President Park Geun-hye (@GH_PARK) is the 41st-most followed world leader on Twitter.

According to “Twiplomacy,” a study of world leaders on Twitter, released by Burson-Marsteller, a U.S.-based public relations firm, Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama (@BarackObama) is the most followed world leader on Twitter with more than 33.5 million followers as of July 1. 

@BarackObama is the fourth-most popular account in the Twitterverse, just behind Lady Gaga.

Pope Francis is the second-most followed world leader with more than 7.2 million followers of his nine different @Pontifex accounts.

The White House (@whitehouse) is in third position with 4.01 million followers. Turkish President Abdullah Gul (@cbabdullahgul) and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (@RT_Erdogan) fill up the top five most followed world leaders with 3.7 million and 3.4 million followers, respectively.

President Park was 41st with 327,999 followers as of July 1. As of July 25, her followers numbered 334,787.

Queen Rania of Jordan (@Queen Rania), Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (@SBYudhoyono), Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussia & @MedvedevRussiae), the U.K. government (@Number10gov), and Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentian) complete the top 10 list of most followed leaders with more than 2 million followers each.

In terms of direct private interactions between world leaders, Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt (@carbildt) is the best connected, mutually following 44 peers.

The Korean presidential office (@bluehousekorea) is 19th-best connected with 14 mutual peers.

The U.S. president and the U.S. government accounts might be among the most followed but they are the least connected. @BarackObama, the @WhiteHouse and the @StateDept are followed by 148, 132 and 99 peers respectively. However, they only follow four world leaders. They are Russia’s Prime Minister @MedvedevRussiae, the U.K. government @Number10gov, Norway’s Prime Minister @JensStoltenberg and Chile’s President @SebastianPinera.

The State Department @StateDept does not follow any other foreign service.

The study found that more than three-quarters, or 77.7 percent, of world leaders have a Twitter account.

Twiplomacy is a research project aimed at identifying to what extent world leaders use Twitter. Early this month, Burson-Marsteller analyzed 505 Twitter accounts of presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers or their respective governments in 153 countries.

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)