I’m a little sceptical, though, about The New Republic‘s methodology. It is not clearly explained and, on its face, makes no sense.
To begin with: a list of “most popular” on Twitter inevitably means “number of followers”.
But get this: While no one would argue with Barack Obama’s top ranking on The New Republic‘s list — he has more than 40 million followers — what the heck is Herman Van Rompuy doing in the number 2 slot on this list? Quick, tell me: Who is Van Rompuy? Ok, so you fancy yourself a smarty pants and know that he’s a European politician. So here’s a tough one: Is he the president of the European Commission or the European Council? To be honest, I’m sure I’d get that last question wrong at least half the time and I don’t know how many international summits I’ve been to where I’ve watched Van Rompuy in action and actually asked him questions! Now, Van Rompuy is always hanging around with Jose Manuel Barroso who is whatever Van Rompuy isn’t, namely the president of the European Commission or the European Council. They go everywhere together, these two EC presidents. Barroso, a Portuguese politican, is way more fun to put questions to at international press conferences. The New Republic says Barroso is the third most popular world leader on Twitter.
So, since Obama has 40 million followers on Twitter you’re probably thinking Van Rompuy and Barroso have millions of their own followers. You would be wrong. Between them, they have barely 200,000 followers. And yet, they are ranked 1 and 2.Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta didn’t even make The New Republic Top 10 and he’s got 242,869 followers. Or how about the prime minister of Japan? Also not on The New Republic‘s Top 10 list despite the fact that Shinzo Abe has 225,135 followers. But Van Rompuy and Barroso are 2 and 3 on this list. Go figger.
Number 4? Well, here’s a bit of a surprise: Russian Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev with 687,011 followers for his English language account. That’s pretty good. His boss, Vladimir Putin, has just 44,991 for his English language account. Putin (English) follows just one person. Himself. I love that. Interestingly, Medvedev follows 19 people on Twitter and two of those are Stephen Harper and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Medvedev follows Van Rompuy, incidentally, but not Barroso!
Number 5 on The New Republic‘s List is Brazil’s leader Dilma Rousseff. She’s only got a whopping 2.05 million followers! And she’s number 5?!? Our guy, Harper, clocks in at number 6 with a respectable 389,948 followers. Then it’s Chile’s Sebastien Pinera (1.14 million followers), UK PM David Cameron (524,593 followers), the Pope and his Twitter army of 3.3 million followed by Argentina’s Christina Fernandez de Kirchner and her 2.5 million followers.
Absent from The New Republic list is G8 leader and French President Francois Hollande who’s got more Twitter followers than many on that list with 563,366 followers.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel? Not on Twitter so far as I know. (but please correct me in the comments if I’ve got that wrong).
All these numbers, incidentally, are current at Nov 29, 2013, 10 pm ET.
So let’s review The New Republic’s list but do what it did not do and publish each leader’s number of followers:
- Barack Obama (US) 40,274,908
- Herman Van Rompuy (EC) 136,104
- José Manuel Barroso (EC) 62,190
- Dimitry Medvedev (Russia) 687,015
- Dilma Rousseff (Brazil) 2,053,883
- Stephen Harper (Canada) 389,948
- Sebastian Pinera (Chile) 1,139,678
- David Cameron (UK) 524,618
- Pope Francis II (3,311,260)
- Christina Fernandez de Kirchner (Argentina) 2,482,100
Now let’s re-order that list based on number of Twitter followers.
- Barack Obama (US) 40,274,908
- Pope Francis II (3,311,260)
- Christina Fernandez de Kirchner (Argentina) 2,482,100
- Dilma Rousseff (Brazil) 2,053,883
- Sebastian Pinera (Chile) 1,139,678
- Dimitry Medvedev (Russia) 687,015
- David Cameron (UK) 524,618
- Stephen Harper (Canada) 389,948
- Herman Van Rompuy (EC) 136,104
- José Manuel Barroso (EC) 62,190
Doesn’t the U.S. President followed by the Pope seem a little more normal?
Now let’s look at popular world leaders by mixing G8 leaders into The New Republic list:
- Barack Obama (US) 40,274,908
- Pope Francis II (3,311,260)
- Christina Fernandez de Kirchner (Argentina) 2,482,100
- Dilma Rousseff (Brazil) 2,053,883
- Sebastian Pinera (Chile) 1,139,678
- Dimitry Medvedev (Russia) 687,015
- Francois Hollande (France) 563,366
- David Cameron (UK) 524,618
- Stephen Harper (Canada) 389,948
- Enrico Letta (Italy) 242,880
- Vladimir Putin (Russia) 242,319
- Shinzo Abe (Japan) 225,135
- Herman Van Rompuy (EC) 136,104
- José Manuel Barroso (EC) 62,190