled his followers over the past 12 months, according to the newly released 2018 World Leaders on Instagram study by leading global communications agency BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe). With 10 million followers, U.S. President Donald Trump is in third position.
Pope Francis is in fourth position with 5.7 million followers, just ahead of Queen Rania of Jordan, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the White House account, each with more than 4 million followers. The UK Royal Family has almost tripled its followers over the past 12 months in large part thanks to the pictures of the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle which increased the account’s followers by 570,000 on May 19, 2018.
The study analyzes the activity of the 426 Instagram accounts of heads of state and government and foreign ministers, 100 more than in the 2017 study, using aggregate data from Facebook’s CrowdTangle tool. As of October 1, 2018, the accounts have a combined total of 98.3 million followers and published 98,372 posts in the past 12 months which have garnered a total of 860.4 million interactions (comments and shares).
U.S. President Donald Trump leads the rankings in terms of total interactions (comments and likes). Over the past 12 months, @realDonaldTrump has garnered more than 218 million interactions, more than three times as many as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has more followers but only 69 million interactions on his 80 photos and videos over the past year. However, considering the number of interactions (comments and likes) per post, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the most effective world leader on Instagram, with each of his 80 posts receiving, on average, 873,302 interactions. Turkey’s President Erdoğan is in second position with 413,934 interactions and Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo’s Instagram posts receive an average of 411,673 interactions per post.
“This third installment of the BCW study shows Instagram has become the social media network where world leaders garner the most interactions,” said Chad Latz, Chief Innovation Officer, BCW. “What is astounding is that the average size of world leaders’ Instagram accounts is less than half the size of their Facebook pages – with five times fewer posts over the past 12 months. However, all Instagram accounts together total 860 million interactions, which is 162 million (23 percent) more than the total interactions on Facebook over the same period.”
The World Leaders on Instagram study also found that 156 of the 193 United Nations member states maintain an official Instagram account, 16 more than in the 2017 study. Ninety-two heads of state, 48 heads of government and 36 foreign ministers maintain personal pages on the platform, which tend to get better engagement than institutional accounts.
Instagram is not the most obvious social network to make sweeping policy statements, however Instagram Stories have become a secondary channel for digital diplomacy, where word leaders meet, greet and tag each other.
Other Key Findings Include:
About the Study
World Leaders on Instagram is BCW's latest research into how world leaders, governments and international organizations communicate via social media. The research builds on BCW’s highly acclaimed annual Twiplomacy study, which is now in its sixth year. In 2016, the Twiplomacy study was expanded to cover all key social media platforms and has massively enhanced BCW’s digital reputation worldwide. For more information, visit www.twiplomacy.com.
About BCW
BCW is one of the world’s largest full-service global communications agencies. Founded by the merger of Burson-Marsteller and Cohn & Wolfe, BCW delivers digitally and data-driven creative content and integrated communications programs grounded in earned media and scaled across all channels for clients in the B2B, consumer, corporate, crisis management, CSR, healthcare, public affairs and technology sectors. BCW is a part of WPP (NYSE: WPP), the world leader in communications services. For more information, visit www.bcw-global.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181204005178/en/