LEADERS ON TWITTER. President Barack Obama leads the world in Twitter followers. Photo from Barack Obama's Twitter page.

MANILA, Philippines - How can you tell when a social media system is gaining ground in the public consciousness? When world leaders are on Twitter and tweeting.

A new survey done by the Digital Policy Council (DPC) states that 75% of the world's heads of state are on Twitter or, at the very least, have someone making their presence known on the microblogging service.

The DPC's study took a look at 164 countries, and 123 of them have a leader on Twitter with either a personal Twitter handle or an official government type. TechCrunch notes that there are 193 states in the United Nations, however, so the percentage may be off depending on the reasons behind the coverage of 164 rather than 193 UN states.

THE TWITTER TREND. There is a rising trend among world leaders going on Twitter. Screen shot from PDF at http://www.digitaldaya.com/admin/modulos/galeria/pdfs/69/156_biqz7730.pdf

Some of you may be wondering who ranks highly in terms of follower count worldwide. The world leader with the most Twitter followers as of December 2012 is, as you may have guessed, "Golden Tweeter" Barack Obama with over 24 million followers. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who is currently in the hospital following cancer surgery is in second with over 3.8 million followers.

The Philippines' own Benigno Aquino III is one place shy of the top 10 with 1.2 million Twitter followers, down from 7th in 2011. - Rappler.com