All leading international organisations have a Twitter account, and half of their leaders have active personal accounts on the social network, according to the latest edition of Burson-Marsteller’s “Twiplomacy” report.

The United Nations Children's Fund (@UNICEF) is the most followed international organisation with more than two million followers. @UNICEF is also the second most effective organisation after the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (@CERN)— both organisations’ tweets are retweeted on average more than 100 times.

“This study illustrates how organisations can use Twitter in a novel way with the innovative use of hashtags, Twitter Q&As and direct message campaigns that have can make a big impact regardless of the number of their followers,” says Jeremy Galbraith, CEO of Burson-Marsteller Europe, Middle East and Africa. “It is interesting to see that while half of the heads of international organisations have personal Twitter accounts, few tweet themselves.”

Other key findings include:
• Nabil Elaraby, the Secretary General of the Arab League is the most followed head of an international organisation with more than 346,000 followers.
• Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen are in second and third position with more than 150,000 followers each.
• Those international organisations who signed up to Twitter in 2007 and early 2008 are also among the most followed today. Five of them have more than a million followers each, namely @UNICEF, the @UN, the World Economic Forum (@Davos), the UN Refugee agency (@Refugees) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (@WWF).
• Fifty heads of international organisations have personal Twitter accounts that are either managed personally or with their teams. Twitter has played a crucial role in the election of Roberto Azevêdo, the new head of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) who tweets as @WTODGAzevedo. The first act of the new Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Mukhisa Kituyi’s was to set up his personal Twitter account @UNCTADKituyi.
• The study found that the Secretary General of the East African Community is the most conversational head of any international organisation. More than 65 percent of Richard Sezibera’s tweets are @replies to other users.