Manuel Rueda – Univision, 01/03/2013
It’s not the Forbes most powerful people list. Or the Fortune 500 list of the world’s biggest companies. But make way for the Digital Policy Council’s World Leaders on Twitter list, which is getting more popular, and will probably be more important each year.
The list ranks global heads of state by the number of followers on their Twitter accounts. The 2012 version, which was released on Tuesday, found that three out of four heads of state around the world are currently using accounts “set up in their personal name, or through an official government office.” In 2010, only 20 percent of the world’s 164 heads of state were using twitter, the Digital Policy Council says.
Another interesting trend this year, is that five of the 10 heads of state with the most followers come from Latin America, a sign that citizens of this region are quickly adopting social media, according to the digital policy council, whose research suggests that 90 percent of Latin American internet users engaged with at least one social media platform in 2012.
