Nairobi News

News

Uhuru most popular leader in Africa – report

By Amina Wako April 11th, 2019 2 min read

President Uhuru Kenyatta is the most popular leader in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is according to the latest research by Burson Cohn & Wolfe for 2019 world leaders on Facebook, where the Kenyan head of state has 3.6 million likes.

However, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is still the most popular world leader with more than 43.5 million likes on his Facebook personal page.

US President Donald Trump is in second place, with more than 23 million likes on his personal Facebook page.

Jordan’s Queen Rania is in the third position with 16.9 million likes, reaching an Arabic and English audience well beyond the 5.8 million Facebook users in Jordan.

In terms of interactions, Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office on January 1, 2019, has dominated the rankings of World Leaders on Facebook. His Facebook page has registered more than 145 million interactions.

PAGE LIKES

The study, using aggregate data from Facebook’s CrowdTangle tool, analyzes the activity of 962 Facebook pages of heads of state and government and foreign ministers, 50 more than in the 2017 study.

As of March 1, 2019, the pages have a combined total of 345 million page likes and published 449,739 posts in the past 12 months which have garnered a total of 767 million interactions (comments, likes, and shares).

The study also found increased use of paid posts by world leaders.

“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,” said Chad Latz, Chief Innovation Officer, BCW.

PROMOTING POSTS

It has become more difficult for pages of governments and world leaders to reach their audiences following Facebook’s change of algorithm that favors posts from friends, family and groups.

To counter the changes, many leaders are promoting their posts and pages with Facebook ads.

BCW Study found 50 leaders have paid to promote their posts, including President Trump who has promoted more than 50,000 posts on Facebook since creating his page.

In December of 2018, UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s page posted 74 paid ads to promote her Brexit plan.

“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,” said Chad Latz.