NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has become the most followed world leader on Facebook with over 40 million people following his personal account, according to a report published by Burson-Marsteller.The study has analysed the activity of 559 Facebook pages selected from 169 governments around the world with 87 heads of the state, 70 prime ministers other 55 ministers throughout 2016 using aggregate data from Facebook's Crowdtangle tool.According to the report, US President Donald Trump is at the second position with 20 million followers on his personal page while the third position belonged to the PMO account on Facebook, which had over 13 million followers.Among the world leaders, PM Modi also had the most interactions (likes, comments and shares) on Facebook page in the year 2016. PM Modi's most popular post was a set of three pictures of his mother visiting PM's official residence at 7 Race Course Road (now Lok Kalyan Marg) was the second most popular post.With 169 million interactions, Modi's activity far outpaces the second-placed world leader, Cambodia's Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen, who had 58 million interactions, notes the report. The now archived ObamaWhiteHouse page is in third place with 36 million interactions. "It will be interesting see if business leaders take lessons from the ways world leaders use Facebook, such as bringing a personal tone to their communications," said Don Baer, Worldwide Chair and CEO, Burson-Marsteller.Meanwhile, other Indian leaders who found themselves in the top 20 'most followed' list are President Pranab Mukherjee who is placed at number 9 and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, ranked number 16.

Source: Times of India February 22, 2017 15:02 UTC