Dubai ruler in top ten most followed leaders on Twitter

The ruler of Dubai has been ranked the world’s tenth most followed leader on micro blogging site Twitter.

HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum gained nearly 910,000 followers last year, bringing his total number of followers to nearly 1.4m, according a new report by the Digital Policy Council.

Sheikh Mohammed used the micro blogging site to “regularly share his thoughts, future plans, attended events and various achievements,” noted the report.

Click here to see who made it to this year’s top ten

On the sixth anniversary as Ruler of Dubai, he tweeted: “I don’t wish to be celebrated personally. Instead, each year, a deserving group in our society shall be recognised. Last year, we celebrated the orphans. This year, we shall celebrate mothers, the force behind all our successes.”

The list, which was topped by US President Barack Obama with 25m followers, also included Queen Rania as the fourth most followed statesperson. The Jordanian royal added more than 1m followers to her account “despite the fact she continued to scale back her public activities”, said the report.

Three out of four heads of state currently use Twitter, with 123 world leaders out of 164 countries using accounts either in their name or through official government offices. The figure is a 78 percent rise compared to the same period in 2011, according to the Digital Policy Council.

Last year’s most popular retweet by a world leader was President Obama’s “Four more years”, following his re-election in November. The tweet, accompanied by a photograph of himself and First Lady Michelle Obama, became the most retweeted of all time with more than 31m retweets.

Other world leaders to make it to the list include Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Abdullah Gul of Turkey and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Click here to see who made it to this year’s top ten