North America

During a press conference with then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Barack Obama jokingly said that thanks to Twitter “we may be able to throw away those red phones that have been sitting around for so long". The US President might be the most popular world leader on Twitter, but he is not the best connected: he follows Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev and Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg, and blissfully ignores all his Mexican and Canadian neighbours.

Leaders in Central America and the Caribbean are among the most active on Twitter. The most connected leader is Costa Rica’s President Laura Chinchilla (@Laura_Ch) who mutually follows six of her Latin American counterparts.