Museveni named third most influential African leader on Twitter

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni has been named the third most influential African leader on Twitter.

According to BCW’s Twiplomacy, a digital diplomacy initiative by the strategic communication agency, BCW Global in their 2022 World Leader Power Ranking report, Kenyan President William Ruto ranked 13 worldwide leads the pack in Africa and is closely followed by Cyril Ramaphosa, from South Africa and Museveni comes third and 29th in the world.

Elsewhere, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has kept his position as the most influential world leader on Twitter, followed by U.S. President Joe Biden and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

According to BCW, the global communication agency’s digital diplomacy initiative’s new ranking algorithm has been designed to identify what influence is on Twitter among a particular list of handles.

“Influence on Twitter is more than how many followers a user has, it’s about how engaged a follower base is, and how likely they are to interact with a leader’s message. Our proprietary algorithm uncovered engagement metrics like retweets as the indicators contributing most to influence, which also power a leader’s reach,” said Jillian Stead Jones, Director and Digital Adviser for Twiplomacy.

“This signals a shift from the popularity contest of the last decade to a more earned approach, powered by people – and to some extent, an updated algorithm that rewards active participation over passive consumption,” he added.