Heads of state all atwitter

There's a cartoon by Sarah Lazarovic showing Twitter to be made up of variations of self-promoters and would-be comedians. That may be, but there are also 123 very important people tweeting - heads of state - an astonishing jump of 93 percent from 2010.

According to the international consulting group Digital Daya, as of December 2012 three-quarters of all national leaders had Twitter accounts. "A total of 123 world leaders out of 164 countries have accounts on Twitter set up in their personal name or through an official government office," said the group. The percentage jumps in democratic countries, where 87 percent of leaders have accounts.

The report didn't imply that all tweets sent out under the name of the prime minister or president were personally written by the official. But some of them are, and some like Hugo Chavez, certainly do. Others are often a mix of personal and staff-written, with many choosing to tweet in both national language and English.

But although they're all tweeting, there's only one top tweeter and that's Barack O. As the report noted:

"President Obama again maintained the top spot of all world leaders, with a vast 24 million followers, adding 15 million followers in one year. 2012 was an election year, therefore, the Twitter account continued to be managed by the presidential campaign staff. Obama continued to occasionally post his own tweets, signed with his initials.

And in November, 2012, Obama outdid himself:

"Obama's account sent out the tweet: 'Four more years' along with a photo of himself and the First Lady, which became the most retweeted tweet of all time. Throughout the day, more than 31 million election-related Tweets were sent out, creating the most tweeted-about event in U.S. political history."

You can read the full report here.

What Twitter is really made up of (msn.com, Nov. 13, 2012)

Top10 Rankings 2012 - Heads of State on Twitter (Digital Daya, December 2012)

World Leaders on Twitter, Ranking Report (Digital Daya, December 2012)