The Most Followed Foreign Ministers on Social Media 2022

Matthias Lüfkens
Digital Diplomacy
Published in
4 min readMay 22, 2022

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Who are the most followed foreign ministers and foreign ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube?

🟦 Foreign ministers and foreign ministries tend to have less followers than heads of state and governments. But there are exceptions.

🟦 Colombia’s Marta Lucía Ramírez stands out since she is one of the few women foreign ministers and consistently among the top 10.

🟦 The foreign ministers of Colombia, Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, and Turkey are among the Top 10 on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

🟦 The US State Department is the most followed foreign ministry on all platforms. The foreign ministries of France, Israel, and Russia are consistently among the top 10.

Most Followed Foreign Ministers on Twitter 2022

🟦 Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Foreign Minister of the UAE has been the most followed foreign minister for several years. He is closely followed by the new and young Foreign Minister of Pakistan Bilawal Bhutto Zardari with 4.7 million followers.

🟦 The foreign ministers of Mexico, Turkey and Secretary of State Antony Blinken complete the top 5 with 2 million followers each.

🟦 Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was catapulted into 7th place with his occasional Twitter livestreams in English.

Ranking with the 10 most followed foreign ministers on Twitter 
 Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan United Arab Emirates 4,857,553
 Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Pakistan 4,696,353
 Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubón Mexico 2,355,135
 Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu Turkey 2,136,962
 Subrahmanyam Jaishankar India 1,526,897
 Antony Blinken United States 1,829,680
 Dmytro Kuleba Ukraine 855,183
 Marta Lucía Ramírez Colombia 792,741
 Luigi Di Maio Italy 767,508
 Teddy Locsin Jr. Philippines 678,884

Most Followed Foreign Ministries on Twitter 2022

🟦 The leading foreign ministries maintain Twitter accounts in several languages to reach the widest possible audience. We have summed the different language accounts marked with a *.

🟦 The US State Department has by far the most followers on Twitter with 8.7 million, more than twice as much as the Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia with 3.5 million followers. The Foreign Ministry of Russia is in third place.

🟦 However, since the Trump administration the State Department does no longer follow any other foreign ministry or foreign leader, whether ally or foe.

Ranking with the 10 most followed foreign ministries on Twitter 
 State Department United States 8,799,331
 @KSAMOFA Saudi Arabia 3,584,659
 @MID_RF Russia 2,461,601
 @IsraelMFA Israel 2,175,090
 @FranceDiplo France 1,994,679
 @TC_Disisleri Turkey 1,794,552
 @FCDOGovUK United Kingdom 1,707,009
 @IndianDiplomacy India 1,560,096
 @SRE_mx Mexico 1,289,487
 @AuswaertigesAmt Germany 1,127,284

Most Followed Foreign Ministers on Facebook 2022

🟦 Italy’s Luigi Di Maio is by far the most followed foreign minister on Facebook with 2.6 million followers, four times as many as the runner-up, Pakistan’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

🟦 Hungary’s Péter Szijjártó is only active on Facebook but has a sizeable audience of 350,000.

Ranking with the 10 most followed foreign ministers on Facebook 
 Luigi Di Maio Italy 2,582,836
 Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Pakistan 672,283
 Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu Turkey 546,067
 Yair Lapid Israel 513,503
 Demeke Mekonnen Hassen Ethiopia 369,722
 Péter Szijjártó Hungary 357,468
 Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubón Mexico 350,456
 Marta Lucía Ramírez Colombia 302,626
 Abulkalam Abdul Momen Bangladesh 267,907
 Vivian Balakrishnan Singapore 196,622

Most Followed Foreign Ministries on Facebook 2022

🟦 The US State Department leads the Facebook rankings with 3.4 million followers ahead of the foreign ministries of India, Egypt, the Philippines, and Mexico.

🟦 Myanmar’s Foreign Ministry is in eighth place among the most followed foreign ministers with 600,000 followers.

Ranking with the 10 most followed foreign ministries on Facebook 
 State Department United States 3,448,221
 @MEAINDIA India 2,132,055
 @MFAEgypt Egypt 1,612,098
 @DFAphl Philippines 1,245,421
 @SREMX Mexico 942,963
 @IsraelMFA Israel 780,466
 @KSAmofa Saudi Arabia 649,015
 @MofaMyanmar Myanmar 603,242
 @France.Diplomatie* France 525,609
 @MIDRussia Russia 496,662

Most Followed Foreign Ministers on Instagram 2022

🟦 Luigi Di Maio, the foreign minister of Italy also tops the Instagram rankings with 870,000 followers ahead of Germany’s Annalena Baerbock with half a million followers.

🟦 Indonesia’s Retno Marsudi is in fourth position and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is in 10th place with 110,000 followers.

Ranking with the 10 most followed foreign ministers on Instagram 
 Luigi Di Maio Italy 873,464
 Annalena Baerbock Germany 512,850
 Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu Turkey 407,855
 Retno Marsudi Indonesia 377,633
 Santiago Cafiero Argentina 257,356
 Bilawal Bhutto Zardari Pakistan 223,741
 Marta Lucía Ramírez Colombia 165,450
 Marcelo Luis Ebrard Casaubón Mexico 140,420
 Yair Lapid Israel 126,317
 Dmytro Kuleba Ukraine 117,930

Most Followed Foreign Ministries on Instagram 2022

🟦 The US State Department leads the Instagram rankings with 1.5 million followers ahead of the foreign ministries of India, Israel, and Russia.

🟦 Instagram diplomacy is widely popular in the Middle East namely the foreign ministries of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar.

Ranking with the 10 most followed foreign ministries on Instagram 
 State Department United States 1,506,382
 @MEAIndia India 736,341
 @IsraelMFA* Israel 668,008
 @Mid.Rus Russia 428,785
 @AuswaertigesAmt Germany 340,922
 @Kemlu_ri Indonesia 306,079
 @KSA_mofa Saudi Arabia 186,167
 @MofaicUAE United Arab Emirates 174,656
 @Mofa.Qatar Qatar 149,325
 @FranceDiplo France 143,605

Most Followed Foreign Ministers on LinkedIn 2022

🟦 LinkedIn is somewhat of a niche social network with foreign minister from a range of smaller countries embracing the professional social network.

🟦 Swiss Foreign Minister and current President Ignazio Cassis is the most followed foreign minister on Linkedin with 18,000 followers. Togo’s Robert Dussey and Belgium’s Sophie Wilmès complete the top 3 with more than 11,000 followers.

Ranking with the 10 most followed foreign ministers on LinkedIn 
 Ignazio Cassis Switzerland 18,662
 Robert Dussey Togo 14,134
 Sophie Wilmès Belgium 11,103
 Elizabeth Truss United Kingdom 6,888
 Edgars Rinkēvičs Latvia 2,616
 Abdoulaye Diop Mali 1,626
 Edite Ten Juá Sao Tome and Principe 1,003
 Anže Logar Slovenia 717
 Simon Coveney Ireland 587
 Keisal Peters St. Vincent and the Grenadines 496

Most Followed Foreign Ministries on LinkedIn 2022

🟦 LinkedIn, was mainly used as a recruiting platform by the State Department hence the name DOScareers of its page which has 638,000 followers.

🟦 The UK Foreign Office, and the foreign ministries of France, Canada and Argentina engage in economic diplomacy on what is seen as the professional social network.

Ranking with the 10 most followed foreign ministries on LinkedIn 
 State Department United States 638,273
 @Foreign-Commonwealth-and-Development-Office United Kingdom 275,599
 @Ministere-des-Affaires-Etrangeres-Francais France 220,148
 @Global-Affairs-Canada-Affaires-Mondiales-Canada Canada 197,797
 @Ministerio-de-Relaciones-Exteriores Argentina 82,230
 @Department-of-Foreign-Affairs-and-Trade Australia 77,139
 @Udenrigsministeriet Denmark 75,545
 @European-External-Action-Service EU 75,492
 @M

Most Followed Foreign Ministries on YouTube 2022

🟦 The US State Department leads on YouTube leaderboard ahead of the two channels of the Indian Foreign Ministry and the Russian Foreign Ministry.

🟦 Of note the good showing of Uzbek’s Foreign Ministry in eighth place.

Ranking with the 10 most followed foreign ministries on YouTube 
 State Department United States 338,000
 @MeaIndia India 283,000
 @MIDRFtube Russia 88,400
 @MoFAIndonesia Indonesia 42,500
 @MREBrasil Brazil 41,900
 @IsraelMFA Israel 40,200
 @UzbekMFA Uzbekistan 29,400
 @FranceDiploTV France 22,700
 @ForeignCommonwealthandDevelopmentOffice United Kingdom 22,300
 @MinisteroEsteri Italy 15,400

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Matthias Lüfkens
Digital Diplomacy

Particle accelerator & social media architect at DigiTips. Blogger @BilanMagazine. Founder @Twiplomacy & @InYourPocket. Formerly @Davos @EuroNews @AFP @Libe