Trump surpasses Pope Francis, fails to beat Obama as most followed world leader on Twitter

After Trump and Pope Francis, Indian PM Narendra Modi comes in third as most followed

US President Donald Trump is now the world’s most followed leader on Twitter, while Pope Francis is the second, according to a report by Twiplomacy.

Indian PM Narendra Modi takes third position as most followed leader on the social website, according to the Burson Marsteller research project that tracks the use of Twitter by governments and international organisations.



While the rankings cannot be seen as a measure of popularity, Twitter users sharply pointed out that many of Trump’s followers are bots.

Trump overtook Pope Francis by a few thousand followers to occupy the first place in Twiplomacy’s October report.

The US president’s personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump has 39, 735, 749 (almost 40 million) followers, while the Pope’s official account, @Pontifex, trails behind by more than 0.2 million followers at number two.

The Pope’s numbers are a total of his nine different accounts, that dispense prayers and reflections in nine different languages such as English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Latin, French, German and Arabic.

With almost 40 million followers US President @realDonaldTrump is now the most followed world leader on Twitter #Twiplomacy pic.twitter.com/eDHgO5fzsa

— Twiplomacy 🌐 (@Twiplomacy) October 4, 2017

Indian PM Narendra Modi has kept his third place consistently since 2016. Modi’s own account, @narendramodi, has over 34 million followers, while the official @PMOIndia account is at the fourth position with a following of more than 21 million.

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj is the most followed female world leader in the world with a 9.6 million following on Twitter. The @POTUS and @WhiteHouse accounts come in at the fifth and sixth positions respectively.



Other world leaders who make the top ten are Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at number six with 11.2 million followers, Indonesian President Joko Widodo with 8.5 million and UAE’s Prime Minister and ruler of Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum with 8.4 million followers.

The aforementioned figures were released in Twiplomacy’s October report. Trump’s @realDonaldTrump has now 40 million followers and Modi’s @narendramodi has 35 million followers by the time this report was being filed.

Former US president Barack Obama, however, remains the undisputed most followed world leader on Twitter.

In 2016, Obama’s Twitter account, @BarackObama had a following of more than 74.9 million. Twiplomacy’s 2016 report called him “the uncontested leader of the digital world” and said he will go down in history as the first digital president who effectively used social media while in office.

Even after exiting office, Obama’s following has only surged, currently standing at a whopping 95 million.

This story originally appeared on the Hindustan Times.