Germany
Germany is together with Italy one of two G8 countries where neither the head of state nor the head of government uses Twitter. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has so far to join the flock of world leaders on Twitter, even though she has used other digital communication channels. However as elections loom in 2013, the ruling Christian Democrats might revive the @Angela_Merkel account, dormant since June 2011.
Peer connections (as of 1 July 2012)
- follows unilaterally (6)
- followed unilaterally by (3)
- follows mutually (2)
Steffen Seibert, is the German government spokesman. He started the @Regsprecher Twitter account in February 2011 after he took over his new role. In the beginning, this irritated and angered the Berlin press corps who felt sidelined and exposed by the new communications channel but got used to the Twitter channel. This official government account is highly conversational with 35% of the tweets being @replies. Seibert happily answers questions from Twitter users, except on weekends as he tweeted in English: “It is Sunday and even I don't work 24/7. You will get your answers.” The former journalist has already organized two Twitterviews, hour long Twitter Q&A sessions which account for the spikes in the chart below. Being only the spokesperson in this survey Seibert is not followed by other heads of state and government.
Tweet analytics (as of 1 July 2012)
| Tweets: | 2,204 | |
| Following: | 22 | |
| Followers: | 65,531 | |
| Joined Twitter: | 01/05/2011 | |
| Language: | German | |
| Status: | Active | |
| Tweets/day: | 4.5 | |
| % Retweets: | 8% | |
| Mentions/Tweet: | 0.35 | |
| Replies/Tweet: | 34% | |
| % Tweets retweeted: | 76% | |
| Total of retweets: | 14,268 | |
| Most mentioned | ||
| @max_power84 (12), @EinAugenschmaus (11), @ballnaibaf (9), @fasnix (7), @RegSprecher (7). | ||
