EU Heads of Government on Facebook: who’s scoring best?

@marcoRecorder
After releasing the ranking of EU Heads of government on  Twitter I thought I should not stop there and I should also check their presence on the most populated social media: Facebook.

As I explained in the previous post, the communication strategies of EU Heads of Government vary greatly. Some Prime Ministers are not on social media, some are just on Twitter, some are just on Facebook some are on both platforms.

For instance Bohuslav Sobotka and Jyrki Katainen do not have an official personal presence on either platform, while David Cameron, Matteo Renzi and Mariano Rajoy are on both. Angela Merkel, Werner Faymann and Helle Thorning-Schmidt are  not on Twitter but they do have a Facebook page while the opposite applies to Nicos Anastasiades, Victor Ponta and  Joseph Muscat (see full table below. Data as of 25/03/2014)

As we can see from the table above, out of the 19 Heads of Government on Facebook, 10 are actually verified. Some well-known public figures and Pages with large followings are verified by Facebook as having an authentic identity. You’ll see a blue badge next to a verified profile or Page’s name. Facebook verifies profiles or Pages to help you be sure that they are who they claim to be.

As we can see from the chart above, as for Twitter, Matteo Renzi is the most followed (or “liked”) EU head of government on Facebook with 628.360 likes, followed by Chancellor Merkel (who does not have a personal Twitter account) with 517.415 and Président Hollande with 448.191 likes (Hollande is also the second most followed Twitter account for an EU Head of Government). David Cameron, who has the third most followed Twitter account, is in 6th position in this ranking.

Apart from the mere number of fans, it is also interesting to look at the “Talking about this figures”

What really are the “Likes” and “Talking About This” numbers on Facebook?

LIKES: Simply means at some point, someone clicked the “like” button ONCE. Either directly on a Facebook page or on a website that was promoting that Facebook page.

TALKING ABOUT THIS: This is the actual number of people who are ‘engaged’ and interacting with that Facebook Page. The people who actually come back to the page *after* liking the page. This include activities such as comments, likes to a post, shares, etc by visitors to the page. The Facebook talking about this count includes engagement from users posting to your wall, users “liking” something on your page, users sharing a post you make to your wall, users answering questions, users who mention your page on their wall, users who “like” or share a deal, users checking into your place and users commenting on your wall posts, pictures, etc.

From the chart above (data taken on 25/03/2014), we can see how it is Viktor Orban from Hungary to have the highest number of engaged users, followed by David Cameron and Romania’s PM Victor Ponta.