The London Mayor shows off his eco and techno credentials at the same time
Barack Obama, Al Gore, John McCain and Arnold Schwarzenegger – what do those four names mean to you? No, they’re not the stars of a new Oliver Stone documentary (although surely it’s only a matter of time), they are in fact the most popular social media politicians in the world – well, according to data crunched by our friends over at Famecount who assign each individual a ‘Famecount percentage’* based on the number of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube followers they have.
The American President (who embraced social media years before he entered the Whitehouse) has long been the man to beat, head and shoulders ahead of the competition with 12 million Facebook fans, 4.8 million Twitter followers and 193,000 subscribers to his YouTube account – in total that gives him a Famecount of 91.4 per cent .
So what of the UK politicians, where do they stand in the global scale of micro-blogging and online promotion? Well, you have to have quite a long look down the list until you see any UK interest, and top of the UK pops may come as as a surprise to some.
Barrack Obama is the ultimate social media politician
Although, Number 10 Downing Street is ranked 6th in the world, primarily due to its 1.74m Twitter followers – the first individual UK politician in the world rankings is not the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister or the leader of the opposition, nope, it’s the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
The outspoken Conservative mayor enters the global charts at number 28 with a Famecount of 9.92% based on 64,995 Facebook fans and 88,927 Twitter followers.
His closest rival is the Deputy Prime Minister, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg who is eleven places below him with 8.21% on the Famecount (77,950 Facebook fans and 48,808 Twitter followers.)
Although the three main political parties’ official accounts are on the list (Conservatives 35, Liberal Democrats 44 and Labour 52), you have to drop to number 64 in the world to find the next British individual, the Prime Minister David Cameron (Famecount 5.87%, based on 81,899 Facebook fans, but dogged by not having an official Twitter presence), one place ahead of Labour strategist Alastair Campbell (Famecount 5.82% – 38,954 Twitter followers, 451 Facebook fans).
The only other UK politicians to make it into the world top 100 are George Galloway (74th with 37k Facebook and 11k Twitter), Ed Milliband (85th with 1,763 Facebook and 20k Twitter) MEP Daniel Hannan (88th with 9,400 Facebook and 3,650 Twitter) and at number 100 Mr UKIP, Nigel Farage (6,426 Facebook, 3,051 Twitter and 1,980 YouTube).
It’s actually quite a poor showing for the UK politicians considering Britain’s Internet credentials. The US, as the largest consumer of the World Wide Web and the social networks, one would expect to turn out the top politicians – but there is no excuse for politicians from much smaller Internet user bases like Australia, Thailand, Venezuela and Chile to be ahead of our first representative.
George Galloway proves that Internet users like a bit of 'umph' in their politics
So what, if anything, does this tell us about UK politics?
Well, it shows that being a ‘character’ with strong outspoken views is something that social networking fans respond to. Boris Johnson, George Galloway, Daniel Hannan and Nigel Farage all punch above their political weight in terms of their Internet followers, with more ‘serious’ political figures being left by the wayside.
There is no question that politicians want us to follow their antics online (you only have to look at how fast any MP will ‘follow you’ on Twitter if you as much as breathe on their account), but they still haven’t managed to crack the social media formula and convince us, the public, that we should care about what they’ve got to say.
Does that mean we’ll see a more ‘populist’ approach to campaigning with manifestos and soundbites no more than 140 characters in the future – let’s hope not, there is surely a third way.
For better or worse, social networks are here to stay and a new generation of voters are growing up with Facebook and Twitter as the norm. How they do it is still unclear, but it looks likely that we’ll see a more concerted effort from our MPs and public officials to drive those numbers up in the future in the realisation that one day their online influence could be the difference between winning or losing the election.
*In order to be included in the index, an individual must have a presence on at least two of the three social networks, so some ‘Twitter only’ individuals may be excluded.
Top Ten individual UK politicians on the social networks
| Name | YouTube | Famecount (%) | ||
| Boris Johnson | 64995 | 88927 | 372 | 9.92 |
| Nick Clegg | 77950 | 48808 | 8.21 | |
| David Cameron | 81899 | 5,262 | 5.87 | |
| Alastair Campbell | 451 | 38,954 | 5.82 | |
| George Galloway | 37,717 | 11,672 | 798 | 4.85 |
| Ed Milliband | 1,793 | 20,677 | 4.3 | |
| Daniel Hannan | 9,410 | 3,675 | 6,468 | 4.03 |
| Nigel Farage | 6,426 | 3,051 | 1,980 | 2.79 |
| Tony Blair | 8,272 | 456 | 1.83 | |
| John McDonnell | 540 | 1310 | 1.15 |
SOURCE: Famecount.com
