Finland

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö has an impressive following, on a Finnish scale, with over 21,000 followers. However Niinistö has not tweeted at all since being elected president on 5 February 2012. In his latest tweet, Niinistö thanked voters and his rival Pekka Haavisto (@Haavisto) from The Greens of Finland directly for a great campaign. During the presidential campaign the account was managed by the National Coalition Party’s webmaster Pasi Heiskanen (@onnikoo) and Organization and Communications planner Tuomo Valve (@tvalve). Of the 199 tweets only eight were signed off with Niinistö’s initials “SN”. He started signing his personal tweets after followers were confused who was behind the account. Sauli Niinistö’s pledge for a clean campaign after the results for the first round of elections was his most retweeted message with 108 retweets. He follows 367 accounts but these do not include other heads of state nor is he followed by his international peers. It remains to be seen whether President Niinistö will activate his account to discuss with citizens or other heads of state directly. One scenario is that we will not see another tweet until 2018, if Niinistö decides to go for another round.

The official Twitter channel of the Finnish Government posts mainly Government press releases. Since the first tweet on 3 May 2011 about Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb's (@alexstubb) statement on the death of Osama bin Laden, the account has been used as a one-way communications channel. There are no @mentions, not even of government ministers or the organizations the posts are referring to. The tweets are almost entirely in English, which indicates the channel is aimed at a foreign audience. The tweets focus mostly on Foreign Affairs, for example decisions on humanitarian aid, European issues or ministerial visits. Appointments to government offices are a recurring theme. The few Finnish updates are related to random domestic issues. The account is followed unilaterally by the Governments of South Sudan (@repsouthsudan) and Croatia (@vladarh). All in all, the channel has 408 followers, mainly Finnish journalists, social media aficionados and other government entities. The channel’s posts are seldom retweeted. The bar has been set low with a record of four retweets on an update on the Syria UN observer mission. The channel itself follows 14 accounts, mainly Finnish ministers and ministries. Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen is not followed. He has an account but it is inactive and the tweets are protected.