PMO India Ruling The Social Networks.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the world's second-most followed politician on Twitter, having added two million followers in the first 100 days of his government, says an official blog on the micro-blogging website.

At 6.13 million followers for his personal account @narendramodi, he is second to US President Barack Obama who has a massive following at 46 million. Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono holds the number three slot with 5.37 million followers.

If combined with the followers of his official handle @PMOIndia, several of which would overlap with his personal account, Modi's total followers are 8.5 million and growing.

"His Twitter account (@narendramodi) has crossed the six million follower mark since his election win, while the official account of the Prime Minister's Office (@PMOIndia) has grown more than 40% since his swearing-in ceremony," the blog added.

In an earlier list released by Twitter in June, which did not consider "politicians" exclusively, Modi was the fourth most followed in the "world leader" category. Here the top slot belonged to Obama, the second to the Pope, who had 14 million followers across nine accounts in different languages. The third spot, occupied by Yudhoyono, was soon taken over by Modi by July with his steadily climbing following. While Yudhoyono has fewer followers than Modi today, the Pope currently has 15.3 million followers across his nine accounts.

On Facebook as well, Modi maintains the number two position at over 21 million likes for his verified page, again second only to Obama, who has over 42 million likes.

Modi has been using Twitter not only to post messages relevant to Indians but also for diplomatic courtesies. After BJP's win in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he thanked various world leaders on Twitter when they tweeted their congratulatory messages to him. Most recently, before his visit to Japan, he posted a series of tweets in Japanese. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe responded in English. Of the three people that Abe follows on Twitter, Modi is one.

The Japanese tweets were posted with the help of the Indian embassy. The brainchild behind them is reported to be Hiren Joshi, a 44-year-old electronics engineer from Pune, tasked with managing Modi's digital presence across platforms and hand-picked by the former Gujarat CM back in 2008.

Nearly 40 ministers and ministries also have a presence on Twitter. "Since taking over as the PM, @NarendraModi has added more than 2 million followers in the first 100 days of his government and is now the second-most followed politician in the world on Twitter," said an official Twitter blog posted on Thursday.




Five most followed politicians on Twitter

Barack Obama: 46 mn followers

Narendra Modi (@narendramodi and @PMOIndia): 8.5 mn (6.1 and 2.4 mn) followers

SB Yudhoyono (@SBYudhoyono, president Indonesia): 5.37mn followers

Abdullah Gul - (@cbabdullahgul, former president of Turkey): 4.93 mn followers

Recep Tayyip Erdogan (current president of Turkey) - 4.65 mn followers)

Five most popular politicians on Facebook

Barack Obama: 42.4 mn likes

Narendra Modi : 21 mn likes

Mitt Romney: 11.3 mn likes

Prabowo Subianto (Indonesian politician): 8.5 mn likes

Recep Tayyip Erdogan: 6.4 mn likes.

#TOI