KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 16 — The country’s most powerful man is also the one with the biggest following on Twitter under the “Society” subsection, according to social media monitor socialbakers.com.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was listed as the person with the largest audience in the country in the particular category, with 2,224,334 accounts listed as “followers” on the social media service.
Not only that, Najib’s account was also listed as that with the highest momentum in picking up followers, netting a total of 1,740 across the year.
Socialbakers.com’s list also suggests that the dominance the opposition once commanded online was now evaporating, as the next two most popular Twitter accounts belonged to Cabinet ministers Khairy Jamaluddin (814,442) and Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein (706,072).
Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was fourth, with 571,112 followers.
But Anwar did have a clear edge in engaging with supporters online, following a total of 14,594 followers in return. This was nearly seven times more than what second placed Khairy follows. Najib follows just 144 other accounts.
Despite Najib’s popularity, however, his account was not the most followed in Malaysia. The particular honour goes to entertainment celebrity Lisa Surihani with her 2,431,554 followers.
Besides society, the socialbakers.com analysis covers a range of categories ranging from brands, celebrities, sports, and others.
Social media is now a key battleground for politicians here as Malaysians are among the most prolific users of the medium globally.
According to socialbakers.com last year, nearly half of Malaysia’s 28.3 million population had accounts on Facebook. The country’s population has since hit 30 million.
Statistics by Zocial Inc, another social media monitoring website, asserted that there some 3.5 million Malaysians who use Twitter.
