The agency that looks after the welfare of children around the world is the most followed international organization on Twitter.

That is the conclusion of Twiplomacy, a study of the use of Twitter by governments and international organizations, conducted by the communications firm Burson-Marsteller.

The United Nations International Children’s Fund, @UNICEF, has almost 2.3 million followers.

“UNICEF is very active with an average of 11 tweets per day and mentions other Twitter users in every second tweet. Almost a quarter of its tweets are retweets and UNICEF often lends its social media power to promote other UN campaigns,” Burson-Marsteller said.

UNICEF is closely followed by its parent organization, the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, the UN refugee agency UNHCR and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

“However, the number of followers is not the only indicator of an organization’s popularity,” Burson-Marsteller said.

“Another important measure of influence is the number of times an account appears on Twitter lists. In this regard, the UN is the most listed international organization appearing on 25,643 lists.”

Along with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, UNICEF is also among the most effective Twitter users, the study found.

“Their tweets are retweeted on average more than 100 times,” Burson-Marsteller said.

The UN is a distant third, followed by the WWF, Greenpeace and the World Health Organization.

The study revealed that their tweets are retweeted on average more than 63 times while the median average of retweets per tweet among all international institutions covered is only four.

For the study Burson-Marsteller identified 223 Twitter accounts of 101 international organizations.

The firm said it collected the data this month. More than 50 variables were considered, including tweets, following, followers, listed, the date the organization joined Twitter, etc.

Some other interesting conclusions of the study:

– All organizations combined have sent more than 770,000 tweets.

– Nabil Elaraby, secretary general of the Arab League, is the most followed head of an international organization, with more than 340,000 followers.

– Richard Sezibera, secretary general of the East African Community is the most conversational head of an international body. More than 65 per cent of his tweets are replies to other users.

– Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen are in second and third position with more than 150,000 followers each.

Burson-Marsteller said the study showed that no international organization can ignore the power of digital communications and, especially Twitter.

All screenshots are courtesy of the respective organizations.